In the political context, I think Glenn is correct.

Political pandering is insincerely gratifying a constituency's desires as opposed to taking principled stands that might cost you an election. It is insincere because once elected, you break those campaign promises. Standing on principle and integrity you are less likely to have to do that.

While what you say is true, it doesn't change the definition of pander. And while I can agree that most political pandering is insincere, my only point is that it is not necessarily so. I probably wouldn't have objected but for the fact that Glenn said "it's only pandering if he doesn't believe what he said". One can pander without being insincere. Pandering and hypocrisy are not synonyms.

I guess you think the Democrats and Obama will just lay down for all of what you mentioned? Seriously. I'm not making a rhetorical question. You keep saying what the Repub assholes are going to do, as if we don't all know that already, but you seem to think that there will be no push back. That is entirely illogical.

But almost to a perso, everyone I have listened to or read seems to think that Obama was too "high toned" or "high minded" for the "ignorant masses".

People may be easily manipulated by sound-byte poitics, but they may rise above manipulation. Until a politician tries to elevate the debate we will be forced to wallow in the debasing politics of false association and personality.

I think more people "got it" than anyone can yet see.

I'm not disagreeing with this. I recognize that you may be right -- I definitely see and even articulated the rationale -- but I'm just not convinced of it. I'm pretty ambivalent on the whole question. Ambivalence doesn't always make for the best analysis, but that's just where I'm at. I don't think anyone knows, and I know for sure that I don't.

Initiating a national discussion of race that is honest is well past due. But the one thing that in my strong view is essential to understand is what is -- and is not -- reasonably considered racism. Obama said his own grandmother expressed a fear of young black males, and sometime ago, Jesse Jackson said much the same thing.

Whites who avoid poor black neighborhoods with high crime rates are not being racist. And they feel resentment that that fact cannot be publicly discussed without many accusing them of racism, which is a very loaded and ugly charge. In fact, I'd go so far as to say some whites are angry at the black community for making it difficult for them (the whites) to have no issues at all with some parts of black culture, since they want to be considered "good." So, whites talk only "safely," among themselves, about their pervasive view of the negatives in the black "underclass."

Blacks, not being stupid, know many whites hold these fears and negative opinions. Men as old as Rev. Wright, of course, can remember when they were forced into "colored only" bathrooms and away from hotels and diners. They remember it being dangerous, sometimes lethal, to sign up blacks to vote. So they may well have little to no sympathy for contemporary white attitudes toward black crime, given the historical crimes blacks have suffered.

But someone -- and maybe it will be Obama -- has to bring us into the present, and let every reasonable point of view have its airing. And that means, in my strong opinion, making clear distinctions between racism (that is, a belief in inherent black inferiority), and objections to some parts of African-American culture.

Glenn's concerns about the ability of the American public to withstand the inevitable dumbing down that will be visited on Obama's speech are shared by many of us.

The difference this time around is that the Internet and all of the tools available on it make it possible to push back. In the 1980s, the age of Roger Ailes and Lee Atwater, information moved in one direction--from producer to consumer. But Glenn has illustrated time and time again that in an Internet environment simplification and manipulation can be met in public fora that mainstream media no longer control or find themselves in the awkward situation of having to support.

I am heartened, for example, by Glenn's public spankings of Joe Klein and the way in which comment threads on some of the Washington Post's and New York Times' stupider postings have filled with sometimes hundreds of responses eviscerating opinion columns beholden to bad logic and flawed argumentation.

Saving a speech of this caliber from oversimplification is something we finally have the power to do. Just look at the comments thread here.

"I think more people "got it" than anyone can yet see."

My concern is that, given the heavy filters and dissection, there is no way citizens will get any benefit from this speech unless they listen to it. How many, I wonder, will have the time and inclination to do that.

I confess that I expected Obama to fully repudiate and distance himself from Wright like any politician would.

I don't know what I expected (but I'll grant you that would be the typical reaction of your run-of-the-mill politician -- not to mention I think the one the RW foamers were hoping for). What I do know is that his speech embodied the approach I hope that I myself would take: To address the issues squarely and honestly, but not to turn and knife another human -- one who I may disagree with at times (and even vehemently), but one I know is human and capable of some of the best that humans can do too -- in the back, for my own personal gain. Those (and there are quite a few) on the conservative side of the political scale but nonetheless honest and compassionate people in their own way, who I know and call friend, I'd hope I'd treat with courtesy and respect, even as I disagree with them (side note to Sh**ter: you don't qualify).

Barack Obama recognises the essential humanity in all of us, I think. And we ought to celebrate that.

It wasn't exactly the Sermon on the Mount, but he did in fact figuratively "turn the other cheek", and say, "Here I am, do your best".

Cheers,