Posted on 03/18/2008 6:22:41 PM PDT by ConservativeMajority
Sen. Barack Obama delivered a speech on race in America Tuesday before a friendly crowd in Philadelphia. Obama had hoped to stop his freefall in opinion polls caused by a reaction to the publicity surrounding the inflammatory sermons of his mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The Illinois senator scored high on Chris Matthews' "tingle meter" evoking a comparison to Abraham Lincoln. Other gushing Old Media talking heads suggested oratory on par with Dr. Martin Luther King.
I'm going to go all Simon Cowell here and say that Obama's speech was rather average as oratory. It was simply not moving and inspirational. However, without the mesmerizing inflections and meter, I was able to focus more on the content. In doing so, I learned that:
1. Obama's white grandmother was a racist.
2. Ronald Reagan built his coalition on racism.
3. Racist white men would flock to vote for Republican John McCain in November if a black man was the Democratic presidential nominee.
4. Talk radio hosts and conservative pundits fanned the flames of racial division.
Obama insinuated that racism was everywhere in the United States, but none of it found at Trinity United Church of Christ, especially when it came to the preaching of Rev. Jeremiah "God damn America, AmeriKKK" Wright. He pointed to the Republican Party as racist, somehow overlooking the Democratic Party's long history of racism. The Democratic Party is the party of Jim Crow, Bull Connor, George Wallace and Robert Byrd.
Obama came nowhere near Martin Luther King on Tuesday. He barely rose to the level of Rodney King. In fact, if Obama had rebuked, repudiated and rejected Rev. Wright and struck a "Why can't we all get along?" theme, he would have put the issue of race behind him. Instead, Obama expanded the racial divide he had promised to bridge.
Grandma was tossed from the train.
Get the butter, Obama, ‘cause you’re toast.
Good observation. Though he did criticize the Pastor’s rhetoric, he excused it.
I don’t see why Jeremiah Wright is hating white people. He is lighter than Obama. He is a self hating Honky!
Deserves to be in bold.
bingo. This speech was empty and boring. He did a lot of finger pointing but did not address the primary concern....that he has proven his terrible judgment by allying himself with a racist America-hater as his spiritual adviser. The quotes we have heard simply CANNOT be taken out of context, because there is no possible situation where they would be appropriate.
While I agree with this guy, he has as less credibility and media gravitas than Elliot Spitzer’s whore.
Why can’t we all just get along?
Then what would Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton do all day - get a job?
That’s right, bash the messenger...
I suppose if Barack ever happened to mention that he occasionally likes to eat, that would cause you to stop eating altogether just to be contrary.
Obama is an idiot because he obviously cannot make a distinction between anger and hate. He thinks his pastor is angry, when his pastor is hater. A person can be angry without be hateful. I have yet to meet a hater who was not angry on some level.
The author indicted he actually paid attention to the words and came to the conclusion that he did. What did you get from Obama’s speech that was different?
Don't tell that to Chrisy Matthews. Matthews think this speech moves past MLK, I have a dream. Matthews is delusional and a moron....
I ain't bashing the guy. The media will ignore him because of his prior controversy.
So we should ignore him too?
Obama is willing to throw his grandmother under the bus. for her fear of harm.but he embraces Rev Wright, the Racist and Marxist.
I will evaluate him not on his skin color,
but but by the content of his character.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I only hope he doesn’t go down too fast. We need him fighting right up to the convention. Clintons need to get as much ill-will as can be had. He will get euchred out of his nomination at the convention no matter what the delegate count going in. The Clintons own the deck of cards they are all playing with and the backs of the cards are decorated with an original color scheme and design.
He's damaged goods. You want to hook your wagon to him, go ahead. It won't get you very far.
Obama hoodwinking and bamboozlin. Get off the stage you leftist fraud.
Here’s a theory: This whole O’Bambino “scandaa” has been a clever plot by Ashley Alexandra Dupre (a.k.a.”Kristen”) to get her name off the front pages.
I think he knows the distinction, but chooses to ignore it.
Yeah that’s the sad part of this. What a waste of a good speech. Now what, the problem shifts to the weather underground thing next? I can’t see a speech sweeping two bombshells away. I will bet there is a much bigger story not told yet. He is a smart guy so ignorance can’t be his excuse, he should learn that now. (Just in case.) If he practices what he preaches I might just let uncle Arnold come to Sunday dinner again. We all know someone that gets a pass for this. I would like a world where we ALL move past it and who knows maybe this was a big step in that direction. If nothing else imagine what Wright’s return to the pulpit after an Obama defeat will sound like. That’s the youtube I want to see..
Normally you either get the whitebread nonsense of how we're all perfect and noone ever says anything bad except for those few racists over there.
