We postponed our morning meeting for Barack Obama’s speech that’s billed as an attempt to put to rest the trouble he’s had over his former pastor’s inflammatory statements. It was supposed to happen at 10:15. It’s 10:32, and I’m still looking at a bunch of flags on a stage. Now there are some roadies fiddling with the mikes.
Anyway, if you want to watch the excitement, I found a live feed at Fox News (didn’t see one right away at CNN, MSNBC or C-SPAN, but I didn’t look very hard). Here’s the link. (It has a red WATCH LIVE note next to it.)
When it’s over, I’ve got to go into a meeting, but y’all should go ahead and start discussing it here.
His wife’s there now (below), so he’s bound to show soon, right?
Related Posts
I don’t know who this Swofford guy is, but he thinks it’s nighttime. We haven’t waited THAT long…
10:47 now.
Lets get it on!
Here is Obama’s Speech In Full: A More Perfect Union
I must have misheard his name. I thought they said “Senator Harris Swofford.” So who is he, and why is he still talking instead of Obama? Oh well, back to e-mail…
OK, that’s who he was. Now, Obama’s talking.
This is going to be good. Beautiful start and I can see how its going to grow in intensity. I see a line such as “We are not a collection of Red states and blue states….” coming at the climax. Will be a little different without live cheering crowd. Come on barack…this is it…
Obama just used that line, “Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning.”
That rings true HISTORICALLY, in that it described churches I attended while growing up. But it certainly doesn’t describe MY church, St. Peter’s Catholic. I doubt that you’ll find a broader, more diverse group of people anywhere in Columbia at any time, except maybe at an international symposium at the university or something like that…
All races, several languages, many accents. That’s the way I experience that hour every Sunday. That doesn’t disprove the “truism,” it just doesn’t match MY experience…
Obama is generally correct. Most churches I’ve been to recently are overwhelmingly segregated. St. Peters is an exception.
I’ve posted the full text of the speech here:
http://www.crackthebell.com/cracked/2008/3/18/full-text-of-obama-speech-on-race-and-politics.html
Personally, I think it is the most inspiring speech – particularly a political speech – I’ve heard in my lifetime. Maybe, if “only Nixon could go to China,” only Obama could give this speech, especially this:
“I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. ”
And this:
“And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright…can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
“These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.”
Sorry, here’s that link to full text:
How can you not be inspired by Obama. What a terrific speech.
Sugar coated racist diatribe.
Obama’s speech is nothing but code words of racial politics of greed, a promise that he will help the losers get even with whites who earned more money.
Barack and his wife live in a house worth almost $2,000,000, provided to them for a fraction of that by their indicted pal, slumlord Resko. Yet they speak to youth about not “buying into” the middle class dream, not working for a big corporation, or starting your own company.
What typical socialistic hypocrites!
Lee read, or heard, a speech by a different Barack Obama than the inspired, brilliant, positive orator that I heard.
Lee, you need another buzzword besides socialist. It has no particular negative connotation any more. It’s just a worn out phrase used by right-wing scare mongers to drum up interest in their failed neo-con agenda.
Oh by the way, in case I haven’t asked lately, who are you supporting for president Lee?
Question? Does Bud live on this planet? Does he need a hearing aid? Which side of his brain does he use?
Maybe Bud is the good guy, bad guy of the police interrogation. He could not possibly believe all that he puts on the blogs. I think he is a plant to keep the hits coming on the blog. I could be right? They do it on the radio all the time.
What word is better than “socialist” to describe a candidate who mouths Marxist drivel? It is confusing when he wears $1,000 suits, lives in a $2,000,000 house, and flies around in corporate jets to tell blacks not to join the middle class workaday world, because they are owed a redistribution of wealth.
Bud I am not inspired by BHOs’ speech today, I am offended.
I am offended that this guy is going to attempt to lecture me on race when I am not the problem. His pastor and his beliefs are the problem, and his bloviation about a great dialogue about race is simply a ruse to shift attention and focus away from his breathtakingly poor judgement. We don’t need another dialogue about race, and even if we did, this occasion certainly isn’t the time for it. This is the time when Obama should be explaining either how he can sit under a pastor with these views for 20 years while not agreeing, or how he could not know this stuff was being said and how this naivete disqualifies him for the presidency.
I am offended that this coward would use his grandmother to defend himself and deflect the heat. What a weak and cowardly thing to do. I felt the same way when Donnie Myers (Lex County Solicitor) used his wifes’ pain to justify his DUI. It was horrible and cowardly then, and it is the same now.
Obama is toast. And he deserves to be. David
By the way, I’m not sure that 40-50% of the people in the democrat party are wise enough to recognize that BHO is toast, and this is a very good thing. I think this coward has garnered the support of enough democrat groupies and wingnuts in the last four months that he may actually survive until the democrat convention, which will mean turmoil and acrimony for democrats all summer. And and I love it.
I also am not sure that very many democrats realize just how DOA an Obama presidential candidacy is going to be. He simply cannot now win a general election given his tacit approval of the hatred and vitriol of Jeremiah Wright. Or given his breathtakingly poor judgement in associating himself with this bitter old racist.
