Obama and King

In an opinion piece in the New York Sun, Seth Gitell attempts to answer the question, "Is Obama Like King?"

For the most part, Gitell dwells on Barack Obama's speaking skills.

He writes:

Last week during his victory speech after the Iowa caucuses, he began by establishing a memorable rhythm and laying down words with repetition: "You know, they said — they said — they said this day would never come," each phrase punctuated in a vaguely familiar pattern. For many commentators, the pattern, the tempo, was that of King, whose 1963 address in March at Washington is one of the most famous and powerful in American history. "Obama adopted the cadence of Martin Luther King, Jr.," Timothy Grieve wrote in Salon. " … he recalls the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his pacing and aching, staccato repetitions," noted Michael Powell in the New York Times. "His speech was classic Martin Luther King," reported the Mirror.

...how did Mr. Obama become the King of our day? With all the talk of Mr. Obama's authenticity, it's remarkable that so few have wondered how this candidate can declaim like a Southern preacher.

Mr. Obama's speech skills came later. It developed, says Reverend Eugene Rivers, who is the pastor of the Azusa Christian Community in Dorchester, Mass., and who has observed Mr. Obama's style, from his time as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, an experience the senator often refers to on the campaign trail. Mr. Obama's second book title, "The Audacity of Hope," came from a sermon delivered by Jeremiah Wright, pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, to which the candidate belongs. Reverend Wright's father, like King's, was a Baptist minister.

...The story of how Mr. Obama learned to become an orator suggests an interesting fact about this man who, at age 46, is young for a presidential candidate. He was, by his own telling, a late-bloomer who took on a major aspect of his public persona in his mid-20s. Whereas King developed his rhetoric during childhood. The public welcomes Mr. Obama's style primarily because he is so good at it. But something more is at play. The public, saturated with King's melodic sentences for more than four decades, also embraces Mr. Obama's style out of a longing for the soothing, unifying leader he portrays himself as.

Jon Keller, the author of "The Bluest State," a book about the political happenings in Massachusetts, contends that the group most hungry for a King-figure are members of the Baby Boom generation. "It's a purifying, sanctifying process, whereby a politically failed generation, which is noted for it's refusal to ever admit failure, is able to purge itself of its sins, by voting for a younger boomer who can redeem the entire generation by skin color and progressive politics and tone."

There's nothing wrong with Obama being influenced by a great orator.

There's nothing wrong with Obama "borrowing" King's style.

What's wrong is that so much emphasis is being given to something as superficial as Obama's King impersonation.

What should matter is the content of his speeches, not his delivery.

The message is what matters.

I think it's really presumptuous for Obama to be compared to a man like King. Obama has done nothing even remotely similar to what King accomplished in his short life.

Obama may be exciting to some people, the political rock star, but he's no King. He doesn't inspire; he chants and leads cheers. Obama's stump speech "fired up" line isn't anything like the inspirational and morally challenging words of King.

Let's be honest: Obama isn't even King lite.

I'm not saying that Obama is a poor speaker, not at all.

I just think it's wrong to equate him with one of America's greatest speakers. It's even more inappropriate to consider him on par with one of America's greatest leaders.