The Obama/Race Speech Aftermath

The reaction to Sen. Obama's speech on race has been generally very positive, and apparently the YouTube has been watched 1.25 million times. While I think in the 24-hour news era we tend to overemphasize the historical impact of these speeches (for example, Bill Clinton's speech on the day of the Million Man March has a lot of parallels and candid moments, and yet that speech has been lost to history, so let's hold up on the "instant classic" notion), clearly something is happening. The problem for Obama is that he's lost a significant amount of ground over the last week nationally in the Rev. Wright flap. I agree that I don't really know why I know who any politician's pastor is, and if it were a truism that one was politically damaged by any possible statement of whoever they are close to, nobody could ever run for public office. In a way that was one point of Obama's speech. But clearly he's been hurt, and any positives from the speech will just bring us back to pre-Wright levels. Which isn't horrible for Obama - pre-Wright he was doing pretty good - but it's not like the Presidency is his now after this speech.

Today Obama pivoted to Iraq, with a speech in North Carolina and a policy document (PDF) that highlights returning to prominence the war in Afghanistan, fighting Al Qaeda, and drying up support for terror through economic, education, diplomatic, and personal outreach initiatives. Obama also sets "the goal of a nuclear-free world," prioritizes securing loose nukes, mandates a clean energy future that will end resource wars for oil, and more. It's a really good document, and in some ways it parallels the Responsible Plan, although it neglects the role of elite media and executive power in representing the broken institutions that allowed us to get into war. The speech is generally pretty good as well.

In a perfect world, everyone would be YouTubing and passing around the Iraq speech, and debating the merits of the policy. But that's not where we are, and instead there's a lot of wonder as to whether or not the American people are intelligent enough to grasp that racial divides resist Americans of like backgrounds to come together and face common problems. I'll say this - I didn't expect such wisdom from Mike Huckabee:

HUCKABEE: [Obama] made the point, and I think it's a valid one, that you can't hold the candidate responsible for everything that people around him may say or do. You just can't. Whether it's me, whether it's Obama...anybody else. But he did distance himself from the very vitriolic statements.

Now, the second story. It's interesting to me that there are some people on the left who are having to be very uncomfortable with what Louis Wright said, when they all were all over a Jerry Falwell, or anyone on the right who said things that they found very awkward and uncomfortable years ago. Many times those were statements lifted out of the context of a larger sermon. Sermons, after all, are rarely written word for word by pastors like Reverend Wright, who are delivering them extemporaneously, and caught up in the emotion of the moment. There are things that sometimes get said, that if you put them on paper and looked at them in print, you'd say "Well, I didn't mean to say it quite like that."

JOE SCARBOROUGH: But, but, you never came close to saying five days after September 11th, that America deserved what it got. Or that the American government invented AIDS...

HUCKABEE: Not defending his statements.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Oh, I know you're not. I know you're not. I'm just wondering though, for a lot of people...Would you not guess that there are a lot of Independent voters in Arkansas that vote for Democrats sometimes, and vote for Republicans sometimes, that are sitting here wondering how Barack Obama's spiritual mentor would call the United States the USKKK?

HUCKABEE: I mean, those were outrageous statements, and nobody can defend the content of them.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: But what's the impact on voters in Arkansas? Swing voters.

HUCKABEE: I don't think we know. If this were October, I think it would have a dramatic impact. But it's not October. It's March. And I don't believe that by the time we get to October, this is gonna be the defining issue of the campaign, and the reason that people vote.

And one other thing I think we've gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say "That's a terrible statement!"...I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack -- and I'm gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you -- we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told "you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus..." And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

Other than the fact that Falwell's statement was right out in the open, and because fundamentalist Christians are supposed to be intolerant and are therefore dismissed, there are different standards for black and white preachers, Huckabee is spot-on. And I'm willing to give the American people just a little bit more credit than the pessimists.