I DO believe however the american public generally “gets it” that Obama is now radioactive. Consequently, I say again that he is toast. David
Talk about your chickens coming home to roost. Sheesh. David
Maybe we need to ask Merle Haggard how he feels about Rev. Wright and Obama…part of the song below…
When they’re runnin’ down my country, hoss,[NL]They’re walkin’ on
the fightin’ side of me.[NL][NL]Yeah, walkin’ on the fightin’ side of
me.[NL]Runnin’ down the way of life,[NL]Our fightin’ men have fought and
died to keep.[NL]If you don’t love it, leave it:[NL]Let this song I’m
singin’ be a warnin’.[NL]If you’re runnin’ down my country, man,[NL]You’re
walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me.[NL][NL]Yeah, walkin’ on the fightin’
side of me.[NL]Runnin’ down the way of life,[NL]Our fightin’ men have fought
and died to keep.[NL]If you don’t love it, leave it:[NL]Let this song I’m
singin’ be a warnin’.[NL]If you’re runnin’ down my country, man,[NL]You’re
walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me.
If a white pastor said these same words – reversing black/white I am certain that Brad/The State would be calling for his execuation. The “this is the way we’ve always done it” defense just don’t work.
It is revealing of how there is so much more racism among so-called “black leaders” than there is among the average white person.
Exactly so Lee.
I am also amazed that there are so many black folk who just lap up all of this hatred, racism and vitriol from these “black leaders” like Jeremiah Wright. Some of the most disturbing things to me about this whole Jeremiah Wright flap are the pictures from that church of black people in the congregation standing and cheering and waving the old hate monger on. These people actually believe his lies are the truth. They actually believe that the white man unleashed the AIDS virus in an attempt to wipe out black people. They swallow whole the notion that the “government” knew about 9/11 before hand, and that it was a result of Zionism and American Imperialism, or whatever. And horribly, this kind of cult following and mass deception is repeated across america in many many black churches.
This is an extremely dangerous thing. And beyond the danger, one very practical result of it is that it keeps black people from focusing on and attacking the REAL problems they obviously face.
I know these are inflammatory things to say, but someone needs to say them. I do so with no animosity or bigotry towards anyone. Apart from the fact that I don’t wish anyone ill, it is in my best interests for everyone in this society to do well. And I believe The Jeremiah Wrights and Jesse Jacksons and Louis Farrakhans really do a lot to hold black folk back. David
The Jeremiah Wrights, Louis Farrakans, Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons and Obamas hold blacks hostage to a mental state of delusion and helplessness, in order to promote themselves as saviours and leaders.
People who take control of their own lives have no use for these blood-sucking charlatans. How would these mediocre “black leaders” make a living if their followers all wised up, went to work, and prospered under the great opportunities of American capitalism?
If Obama’s close associates were meeting with Khadafi and other Muslim terrorists, it is reasonable to suspect Obama.
David, you seem to have missed the point of his speech. In there he acknowledges exactly what you’re saying, that there is resentment among whites about being assumed racist. And then he goes on to say, let’s not make race the issue this election season because there are other, larger issues which transcend race affecting us all.
Obama talks unity to the national audience, and race hatred and delusional conspiracy theories to black audiences like those in his church. This is part of his strategy, devised by his advisors – David Axelrod, Naomi Wolf, David Cutler, Jeffrey Liebman and Austan Goolsbee – which you can read in the paper trail left by their big egos.
Susanna, this election season is about NOTHING but race on the democrat side, and the democrat party and Obama himself have made it so. The Clintons blatantly injected race into the election just before the South Carolina primary, with Bill Clinton doing the honors. There was not an atom of outrage from Howard Dean or Rahm Immanuel or anyone else in the party leadership when this was done.
Beyond that shameless fact, Obama himself made race the central theme in this election when he closely associated himself with a racist hate monger like Wright and then expected to get a pass when this association and friendship were exposed. He tried to “remain above the fray” until he was exposed as a charlatan on race, and would have done NOTHING to sever his relationship with Wright or even make the speech yesterday had he not been caught with his flippin pants down.
He is toast. And he deserves to be. The only thing I regret about this whole episode is that like the doddering old boob he is, John McCain will probably not even touch this issue even though it has been handed to him on a silver platter. No matter however, it is simply delicious to see Obama in flames. I love it when these self-righteous liberal hypocrites get it right between the eyes. David
By the way Susanna, Hillary Clinton was also perfectly at ease with her husbands’ usage of the race card. And again, all done with not one shred of condemnation or dissent from the party faithful. The democrat party IS undeniably the party of racial division. They own it, revel in it and they damn sure use it whenever they see advantage in it. David
Getting yourself pastored for 20 years by a radical hater shows bad judgment. Lying about it when asked by the media shows dishonesty. Now we know the real reason why you refused to wear a flag lapel pin and why your wife has never before been proud of America. If we take you at your word, you spent 20 years in the company of a man, and never once figured out that he was a virulent racist. No Presidency for you.
–klqtzzz
Reverand Wright is not an exception, but is no different the other radical socialists which Obama has as longtime close friends or as close advisors to his campaign:
* Rev Wright – met with Kaddafi and other terrorists
* Louis Farrakan – leader of Black Muslims, hates whites
* David Axelrod – chief strategist
* Benardine Dorn – Weather Underground, bomber
* Bill Ayers – WU bomber of police stations and the Pentagon
* Naomi Wolf – sympathizer of Al Qaeda
* Angela Davis – bomber
Hillary has a similar problem.
* Her long-time advisors include radical communists who are the children of Stalinists.
* She worked for the Communist Party USA and the Black Panthers.
* She and Leon Paneta were associated with Castro and with convicted Puerto Rican terrorists.
* Bill Clinton pardoned Hillary’s terrorist friends and the bomber buddies of Barak Obama.