Thank you, dear splinter group of "liberal" commentators who, like our beloved Blue Dog Democrats in Congress, always manage to seize just enough on a particularly toxic scrap of right-wing mendacity for the virus to slip unchallenged into our political mainline. Yes, it is Obama - with the truly diverse background, family, and past, and the decades to think more than a few idle moments about race - who has the "tin ear" about these matters.

Holy shit. Tesify, brother.

Start a blog dude. You're Glenn's digby.

Brother DCLaw1’s testimony has been outrageously right all day.

http://nytimes.com/2008/03/19/opinion/19wed1.html

Editorial
Mr. Obama’s Profile in Courage
Wednesday, March 19, 2008

There are moments — increasingly rare in risk-abhorrent modern campaigns — when politicians are called upon to bare their fundamental beliefs. In the best of these moments, the speaker does not just salve the current political wound, but also illuminates larger, troubling issues that the nation is wrestling with.

Inaugural addresses by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt come to mind, as does John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religion, with its enduring vision of the separation between church and state. Senator Barack Obama, who has not faced such tests of character this year, faced one on Tuesday. It is hard to imagine how he could have handled it better.

[...]

We can’t know how effective Mr. Obama’s words will be with those who will not draw the distinctions between faith and politics that he drew, or who will reject his frank talk about race. What is evident, though, is that he not only cleared the air over a particular controversy — he raised the discussion to a higher plane.

- - N Y Times editorial, 3/19/2008

I watched Hannity and Colmes, shortly after I read Joan's column. Interestingly, Hannity (or more accurately his bagpipe, Newt Gingrich) said something similar, going a little further; how offensive it was to Obama's granny to compare her to Wright. Yes, Wright is evil because he made his rants in public, while white racists prefer to whisper them in the privacy of their own home-- and the voting booth. Thank god both Joan and Hannity are here to protect the dignity of Obama's grandma!

On another level I think the H&C unfortunately backed up the thesis of Glenn's post. Not that Americans aren't savvy enough to get what Obama was talking about, but that most Americans won't bother to listen to the whole speech, and will instead get Hannity to spoon-feed it to them. Hannity, Gingrich and all the other pundits on the program, filtered the speech to only the things they could easily critique. Listening to them, one would think it was indeed a hackneyed speech by a calculating political android....

I've been waiting for Sen. Bullworth. I'll take Sen. Obama. When is the last time a politician has talked to us like adults? Wasn't that the complaint Jon Stewart articulated so well to Chris Hitchens? This is like a breath of fresh air.

The (who have endorsed Hillary) line is amusing. As if since they endorsed Hillary it's extra special!! and shocking!! that they would say something complimentary about Obama's speech.

"It is easily the most tin-eared thing I've ever heard Obama say."

The only tin ear in this statement is that of the speaker. I can't think of a single person that does not have the same experience with older generation relatives and their sometimes shocking statements.

I think Obama hit a nerve with this analogy. He aimed, fired and hit square the nerve that we are all racists. Then he went on to tell us how to get over it.

Great speech. I wish the entire country could watch it with their grandparents, parents and children. He lays a clear path to a better future.

Its funny you bring up cluster bombs...

"I don't think there is any nation that would not have reacted the way Israel did after two soldiers had been snatched. I support Israel's response to take some action in protecting themselves." (Barack Obama, August 22, 2006)

This was after Israel had dropped, by its own admission, over 1 million cluster bomblets in Lebanon.

Holy shit. Tesify, brother.

Start a blog dude. You're Glenn's digby.

Indeed. And you're welcome to come over and contribute on mine as well (I need someone who spels better and wid' better grammmer anyways).

Anyone else that would be interested in joining on LDB, let me know.

Cheers,

Question: Has Obama played the "religion/spiritual/god card during his campaign, as George W. Bush and Reagan did?

I don't know the answer.

If he did, and continues on that path, he deserves all the criticism being hurled at him from various quarters. You suck up to the "believers" and then it is discovered that your "spiritual mentor" is a race-baiting ignoramus, you pay the consequences.

If, however, Obama has not made his religiosity part of his campaign, the remarks of the guy who runs the church he happens to attend are essentially irrelevant to Barack's qualifications to be POTUS.

This writer surmises that Obama long ago figured out that if he were ever to become a presidential candidate, he would at least have to be able to say he attended church regularly. He needed one with close proximity to his home turf, so it would not be a major project to schlep over there on Sundays. Wright's place was close by--another assumption this writer makes--so Barack dropped in and, presto!, he could legitimately claim to be a regular churchgoer.

The tactic, if indeed that is what it was, has somewhat backfired on him; but he's smart enough to survive it.

[My Blog: http://proteanPerspectives.blogspot.com]

I've just been over on planet Walsh where there is no oxygen. Thank god planet Greenwald is habitable for thinking people.

Obama's recitation of his relationships to family members on both sides inspired me to extend similar honesty and tolerance toward my own family members.

For those members of my family who hold preconceived notions that make me wince, who are not fully on-board or fully convinced by this speech, I am calling up every ounce of courage and empathy I can muster to try to help them work their way through it the right way.

I suspect that most supporters have family who still harbor these political prejudices and misunderstandings. Most of the time, we just shake our heads and accept that this is who they are. We don't want to argue with them, because we do not want to create the discomfort in what is otherwise a healthy, loving environment.

However, this opportunity may not come again for a very long time. We can no longer stand idly by without at least attempting to help others close to us understand. But we must do so without recrimination and without hostility. We must acknowledge the rational basis for their beliefs, and probe our way gently, in the hope that we may help them to a new, higher understanding.

Obama is not offering us anything but the opportunity to do the work necessary to forge our own destinies. That work begins at home, today.