Obama Rising Again

Obama's speech just now was magnificent not because he relied on soaring rhetoric but because he eschewed it. He spoke simply and directly about one of the third rails of American politics from his unique vantage point as a black man with white ancestors and the child of an immigrant. His analysis was measured and brilliant in how he empathized with disgruntled and cynical black youths defeated by racism, but urged them to transcend; how he also empathized with struggling white workers unsympathetic to America's history of discrimination and yet urged them, too, to join in the fight to better this nation.

What he did this morning in Philadelphia was put his theory of change into practice.

I have to tell you I was worried. When he was the color-blind candidate, he was Teflon. None of the Republican strategists knew how to run against him. Then the Ferraro flap followed so closely by Rev. Wright's words whipped up again by first Fox and then the real news outlets (plus the losses in Texas and Ohio and the Rezko scandal) threatened to stop this historic campaign in its tracks.

Instead, Obama's willingness to cowboy up and face all the accusations at the same time has been breathtaking in its transparency. After he sat down with the Chicago Tribune to explain in detail his dealings with Rezko the once critical paper gushed, "Barack Obama now has spoken about his ties to Tony Rezko in uncommon detail. That's a standard for candor by which other presidential candidates facing serious inquiries now can be judged."

He did the same thing today in Philadelphia. Instead of running and hiding, slipping and sliding he not only confronted the problem head on but used it as a springboard to talk about his solutions for the real issues that devil this nation.

Trey Ellis is the author of Bedtime Stories: Adventures in the Land of Single-Fatherhood.

Read more HuffPost coverage and reaction to Obama's speech

Comments

[BenJammin4real]

There is a surprise fastball coming in a few days, inside dnc sources have it.
Get ready folks for a landslide. DNC supers have had it, and realize that the conservative slur machine is weakened when unity within the dem party has their say.... McCain has been strengthened by this quarreling, and a big move to stop what is essentially "conservative momentum" within the dem party.

[flatus]

The whole Wright flap reminds my of those often quoted movie lines: "You want the truth? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!"

[BigBen]

Breathtaking in its transparency!Good luck and good night sweet prince.

[PracticalMagic]

Yep, and this is not about race at all .... it is about Obama's penchant for telling 1/2 truths until he gets caught - about whether he was "sitting in the pews" and heard the anti-American rants by his preacher, whether he knew about his anti-American hate-filled rhetoric, about his hiding details of his Tony Rezko association, and who knows what else. Add to that NAFTAgate, and the public vs private stance on Iraq withdrawal, and this is not a man that can be trusted to be President.... it will take a little time, but his candidacy is over. This is the end of Obama.

[LordKelvin]

Brotha Trey

Is this your latest Bedtime Story? Just thinking.

COGITO, ERGO SUM.

[batnib]

This is a little strange to me. Obama, in his interview with the Chicago papers admitted essentially that he'd been misleading, if not straight out dishonest about how he's characterized his relationship and dealings with Rezko....and we applaud him for that? In his speech yesterday, which had some very good messages, we applaud him for giving it, even though during many parts of this campaign, he has defied how he's called us to act in the speech....being a perpetrator of some of the racial antagonism? And the timing of this remark, couldn't be a bigger distraction, considering the nature of today's anniversary and the Monday news that our economy is in abject crisis.

Again, many good themes in his message, but to applaud Obama for candor and transparency in his speech, when it became necessary in party because of his own misleadng statements, is, to me, a stretch.

[markkraft]

While some Hillary supporters find Rev. Wright's statements as a reason to justify their general distrust of black people, it's strange that they have no problem with Hillary Clinton's open embrace and solicitation of questionably legal campaign benefit concerts from foriegners like Elton John...

They don't care that Elton John recently said "I would ban religion completely", saying that it turns people into "hateful lemmings".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VftyZkOUxno

How can you be a Christian and still vote for Hillary Clinton? Will she denounce and reject Elton John's Stalinist statements and his support, or is hate speech against those with religious beliefs somehow okay?

