So, Barack Obama just delivered an important — and, by some measures, brilliant — speech on race, religion, civil rights, American history, and the role each has played in his own personal story. Some will find the address moving, others less so. Either way, it’s going to dominate the discourse today, which is probably a very good thing.
I suspect it’s pretty easy to guess how Democrats will come down on Obama’s speech — his supporters will say Obama effectively clinched the nomination today, while Clinton’s supporters will argue that great speeches do not necessarily make a great candidate.
And what of our conservative friends? Kevin Drum grabbed the various reactions from the blogging staff at the National Review. (I hope Kevin won’t mind too much if I run the whole thing.)
“Amazingly bloodless and dull; part moral hectoring part awkward defensiveness.” “I think if you want to be romanced by your candidate, he romanced you. And if you’re a guilty white person, you’re with Obama because he said so.” “Was it just me, or did anyone else note that for the first half of the speech, Sen. Obama seemed annoyed, put out by having to give the speech in the first place?”
“This a breathtaking attempt to pass off Wright’s hateful rants by implying that they are little different than the ‘political views’ of some priest with which a parishioner might disagree.” “Obama is no longer a post-racial candidate….today, he has embraced the politics of grievance.” “Blame whitey, and raise high the red flag of socialism. This is a serious candidate for the Presidency? Toast, toast.”
“His grandmother — his surrogate mother at that point — rejected the black man he was becoming. The anger Obama heard in Rev. Wright’s church may not have felt so alien after all.” “Any hopes anyone had that Barack Obama would be a gift to civil rights in America — that he would shake hands with Ward Connerly and really be a change died today, I think.”
“Does he think OJ was guilty? Hmmm. Probably not the best example to put into play.” “It’s hard to imagine how someone who listened to this speech, and who had followed at all the controversy of the last few days, could still view Obama as somehow transcending politics.”
I know others have made this observation before me, but reading these bizarre reactions made me wonder what the reaction might have been to, say, JFK’s speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960 if The Corner was around to live-blog it. Or really, any of the great campaign speeches of the modern political era.
I almost wish there had been live-blogging at the time, if only because the reactions would appear so utterly ridiculous in hindsight.
I’m not necessarily arguing that Obama’s speech in Philadelphia today will still be talked about decades from now — though, in all sincerity, I think it’s certainly possible — but if it is, I hope historians remember to reference conservative responses from the day. “Blame whitey, and raise high the red flag of socialism.” This is what passes for insightful conservative thought in 2008 — at one of the right’s highest profile blogs.
Yglesias highlighted one specific Corner item, from Charlotte Hays:
Obama says that we shouldn’t “condemn without understanding the roots” of remarks like those Wright made. Whatever the roots, these remarks are to be condemned. Within what context is it correct for the Rev. Wright to say “God damn America?”
I’m curious if conservatives thought to listen (or even read) the speech before making these kinds of criticisms. “Within what context is it correct for the Rev. Wright to say ‘God damn America?'” Well, according to Obama, there is no context in which this is correct. That was part of the reason he gave the speech.
It’s awfully difficult to relate to conservatives sometimes. They just seem to speak a different language.