Or you get the opposite crap where everyone is seething with racism and can't wait to kill off everyone of a different color.
What I experience, and I expect most people experience, is that most people are basically good, but occasionally use a racial epithet or show some small sign that they are not completely comfortable around people of a different race.
I'm glad someone running for office finally had the courage to tell the truth and stand by an imperfect person rather than flushing him down the memory hole.
From now until November the candidates are going to be laying down the cow manure deeper and deeper trying to convince us that we are either a nation of perfect patriots denied our true destiny by some evil enemy, or that we are a nation of babies that lacks the necessary care of feeding of a future benevolent government.
If one of the candidates has been forced into a position where he actually has to tell the truth for once, then I say hip-hip-hooray!
BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We need to start holding Maoist self criticism sessions like they did back in the the good old days of the cultural revolution. We meet and all confess our racism and read books of Obama’s thoughts.
Black Panther meetings sound like more fun to me, a very white guy.
He is merely proclaiming his own narrow-minded and idiotic interpretation of it.
I went to his website and he seems fixated on demonstrations by liberals against the war.
Maybe he should stick to writing editorials about how everyone who disagrees with him is a treasonous traitor that needs to be shot at dawn.
Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark.
I was listening to them in the car and felt outraged that he defended this America hater.
I wonder what they think of Lee Greenwood and his “I’m proud to be an American” tune? I don’t think they played that one much!
Yikes, pass the smelling salts, a Hussein fainter!
But use the word "racism", foisted upon us by the ever smart Communists under the direction of the NKVD and their propaganda machinery, who figured, quite correctly, that "racism" will have an ugly association with the likes of Dr Mengele and the Nazi racial superiority theories. Again, it's the culture and it's the language.
Half the people on FreeRepublic, including me, have said worse than he about what we would like to happen to liberals, Democrats, anyone that disagrees with us.
I guess it is OK for us to occasionally get carried away and wish death and destruction on people who disagree with us, but evidently that is not true of others.
Oh well, hypocrisy comes in all shapes and colors.
LOL!
“I’m going to go all Simon Cowell here and say that Obama’s speech was rather average as oratory. It was simply not moving and inspirational.”
That’s because you’re a racist. /sarc
He’s every bit as moving and inspirational as Jesse Jackson and Mario Cuomo, which is to say, ain’t much more than a Rat machine pushing how great a speaker he is.
I thought FreeRepublic was supposed to be a place for the free exchange of intelligent points regarding politics, philosophy, and the news of the day.
I guess fever swamp reactionary thoughts ... or rather hallucinations ... are also welcome here.
Dick Morris nailed it on H&C. Obama joined Trinity to establish his credibility as a “Black politician” running in Chicago. He had to do that because he was a mixed race kid from Honolulu via Harvard. He can’t disavow Wright or quit the church now because he would alienate the sizable portion of the “Black community” that agrees with Wright, and he needs 95% of the black vote. So he is trying to split the pie down the middle, but it isn’t working.
That's right. Obama was telling the world that he cringed at his grandmother's ugly racism.
He did not excuse his pastor for his evil words or deeds. He merely pointed out all of the good his pastor did and how much a part of his life he was.
Should the parents of a Nazi skinhead stop loving their son because he launched an anti-semitic tirade in public?
intolerance for a grandma who loved him
What intolerance? He listed all of the good points of his grandma and then ... surprise surprise ... instead of doing the typical weaselly politician thing of ONLY mentioning her good points ... he also mentioned her failings.
At no point did he show intolerance towards her.
We are all imperfect. Eliot Spitzer got his just desserts because he ran on an "I am perfect" ticket.
I personally find it refreshing that someone is able to tell it like it is.
Olberman is butt kissing big time. Obama was acting presidential.
There should be a flashing BARF ALERT in the right corner of CNN and MSNBC.
I hope that ALL BACK RACIST PREACHERS ARE EXPOSED FROM THIS!
Bottom line:
He spent 20 years in a racist church
You know what he’s about and I know what he’s about.
If a white candidate went to a white church that said the SAME things about blacks he would have been tarred and feathered by now and lynched by the liberal media. You know and I know it too.
As a white man I know I’m not alone in being sick of hearing blacks and other minorities moaning and groaning over racism
MANY blacks are the biggest racist on the planet. I dare anyone to prove me wrong. .
I judge people by their character..No one ever gave me anything and no one owes anyone anything ..So just shut up already
If Obama had half a chance he would have whitey out in the fields working for him and don’t think he wouldn’t ..Keep it in mind folks.
All Obama has done is further divide the good people of America. This will get worse as time goes on. Bet on it.
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