Obama just did something I was convinced I would never see an American politician do again - he challenged us to face the truth about ourselves. As Glenn points out, only time will tell whether we Americans will collectively rise to this challenge or retreat back to our mind-numbing distractions.

And Obama accomplished one other thing that was personally meaningful to me - he made me admit to myself that I really do want to give this country one more chance.

What is distinctive is the far more consequential assumption that Americans want and are able to engage an elevated and more noble type of politics than the depressingly familiar garbage spewed from the Rush Limbaugh Show, The Drudge Report, Fox News, the cable news media stars, and all of their cooperating media and political appendages. We'll know soon enough if Obama is right.

I wouldn't hold Obama's "More Perfect Union" speech up to quite that high of an expectation! It wasn't supposed to completely defeat the right-wing noise machine in one blow. Its purpose was simply this: to assert control over the racial narrative in the 2008 campaign.

In that respect, it was a triumph. Anyone who wants to (re-)interject bigotry or trade on the tensions and insecurities of racial dynamics in the election is now going to have to fight an uphill battle against Obama's framing.

As for a more indelible impact on national political discourse, it seems foolish to regard Obama's oratory as, effective today, a finished body of work. This speech by itself may not succeed in winning over the entire American body politic to Obama's theory of change, and clearly if Obama were never to speak again business as usual would eventually resume. But the man is going to have a whole lot more to say before he's done, and is still coming into his own as an orator.

Don't look to today's speech as the ultima ratio Obama. Like the House FISA bill, it's simply an example of what's possible. His best is yet to come.

Readily stated contempt for the 'average' guy is one of the characteristics tells of people whose formal education has outstripped their real, native abilities. For 2 years now I've found Glenn Greenwald to be far less dismissive of the 'average' man's capabilities than most of his detractors. His stated ambivalence about which way the American public will break on this issue did not display any of the mediocrity-fueled contempt that gushes from them whenever the topic of 'human nature' comes up.

I barely made it through HS and never even went to my own graduation.

I have considerable contempt for the "average guy" in some ways.. I think Americans are amazingly ignorant and jawdroppingly gullible. Being almost totally ignorant of history will make you that way.

I'm peripherally involved with the American Legion who has been providing services for disabled vets returning from Iraq. They also have been providing honor guards for deceased vets.

It is impossible to get any of these guys to talk about why this is happening. They do not wish to hear it and I've found that attending any of these events leaves me frustrated beyond measure. My mental processes are geared toward knowing why any given thing is happening the way it is and I simply can't stand the frustration of being around people who will bury a dead brother in arms and not ask the question of why did this man have to die..

Not only do they not want to know why, they get angry if you even approach the question tangentially.

I think I know why it is that these good men and women don't want to ask questions.. Virtually to a man they were war cheerleaders and the guilt is overwhelming them.. They bought the "WMD, we gotta get Saddam out" story hook, line, sinker, rod and reel along with about half the arm holding the rod.

They wanted to go to war, thinking that it was going to be fun, easy, quick and cheap. My questions point the finger of blame at them for their dead comrades and they cannot stand the idea that they might in any way be at fault.

If they let themselves realize how badly they were taken, they have no one to blame but themselves for having to bury their dead.

So yeah, I'm not particularly impressed with the intellect of the average American.

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest one to fool" -Richard Feynman

wow,

this speech is what a campaign should be about.. not some 3AM stupid phone calls or obviously not working surge or some axis of evil and crusade but something that can make you think and give hope.

I am not a US citizen but if I was I will be voting for Obama..

... thinking that it was going to be fun, easy, quick and cheap. My questions point the finger of blame at them for their dead comrades and they cannot stand the idea that they might in any way be at fault.

Bingo.

I see the same in my family since almost everyone but me has served the empire. One of the Vietnam Vets has never come to terms with dropping napalm on villages full of women, children, and old men who were all just growing rice. War crimes? No, he says; we had to kill them to save our country.

Does he think they had rice-tipped missiles?

He will vote McCain.