[BigBen]

Of course not . She will go to the Rev. Wright's church and sleep through the sermons just like Barak.

[flatus]

The teachings of Jesus strongly indicate that he would have chosen communism (or surely socialism) over capitalism. With this in mind, how can anyone chasing personal wealth call themselves Christian when there are soooo many in need?

[Horst]

No one questions the fact that Obama's a great speaker. The trouble is that in his own way so is Jeremiah Wright. Most Americans can't excuse Wright's conspiracy theory laced hate speech and therein lies Obama's problem. Membership in that church may be essential in local Chicago politics but it's a huge albatross nationally.

[Raisean]

If you're still stuck on that, then you didn't get the whole message and maybe instead of focusing on that part of the speech... maybe you should open your mind and listen to it again... We can't hold him accountable for something someone else has said, just like we can't hold Hillary accountable either! We need to get over that and get back to the issues at hand, like the economy, the war, oil, bushes screw ups! You know real issues. Not he said she said. Unless you're still in High School!

[democraticjack]

We sure didn't see this kind of "move on" rhetoric last week when these boards were lit up with attempts to destroy Hillary Clinton over Ferraro's remarks. What's changed?

[Conan]

Obama was not transparent , he was exposed its not the same thing.
He can not separate himself from the comments made by Rev Wright by denying that he was unaware of the philosophy of accusation and attack.
Better to have admitted he was fully aware as most people with a functioning brain will believe.
He then could say that he was going to bring change and healing by uniting in a common cause for the betterment of all.
The Rev was preaching to the choir and he was in the business of pleasing and maintaining his congregation who support him financially not in finding real solutions
Obama can not separate by claiming lack of knowledge and risk being thought an uninformed fool who no one would trust with his finger on the Red Button or anything else of value.
It will not be easy to avoid being labelled a liar which most think he is and has trapped himself between a Rock and a hard place, it will be no easy task to divert his deception without admitting he lied or convincing us he did not lie.
We in our need for hope were hypnotised by rhetoric so ably used by it seems preachers and maybe especially black preachers that in my opinion divides rather than unites

[TLV]

Reverend Wright retired a while ago. Study up, Conan!

[WashingtonPine]

This morning it occurred to me that Rev. Jeremiah Wright is aptly named when I remembered the word "jeremiad." So I googled jeremiad and found this link:

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/149/149syllabus5jeremiad.html

It is called The American Jeremiad and some really interesting information is on that page about the tradition Rev. Wright is a part of. I found it enlightening and perhaps people will better understand that tradition and better understand where Dr. Wright is coming from. Here's a quote:

Sacvan Bercovitch (1978) uses John Winthrop's Model of Christian Charity to describe the American Jeremiad - a sermon that seeks to unify a people by creating tension between ideal social life and its real manifestation. The "jeremiad" is named after the biblical lamentations of Jeremiah ("I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?" (chapter 2, verse 21). Of course, we don't seek to understand the jeremiad strictly for its religious significance. We seek to understand the jeremiad because of its role in the construction and critique of public life.
Bercovitch contrasts the American jeremiad with its European predecessor. The European jeremiad depicted a static society condemned to fall perpetually from its mythic roots; it wailed from the pulpit and unleashed a torrent of guilt upon its audience. In contrast, the American jeremiad added the dimension of progress - the hope that public life can improve. The invocation of the American jeremiad involves three steps:

(1) provide a biblical or spiritual standard for individual activity and public life
(2) outline the manners in which a people has fallen from that standard,
(3) envision an ideal public life - with its concurrent individual benefits - that follows a return to the religious standard.

With this ideal, the American jeremiad sustains a paradoxical rhetoric of hope and fear - a tension between the ideal and the real. This tension is designed to generate the requisite energy to improve public life: "It posits a movement from promise to experience - from the ideal of community to the shortcomings of community life - and thence forward, with prophetic assurance, toward the resolution that incorporates (as it transforms) both the promise and the condemnation" (Bercovitch, p. 16). The key to the American jeremiad is its blurring of individual and communal pursuits.

