Obama's Speech Falls Short

Today was the day Barack Obama was to put the issue of his controversial spiritual mentor and pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., behind him.

Today he delivered the speech.

Transcript of Obama's prepared remarks

Did he put the issue to rest?

Did Chris Matthews feel a thrill going up his leg again?

Did Obama deliver a truly historic speech, a milestone in our country's journey?

Answers:

No

Probably

No

From the New York Times:

Senator Barack Obama renewed his objection to the controversial statements delivered by the longtime pastor of his Chicago church, but declared in a speech here Tuesday that it was time for America to “move beyond some of our old racial wounds.”

“It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years,” Mr. Obama said. “Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy — particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.”

In an address at the National Constitution Center, a building steeped in the nation’s historic symbolism, Mr. Obama delivered a sweeping assessment of race in America. It was the most extensive speech of his presidential campaign devoted to race and unity, a moment his advisers conceded presented one of the biggest tests of his candidacy.

For nearly a week, Mr. Obama has struggled to distance himself from a series of controversial statements by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who characterized the United States as fundamentally racist and the government as corrupt and murderous. Mr. Obama concluded over the weekend that he had failed to resolve the questions, aides said, and told advisers he wanted to address the firestorm in a speech.

In his address here, delivered in an auditorium before a small audience, Mr. Obama disavowed the remarks by Mr. Wright as “not only wrong, but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity.” But he did not wholly distance himself from his pastor or the church, Trinity United Church of Christ, on Chicago’s South Side.

"Not wholly distance himself from his pastor or the church"?

I don't think he distanced himself at all. Yes, he once again condemned some of Wright's despicable, hateful, racist, anti-Semitic, anti-American remarks.

But then he went on to provide justification for Wright's sermons. He refused to let go of Wright.

Poor Obama. He knows that if he did that he would alienate himself from people with mindsets similar to that of Wright. Apparently, that's a rather large group.

However, by clinging to Wright, he's revealing that he finds Wright's message acceptable. That is sure to trouble other people.

There is simply no way that Obama can have it both ways. He tried to dress up his fence-sitting with flowery rhetoric. He tried to hide it in plain sight.

Put lipstick and a silk hat on a pig. It's still a pig.

I believe America is hungry for unity. America is hungry for change.

Obama isn't the catalyst.

Rather than saying he won't be associated with Wright and his message, rather than admitting that he made a mistake in choosing him as a spiritual mentor and financially supporting a church that preaches hate, Obama told America he won't abandon Wright. He won't change.

So, Obama wants to unify the American people without rejecting hate as an inevitable framework. Not good.

I don't think America is hungry for that.

In his interview with Major Garrett on March 14, 2008, Obama said:

I think that the statements [of Rev. Wright] that have been strung together are compiled out of hundreds of sermons that he delivered over the course his lifetime. But, obviously, they are ones that are, from my perspective, completely unacceptable and inexcusable.

And if I had thought that was the tenor or tone on an ongoing basis of his sermons, then yes, I don't think that it would've been reflective of my values or my faith experience.

...I would've quit [the church].

Since this Rev. Wright thing became a full-fledged firestorm, Obama has been on a media tour, claiming that he didn't hear his pastor make such ugly statements. In his speech today, he retracts.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.

So, he was in the church to hear Wright make controversial statements. (No, wait -- "remarks that could be considered controversial." Apparently, Obama's "controversial" threshold is different than that of the vast majority of Americans.)

In any event, Obama's earlier denials that he heard his pastor say inflammatory things makes him look like he was engaged in cover-up. Today, he came clean, once he realized that this matter wasn't going to go away.

Obama was definitely trying to mislead the American people. Sounds like politics as usual to me. Change? What change?

And the flags--

The stage was adorned with American flags. The American flag is such a powerful symbol of our country.

As Obama spoke, with the flags as a backdrop, I heard Wright's voice:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

Obama is not an agent of unity.

There can be no positive sort of unity from Obama until he truly transcends race.

Obama has not.