Asher today... 1. It doesn't explain why he stayed in the church. Disowning Wright would not be tantamount to disowning the black community, as he suggested, nor would it be analogous to disowning his racist grandmother. Grandmothers aren't chosen, aren't replaceable, and ultimately, their political or racial views aren't that important to our relationships with them. If a pastor espouses bigotry, on the other hand, that's a problem. The whole purpose of being a pastor is to provide spiritual guidance. You can't do that very well if you endorse hate.

Asher's theory of human interaction

Cucumber sandwiches

By: Asher Steinberg

Posted: 9/21/06

The other day, I went to have dinner at the Loop with a longtime friend from freshman year, a good-natured but not particularly astute selective living group bum. You know the type-not the most suave or well-dressed, but, more than capable of charming mildly attractive members (albeit only mildly attractive members) of the opposite sex.

We sat outside, and, as we waited for our food, watched the many passersby. Each time I recognized someone, especially someone worth knowing, he would ask, "how do you know so-and-so," in the most surprised tone, as if it were a shock that I should know anyone. I found this reaction rather peculiar.

This went on for a while, until finally one of his living group friends came by to discuss girls and things. My friend mentioned that he was in mass last Sunday and met the cutest girl from a certain sorority named "Amanda." Amanda who, I asked? No sooner could I get the question out of my mouth than did my friend make a snickering grin and mutter, "Facebook!"

It was all I could do to prevent myself from either punching him in the face or coughing up my delicious Loop Burger-for the reason that I inquired after Amanda's surname was not so I could go look her up, but to see if his charming church-girl was the same Amanda with whom I hooked up, last year, after a costume party. And, as it happened, she was.

For the boy whose story I just told, and for others, who, like him, don't stop themselves from blurting out similarly offensive remarks-indeed, who don't know when they are being offensive-I fear this guide will have no use. It can only be of aid to the self-aware. If you consider yourself a reasonably self-aware individual, do, please, read on.

This theory came to me during an intolerably long phone call with my aunt. My aunt gets along with nobody in my family but me. I get along with everyone in my family. I tried to figure out, as the conversation wore on, just why this was, and I realized that it comes down to a difference in honesty. Let me explain.

My aunt is sick, and is very angry that no one seems to care. She believes that the estrangement between her and the family is due to a pattern of child abuse on the part of her father, which somehow caused the rift between her and her siblings.

Whenever my aunt speaks to any of her siblings, she insists on bringing this abuse up. Unfortunately for her, none of her siblings recalls it happening or cares to hear about it. Nevertheless, she presses on and gets them all very angry.

I said to her that what her relationships suffer from is her excessive candor. Upon realizing that her curious conversational strategy of focusing on past family traumas doesn't work, she should, I said, drop it completely.

I, on the other hand, never reveal what I really think. I am the only person in the family who doesn't laugh at her ideas, not because I think they're reasonable but because I value the health of our conversation over my being honest with her at any given moment. This is why I am the only member of the family who gets along with her-because I am willing to be dishonest.

My theory, then, is this. In any relationship or interaction, you must constantly ask yourself the following question: What matters to me more-my honesty with this person or our relationship? If you do not care at all about the person, then you are, of course, free to be as candid as you like.

But if you do care, there are many situations where you should lie or keep your mouth shut. The latter, in particular, is a lost art. I find it very aggravating to hear that my grandfather, whom I greatly admire, had a habit of beating his dog, especially when I know that it isn't true. But if I told my aunt she was delusional, we would cease to be on speaking terms at all.

Similarly, my friend may be shocked, out of ignorance or possibly just plain stupidity, that I know so-and-so. But if he had a mind, he would stop and ask himself what matters to him more-his sharing his surprise with me, or our friendship, which may not be able to withstand his constant expressions of shock that I should know anyone on campus.

In the end, then, friendship, like so much in life, comes down to cost-benefit analysis. Do the benefits of sharing whatever's on your mind outweigh the potential costs? If not, a rational person will be careful with his words. And to those who, like my friend, are not even capable of making this kind of analysis-good luck.

Asher Steinberg is a Trinity junior. His column runs every Thursday.

http://www.dukechronicle.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=97cf7278-ff4d-4f4b-9e94-c411c0992707