There's a lot more, of course, but I found it really interesting and perhaps will increase understanding among all of us.

[ladyv]

Uh.

Jeremiah is a Biblical name. No idea why you have to twist yourself into knots trying to figure out why his mama named him Jeremiah.

[flatus]

I though Jeremiah was a bullfrog having the same name as a very good friend of mine.

[RichLiberal]

Alright, with all the fuss, I went and found his speech to see if there was anything there that addressed the perspective from the Clinton side. I found 2 or 3 things:

"Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias. "

Sounds like he is trying to equate Reverend Wright w Geraldine Ferraro. Seems like Obama never misses a chance to stick it to people.

Then later this:
"In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time. "

Exactly what "white Americans" is he talking about here? This may be the so-called "Reagan Republicans" but it is not, in general, your average working class Democrat in the big blue states. One of the main things about Clinton Democrats is we don't look for scapegoats as Obama intimates, instead we look to find candidates like the Clintons who can build the economy to address these problems. I know he's looking to the general election, but these aren't the people in the Democratic Party who are opposed to his candidacy, much as he wishes we were.

And finally, this one:
"For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies."

Here again he is acting as if Hillary had something to do w Rev Wright. As far as I know, it was Fox news and the MSM playing this stuff, not Hillary's campaign. Hillary supporters actually did hear this stuff for the first time in the last few days. We were kind of surprised that Obama never heard it before as he suggested in earlier statements, and I think the Hillary people reaction was kind of you've got to be kidding that anyone is going to believe Obama never heard this stuff before. But I don't care very much about this stuff except that it doesn't really add anything positive to Obama's already slim list of achievements.

But the thing that really troubled me about the last quote was
"We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card"

Well, yeah, that's what Obama's been doing all along. Long before anyone heard of Rev Wright his people were "pouncing" on Hillary for her accurate LBJ/MLK statements and trying to twist them into some kind of racial attack. Followed on quickly by the audacity of Bill Clinton's mentioning that Jesse Jackson also won SC as some kind of racial attack instead of a simple observation that Obama had not done anything that hadn't been done before and trying to diminish his victory, which seems like a pretty run of the mill political tactic having nothing to do with race. But Obama's people spun it that way and helped stoke this big "racial divide" that is suddenly on top of Obama's list now that his "strategy" has blown up in his face.

Oh, yeah, other "gaffes" as Obama tries to characterize were Hillary's inocuous "as far as I know" statement. To me it was like "What the hell are you asking me (Hillary) such a stupid question for? How the hell should I (Hillary) know what his religion is? Like I (Hillary) really could care less what it is. Like after 8 years in the White House I (Hillary) sit around thinking or want to know what religion some politician has".

The point is that this is another Obama self-serving speech that I am sure we will hear about forever. Compare what you get out of one of his speeches with what you get out of the 22.7 millions jobs the Clintons added to the economy in 1992-2000.

[TLV]

HuffPost's Pick

I am not employed by a large corporation, but my husband has held purchasing or sales jobs in such companies since college. He has cooled his jets in recent years, but there was once a time when he insisted that it was wrong for businesses to be forced to hire a quota of black or female employees. It may have been his father's racism talking, but he seemed to really feel that the middle class white male was the persecuted one. I always disagreed, stating that there are always more opportunities for white males than any other subgroup. This may be the group Obama was referring to.

[JKZANG]

RichLiberal - you are so right on!!! Obama is trying to work the race card to his advantage - I hope it fails.....if he is nominated to run for president, he has now opened the door for the Republicans to really throw the kitchen sink at him - Rev., Wright's videos will be played over and over, his relationships with Rezko, Bill Ayers (a known terrorist), the Woods Fund, Rashid Khalidi, etc. If this happens and all of his past relationships become known, it will prove him to be nothing but a self-serving politician and I'm afraid McCain will become our next president. AND WE DON'T NEED A CONTINUATION OF THE BUSH YEARS .........VOTE HILLARY !!!!!!!!!!!
P.S. Wright's church actually sold DVD's of his speeches - that's how it came about - it can't be blamed on the Clinton campaign.

