Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Best Speech of our Lifetime?
If you haven't seen Obama's speech from today, check it out. It's amazing--a cross between the best college lecture and the best sermon you've ever heard (coming from me, that should say something). "Brilliant" gets thrown around a lot, but I'm willing to call this speech brilliant--and honest. It also dovetails nicely with the race relations discussion from a week or so ago here on the blog. Let's talk about this thing!
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1 comment:
Tamo-
Thanks for the heads up. I watched the whole speech, and I was impressed.
Obama is very eloquent. One of the things I look for in a leader is a comfort with nuance (as opposed to "black and white" thinking...and I'm not talking about race). To me, George W. Bush is all about black and white thinking. Extremes...right or wrong...with us or against us, etc. All of us, at some point in our lives, use black and white thinking. It's a developmental characteristic of preadolescence. Adolescence is supposed to be the time when we learn that life and the world are often more complex than right or wrong.
What I look for in a leader is someone who can synthesize a large body of data and boil it down without boiling it away. This speech is a sign (but not proof) that Obama can handle multiple points of view; that he can bring different sides of an issue out into the open; that he can LISTEN. Obama's reflections on the legitimate experiences of racism that occur to this day, the anger that goes unexpressed in polite company in all racial groups, and his call to action on the issue...all of these things say to me that this is a man who has intellectual acuity...AND wisdom.
Many people have been drawn to Obama as a spiritual leader. I admit that I got chills at several points during his speech.
What I love about the speech is that it brings out another issue for debate. And it's an important issue. I also think it's classy that he reached out to Geraldine Ferraro...even though her defense of herself got out of hand.
Hillary also made a speech this week...about the war in Iraq.
What has continued to piss me off about Hillary is her campaign's attacks on Obama's experience and whether or not he's crossed the commander-in-chief threshold. Ultimately, it's her own worst poison. Sadly, though, she has recently shot herself (and all democrats in the foot) by saying that John McCain HAS crossed the threshold.
I was surprised to see that John Murtha (D-PA) has endorsed Hillary...I don't know what that's about. Perhaps, a promise that she'd endorse him as Majority Whip (which he lost in '06 to Steny Hoyer...despite Nancy Pelosi's endorsement)? Or maybe he really does believe she'd be a better president. That's just hard for me to believe, considering his opposition to the war and Hillary's continued refusal to say voting for the war was a mistake.
Did anyone else watch the speech?
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