A More Perfect Union

 

Obama's speech this morning was, for a political speech, incredibly intelligent, thoughtful, and moving. It is clearly the most significant speech of this presidential campaign, and perhaps of the past 20, 30, or 40 years.

It was extraordinarily bold in its scope and intent. While I think the delivery was mediocre at the start, once he got into his groove, he was powerful.

He displayed humility, understanding, and, above all, hope. I can't imagine listening to a better political speech in the next 20 years.

Unfortunately, as I watch CNN and I read the New York Times, I'm struck at how the whole speech, so sweeping, so remarkable, is being boiled down into comparing and contrasting Wright's comments to Obama's.

Obama's speech attempted to transcend this debate, to look at the larger picture in which all of this took place. It looks like the political analysts aren't ready or willing to do that.

A final thought: I can't understand why it was given on a weekday morning instead of primetime. Why give the speech when everyone's at work? The speech was so long (more than a half hour), that I think it's unlikely many people are going to watch it.

Despite all of this, it's interesting to see that, in the immediate aftermath of this, Obama still leads Clinton among registered Democrats, and still is ahead of John McCain in national polls. That's a bit surprising for me, especially since John McCain is essentially getting a free pass from all the political in-fighting among Democrats.

For what it's worth, it's reaffirmed to me that I was right to believe in Obama so strongly. I'm less than enthusiastic about his heavy-handed rhetoric on protectionism, but this speech, more than any other, makes clear why he would be a great president: an ability to transcend politics and identify the issues that unites us all.

In fact, his speech was more than presidential. While history will be the ultimate judge, sitting here, six hours after watching the speech, I believe it was transformational. I certainly hope so.

Update/Correction/Clarification: Originally I wrote that "he said things that no American politician has ever dared to say". I'm obviously wrong on that front. What I mean to say is that his speech tried to do more than just use race as a political tool.

He tried to make the argument that race still matters in our society, but it doesn't have to be something that divides us. What underlies America's racial tension are the greater values that each of us, individually, fundamentally hold.

Those values bind us together. While they may occasionally clash on the surface, we can't allow ourselves to be divided by them. We need to go beyond the petty clashes and look at the deeper issues. Solving the deeper issues does not mean favoring the arguments of one ethnic group over another.  It's about solving issues in a fair way that will benefit us all.