[jedley]

Not a single word of your analysis rings true. It sounds forced, desperate even, as if you're scraping and scrambling for anything at all, no matter how obtuse or tenuous the connection, with which to diminish Obama.

I particularly enjoyed your highly original reading of Hillary's "As far as I know" remark, where you inadvertently cast your candidate not only as snide and dismissive ("Like I (Hillary) really could care less what it is.") but intellectually disabled ("How the hell should I (Hillary) know what his religion is?").

It's amusing to imagine the question having been, rather than 'Is Obama a Christian?', is he a male? or is he married? or is he a US senator?
If Hillary had responded "As far as I know" to any of those questions, you'd be in the hilarious position of having to deny that there's any insinuation that perhaps, beneath his suit, he has female genitalia - how would you know if you've never seen him naked, right? Or that, since you weren't actually present at his wedding, he may be lying about his marital status, or that he could be a look-alike imposter who was never actually elected. Which would be, of course, selfsame as denying that Hillary did not intend to suggest that Obama may not be a Christian.

The expression "As far as I know" is not an ambiguous one. It always means the same thing and is used for the same purpose, which is to leave open the possibility that the subject at hand may not be what it appears to be. As in, 'Is the author of the above comment a fair-minded person?', to which my most effective response, if I wished to avoid direct insult while at the same time insinuating that he/she is likely NOT such a person, would be 'Yes, as far as I know'.

[democraticjack]

Oh please. Your tortured logic doesn't change the fact that she was asked the question twice and said no both times and the "as far as I know" was a "by asking again, do you know something I don't". It's called human nature.
What you need to ask yourself is why Obama didn't make this speech when the shoe was on the other foot?

[ladyv]

Considering the response this speech got from those working class Dems in the big blue states, a loser is you. They are *exactly* the people who still feel "affirmative action" resentment bubbling up inside on occasion. Of course it's better than it used to be. They usually don't want to feel it. But if someone's gonna feel it it's going to be a person who can identify why they feel it, trace it to their perception of certain opportunities they missed out on personally. Rich people have always benefited from affirmative action, in the form of nepotism. They don't have to worry about affirmative action affecting their careers. Quotas, where they exist, will be a burden carried by the working classes, not the executives.

People respond positively when they feel *understood*. This speech's approach made those people feel that Obama understands where they're coming from. It was very successful with the working class.

[nk007]

RichLiberal:

I am very sorry to say but you are such a liar! It is is your unwillingness to tell truth about race issues in America that continues to divide us. Surely, Obama was right that many whites shared Ms Ferraro view of Black Obama being privileged because he is black. This basically a take on the critique of Affirmative Action, what people call "reverse racism." You can advocate for Clinton all you want, but, I am sorry, your spin can not diminish the honest, and profound way, Obama spoke about the issue of race in American culture, both historically and currently. Your comment is all about pettiness and political spin. I for one do not care if America decides to reject Sen. Obama. All I know is that, in my 42 years of following presidential candidates, no one has even come close, except for Bobby Kennedy after the assassination of Dr. King, in exploring the issue of race with such intelligence, wisdom, courage, and humility. But hey, white americans do have a choice: they can continue with the status quo, or they can chose a leader with a vision dedicated to a proposition that Americans have the capacity to transcend racial and ethnic divisions. By the way, are you suggesting that we should vote for Hillary Clinton because of the economic accomplishments of Bill Clinton? I voted for Bill Clinton twice, but that does not mean that I was also voting for Hillary Clinton. Therefore, Bill Clinton's accomplishments do not necessarily tell me much about what Hillary Clinton would do as President. Unless, of course, you are suggesting that they are co-presidents. If that is the case, then she has to be answerable both for the success and failures of Bill Clinton. If you want to go that route, there are some of us who are ready to highlight those failures. The most glaring one: The loss of the Democratic Congress!

