Michele Malkin has lots to say and she, in turn, considers Allahpundit's "the best takedown of Obamamessiah of the day." John Derbyshire is developing a growing dislike for Obama. "The speech is slippery, evasive, dishonest, and sometimes insulting." I always find Stanley Kurtz uncommonly thoughtful and his published reactions today continue that tradition. Charles Murray is dazzled by the speech's brilliance. (Update: he expands here.) Victor Davis Hanson calls it "an elegant farce." Rush Limbaugh offered his analysis here
Thomas Sowell wrote before Obama's speech,
The fact that Obama talks differently than Jeremiah Wright does not mean that his track record is different. Barack Obama’s voting record in the Senate is perfectly consistent with the far-left ideology and the grievance culture, just as his wife’s statement that she was never proud of her country before is consistent with that ideology.. .
Shelby Steele published his perspective before the speech.
Update 3/19/08 - Thomas Sowell gives his opinion after hearing the speech. The National Review Editors opine here. (Well worth reading). Michael Gerson calls it "A Speech That Fell Short" (a very probing, insighful review). Michael Graham opines in the Boston Herald. See VDH on next page. Important.
Here's what Victor Davis Hanson wrote this evening: "The Tragedy of Obama's Speech."
The tragedy of Obama's speech and the mindless endorsement of it was the rejection of any constant moral standard—an absolute sense of wrong and right that transcends situational ethics, context, and individual particulars. And once one jettisons such absolutes, they won't be there when one wishes to seek refuge in them in a future hour of need.
When he failed to "disown" Rev. Wright, and then brought in parallels of things purportedly as bad, or offered excuses that Wright had done good things to balance the bad, or that there were certain mitigating circumstances that explain his hatred, then the universal wrong of Wright's racism and lying disappears and with it any ethical standard by which we have moral authority to condemn such vitriol.
That this self-serving relativism was used to address a self-induced political disaster is especially unfortunate for a self-appointed moralist. I think the liberal blanket endorsement of the Obama speech will later come back to haunt its enthusiasts, once they see the creepy freak show that emerges from the woodwork, immune in public discourse now from absolute standards of rebuke.In that regard, the grandmother metaphor, the radio talk show simile, the evocation of Ferraro, the context of the black church, etc. were meaningless without any unequivocal rejection of Rev. Wright and what he stands for.
This was a transformational speech—but in ways its endorsers can hardly believe but will surely regret. The voters of Pennsylvania will be the first indication of Obama's folly, followed by the moral paralysis that meets the next outbreak of racism and hatred in the public forum.
Earlier in the day VDH wrote the following:
I predict Obama has bequeathed to us a new lexicon, a novel way to explain away racist outbursts.
Obama has sanctified the doctrines of moral equivalence (the private racial slight is balanced by the televised public hatred; everyone has a pastor in some ways like Wright, etc.) and contextualization (you must understand Wright's context and background; the good that he does; the protocols of the black church, etc.). The result is a lowering of the bar for the next racial outburst, since the perpetrator will immediately resort to the Obama defenses. And since we now know that Obama heard some of these "controversial" Wright sermons and did not object, we can see that his earlier, once just condemnation of someone like Imus — like many of his initial defenses of Wright—may now be inoperative:
"I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus. But I would also say that there's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group. And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude. ... He didn't just cross the line. He fed into some of the worst stereotypes that my two young daughters are having to deal with today in America. The notions that as young African-American women — who I hope will be athletes — that that somehow makes them less beautiful or less important. It was a degrading comment. It's one that I'm not interested in supporting." (October 2007)
The new sophistic Obama, however, would recount to us all the charity work and good that Imus had once done and still does, that we don't understand the joshing of the shock-jock radio genre that winks and nods at controversy in theatrical ways, that Imus was a legend and pioneer among talk show hosts, that Obama's own black relatives have on occasions expressed prejudicial statements about whites similar to what Imus does, that we all have our favorite talk shows, whose hosts occasionally cross the line, and that he can't quite remember whether he'd ever been on the Imus show, or whether he ever had heard Imus say anything that was insensitive — and therefore he could not and would not disown a Don Imus.
This is the real message of the Obama racial transcendence candidacy.
-And here is a VDH post a few hours before he posted the above. (Update: For his thoughts onv3/21/08 click here.)
- It seems John Derbyshire's dislike has taken a dramatically negative turn.
Having slept on the matter, I am now going to come out of the closet and declare clearly and firmly that I don't like Barack Obama one little bit.
What kind of person would traduce his grandmother (who is still alive) to score a political point? Yesterday's speech, read through in the clear light of dawn, is worse than I thought: an ugly mish-mash of ancient socialist clichés and Gen-X spoiled-brat self-congratulation, all enveloped in clouds of flatulent Oprahnian rhetoric. Ugh!
Obama's just a red-diaper baby with a nice smile. I actually like Jeremiah Wright better than I like Obama. At least you know where you are with Wright. Obama, I wouldn't trust to mail a letter.
Quote of the day from Stanley Kurtz:
"...the very people who never believed Wright was wrong to begin with feel "defended and explained" by Obama. Rather than pushing radicalism aside, Obama is lending it a sheen of acceptability.
Update 3/20/08 - Kurtz again:
What if, in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky affair, Bill Clinton had delivered an eloquent and thoughtful speech on the place of sexuality in American life? As a transparent device to deflect attention from the real issue, that speech would have been poorly received. Yet something like this has just happened with Obama.