Not for lizard brains! I’ve never heard a politician speak this bravely, honestly, and intelligently about anything, never mind something so important. This is how it ought to be. Oh wait, it is! Now do you see why I feel good?
Can we just elect this guy president now? Please??
UPDATE: This is pretty much where I’m coming from. The following is an excerpt from a column by Adam McKay, writing at Huffington Post. It’s called “Obama Cracks My TV in Half.”
But it happened. Barack Obama spoke like an enlightened leader from 2008 instead of like the fake cowboy from 1885 that most politicians evoke or like a pharmaceutical salesman talking about change, but “not that much change” at a team building exercise in Tahoe. In other words, he didn’t pass the buck to save his own ass. It was a monumental moment in modern American politics. He didn’t distract, deflect, or attempt to frighten. He didn’t accuse, declare war, or get angry. He didn’t game play, scape goat, or blame. Can you imagine? We need to engrave this shit onto a commemorative coin fast.
The man is a gift, I tell you. It’ll be a whole different ball game with him in there.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you, John for posting that.
Now I feel good, like this country has a chance.
now a registered voter,
Frank
I too have great admiration for this speech. I too believe this guy’s sincere. Words express character, and I like what I see of Obama’s character. But the “but” in all this is inevitable to someone like me, who always longs for the tragic undertow. The speeches of Lincoln and Churchill and King had it. Barack is a little too young and a little too unscarred to have achieved that kind of heft. Editing the Harvard Law Review is not in any case the best training for profundity. Lincoln learned it in country courthouses and during all those nights he slept with a pistol under his pillow, ready to blow out his brains if the anguish, both personal and public, didn’t subside before dawn. Churchill endured defeat, humiliation and contempt for decades before his moment arrived. King carried the weight of ages on his shoulders seemingly from his very beginnings. It’s not fair to hold Barack to such standards. He is (Geraldine was half right) a guy who’s lived a pretty charmed life. And his words are brighter and shinier even than his experience. I applaud both the words and the spirit of the man. But I find they distance him a little and make him seem a little unreal. McCain, lacking anything like such deftness, grace or verve, has other qualities – a hurtingness, a stoicism, a sense of honor. Heaven help me, I’m a sucker for that stuff. Proving I wasn’t meant to consort with the angels or be lifted up to heaven by sweet words alone. (Some will say it proves something much worse than that.)
John, thanks for posting Obama’s speech in its 38-minute entirety. I’ve been doing some research on the length of soundbites in national elections and this is an excellent example of the potential shallowness of a 7.8-second snippet (average length of a soundbite in the candidates’ own words in the 2000 election) compared to the full meal deal.
After listening to Obama, I was saddened to read my fellow commenter KJ’s words above. Obama’s whole speech dealt with “tragic undertow” on a national level. How does KJ really know how much tragedy Obama has managed to avoid? How deeply can KJ look into another man’s heart? It’s true, John McCain does display other qualities, but I’d replace stoicism from the list with his fervent mililtarism regarding Iraq/Iran and his peculiar ambivalence toward the far right wing of the GOP, both of which give me great pause. And I can only hope that KJ was not implying that McCain has “a sense of honor” and Obama does not.
This is the danger of political blogs – I know yours ostensibly is not one, John – when the country is so polarized. Which I believe was Obama’s main point.
Okay, I’ll give it a rest and I’ll stop picking on other commenters. Peace.
I can’t speak for KJ, but McCain is an absolute idiot who doesn’t even know who’s shooting at us in Iraq! If he had any “honor,” he would admit that he has no business whatsoever running for President. He’s also broken the very campaign finance law he helped pass, and no one is calling him on it. I have no idea where KJ gets his impressions of McCain, but those same ideas are rather widespread among the teevee news-consuming population.
Nonetheless, I will not be drawn into arguments on this score! Obama is the real deal. That’s all that counts.
And no, this is not a political blog, ostensibly not or elsewise. But speaking out now is imperative. I’ll continue to post about Obama whenever it’s relevant, though I gladly leave the little day-to-day stuff to the progressive blogosphere.
Being in agreement with other folks is pretty dull. I’ve never sought it much. When it occasionally happens it always makes me feel part of a movement of two, something that gives me the willies. I don’t talk for the sake of bringing people over to wherever I am on a subject. The point is the talk itself. The point is to claim a place in the world as your own person. Preempting discussion of obviously disputed matters doesn’t do it for me. Poor ol’ K.J. will just have to take his knocks from you fellows. Just don’t clam up on me.
I thought “tragic undertow” was missing from the speech and, yes, I speculated that Obama’s life, being a charmed one, may have had something to do with what was, from my point of view, something less than he may some day be capable of, with all his skills. But, then again, maybe he just has a naturally sunny and reasonable disposition, and that’s always going to be the truest tone for him. Maybe (horrors) the tragic perspective isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. God know, it’s not a good one for the aspiring politician.
John, my boy, honor is in the eye of the beholder. It isn’t continuous in anyone’s life anyhow. It’s more an aspiration and a way one tries to make choices among evils. The world of politics is inherently slippery. Nobody in that world is continuously virtuous. Obama hasn’t been and won’t be. I like guys who don’t toady to anybody and who have the guts to defy the received wisdom when it hurts them to do it. McCain has done that on a number of occasions quite spectacularly, even if he has done his deals and made his compromises on many another occasion. It’s less the record than the persona that interests me anyhow. Surely we can agree to disagree about a thing like that without consigning each other to our own private gulags of the spirit. Especially inasmuch as this is not, repeat not, a political blog!