[jeffmcneill]

Wow, talk about hostile reading here. Why do Clinton supporters see attacks behind every statement that appears on its face to simply address and discuss the issues? I just shake my head. He is suggesting that we do NOT pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter. He is trying to change the tone to focus on the issues. Recall that his audience is not only the undecided voters, but also the Clinton supporters and his own supporters. He is telling us all to take a step back from the heated accusations, that this kind of engagement will not take care of the problems we face. He is suggesting that we stop with precisely what this comment is engaging in. Please, lets' do what he suggests, fellow Democrats.

[SolarPowerGuy]

Comments are already closed for the entry which provides the transcript of Senator Obama's speech, so I'll comment here instead.


It goes without saying that John McCain and just about the whole Republican Party make me shudder. However, I have been disappointed by both Senators Obama and Clinton. I have not been able to support either one of them for President, because of their refusal to take the lead in ending the Iraq War. It's more important than anything else. This is the first year in history that I may cast no vote for President.


Having said that, this was one amazing speech. I am one half of a mixed-race marriage, and I understand completely. Practically everything Senator Obama had to say about racial issues could have been lifted from conversations between me and my wife. We're also progressives (see above remarks re: Iraq), and so Reverend Wright's comments do not elicit a knee-jerk jingoistic response from us. It may be hard for the general public to accept, but Obama's attempt to place Wright's remarks in the broader context are spot-on.


In the end, however, there is one place where the speech disappoints me utterly. And, wouldn't you know it, it pertains to the issue of war in the Middle East! After bending over backwards to explain that blacks and whites both bear responsibility for improving race relations in America, Obama decries:


"...a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam."


Why isn't it possible for the actions of BOTH the Israelis AND Islamic radicals to be unacceptably provocative? That's how I have always seen it. It's bewildering for Obama to be able to explain the American racial issue so clearly, and yet fail to see the SAME dynamics at work somewhere else.


Why can't he see the Mideast for what it is? Is he wearing the Petroleum Mafia blinders? Or the Christian ones? Or the AIPAC ones? Or is it something else? I would sure like to know.

[Nommo]

He bowed to AIPAC a long time ago. Somehow that's become the ticket for political progress. No one seems to have much of a problem there. The whole thing is a bit beyond my comprehension. At any rate, that was when he lost my vote.

[jeffmcneill]

Um, wait, isn't what he saying about the middle east the very thing you are saying he is missing? Namely that we are dealing with sides that are intransigent?

[SolarPowerGuy]

No, read it carefully. Obama chose a side. He sided with "our stalwart ally", Israel, and laid blame at the feet of "radical Islam."

[PardonMyFrenchFries]

I can't believe that Obama elected to "out" his grandmother who was white to defend Reverand Wright who is black. Real Classy!!! So are we sure he is trying to teach us about "racism?"

[GoCards1978]

What is he trying to teach us about racism? That it's pervasive, pernicious and most folks would rather sweep it under the rug than deal with it as adults. And that's precisely why we're stuck in the rut that we're in. Crummy schools hurt everyone, not just the students who attend them. Barack Obama is stating what has been obvious to me (suburban white 51-yr. old female) my entire life. As long as our society is unwilling to address problems that persist, and choose to bury our heads like ostriches, nothing changes for the better. A big part of overcoming these problems is becoming willing to walk miles in someone else's shoes, acknowledging their feelings are based on historic truth. To get beyond that to real solutions, we can't give up hope for a better future for the whole of society and work toward those positive changes.

[democraticjack]

Please explain to me why Obama avoided the "race" speech for over a year while his surrogates screamed racist at even the slightest whisper that Obama was black by the other side? Where was this speech when his wife conflated "fairytale" into racism?
Where was this speech when Michelle said "Ain't no blacks in Iowa" after winning the caucuses there? What took him so long?

[gulopartisan]

You mean, there ARE blacks in Iowa?

[research]

Would God consider America's Iraq War Crime Invasion and occupation, Damnable?