@ blank

-I suppose the measure of someone's character is the list of things they're willing to tolerate, both good and bad. But I can't honestly imagine any President going to Church every Sunday and listening to someone rail about the "US of KKK-A". Perhaps you can but I think this shows either a political stupidity or moral blindness and indifference to all Americans. You can't very well claim an inclusion that's supposed to heal all wounds and then turn around and silently tolerate someone condemning 80% of Americans who aren't black. We get it, really. Malcolm-X, revolution, de-stroy white boy. We get it. It's not even particularly new or interesting. But it makes for bad Presidential theater.-

I grew up in family that attended an Anglican church at least once a week, sang in the choir for four years, an alter boy for four more, sunday school, summer day camp, etc., etc. So what?

Today I am an atheist. How does the contents of my (former) church's minister's sermons, whether on tape or not, speak of who I am or what I do or do not believe today?

To expound on my reply to your Bill Maher is the "White Liberal" exemplar: Maher was seriously asking on his TV show if maybe George Bush has some insight after all. He asked that several times and in all seriousness because Iraqis had stuck their purple fingers into the camera man's face. Maher is a twit to buy into that crap. Also, Bill Maher is a big fan, ("reads her every column") of the sick and ridiculous, Maureen Dowd.

2005:

http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20050704&s=trillin

THE NATION
deadline poet | posted June 16, 2005 (July 4, 2005 issue)

Cheney Says Iraq Insurgents Are in 'Last Throes'

When rockets fly and battle smoke is thick,
It's good to hear from "Four Deferments Dick."

He's always sure. He knows what warfare is--
Enough to know it's not for him or his.

Insurgents somehow, though they're in the throes,
Kill more GIs--but no one Cheney knows.

- - Calvin Trillin

2008:

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/national/
/20080319_On_wars_5th_anniversary_veep_upbeat.html

PHILADEPHIA DAILY NEWS
Wed, Mar. 19, 2008

ON WAR'S 5TH ANNIVERSARY, VEEP UPBEAT

BAGHDAD - [...] Cheney gave an upbeat view of conditions in Iraq as he concluded his unannounced trip to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion. Cheney also defended the toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as part of the struggle against terrorism following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

This month, an exhaustive Pentagon-sponsored review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents captured during the 2003 U.S. invasion found no evidence that Saddam's regime had any operational links with the al Qaeda terrorist network.

But Cheney, who spent the night at a sprawling U.S. base in the northern town of Balad, told soldiers they were defending future generations of Americans from a global terror threat.

"This long-term struggle became urgent on the morning of September 11, 2001. That day we clearly saw that dangers can gather far from our own shores and find us right there at home," said Cheney, accompanied by his wife, Lynne, and their daughter, Elizabeth.

"So the United States made a decision: to hunt down the evil of terrorism and kill it where it grows; to hold the supporters of terror to account, and to confront regimes that harbor terrorists and threaten the peace," Cheney said.

- - Philadelphia Daily News, 3/19/2008

...before I hit the road for work.

I agree with several posters that there was some AIPAC pandering deftly slipped into Obama's speech.

Let's face it, in US politics you are dead in the water if you don't pander to what is arguably the most powerful political lobby in the country, at least on the stump and probably to some extent or other while in office if you plan on serving a second term.

He's not Jesus, he's a Presidential contender.

Overall a great speech and terrific coverage by Mr. Greenwald as always.

The analysis why this speech will change everything has a fatal flaw - I can appreciate the message and the mind behind the analysis, but still deem the messenger to be too flawed for the top job.

Racism is atm one of the most damaging allegations in american politics (maybe together with anti-semitism). In my perception his campaign cautiously used the race card as well as pandering to Hillary haters to gain votes - doing whatever it takes to unseat the (former) 800pds gorilla blocking the way to nomination...

A lot of people feel uneasy about the fervent, almost religious acolytes of Barak Obama. There was a good post in the speech's comments, displaying samples of their rhetoric. Ardent fans (see link) have perception filters where everything resonates different. What had Clinton's followers offended as character assasination had Obamites nod in agreement.

Obama's campaign took the high ground, a change of paradigms. Obama put the bar for personal conduct up very high himself, and in my view he has already failed. There were many good opportunities to slam down on the racism debate before this - but then it was the Clintons' problem.

And so I still distrust his motives, sorry. Having the insights, brains and rhetorical abilities to dissect this festering wound in American society is one thing, and I definitely admire his courage.

But he has been made the messiah of the new political cult, and suddenly we wake up to the prophet not being perfect but flawed himself. Remember what we do to messiahs. We don't make them king. We crucify them and mourn their passing afterwards...

[On a total different note, until now this has been a perfectly streamlined marketing campaign, creating the Obama brand and 3 word bumper sticker slogans. This worked like a charm. But the racism message is too complicated for this approach, and I don't believe the speech will work. But the PA primaries will tell...]

And not one comment noting that a black man running for president of the USA made a forty five minute speech on race in America today and never once mentioned that one in three of his fellow black males will go to prison in his lifetime.

Clearly, the amount of melanin in your skin has a determining factor in your moral code. The more melanin in your skin, the more flexible your morals.

White is good and pure and black is evil and impure.

Who can really blame white Americans for being skeptical of a man with so much melanin in his skin? Men with large amounts of melanin in their skin are far more immoral than those with less.. The sentencing statistics make that inarguable.

Justice wears a blindfold and has no way of knowing how much melanin your skin contains.

I deliberately waited this long to pull the trigger on this comment just to make it obvious that no one else was going to do so. Since I have been told repeatedly that a great many of you are so concerned over the racial inequities in our "justice system" I thought I would give you sufficient time to remark upon the blatantly obvious.

I'd happily wager that I could have waited until the thread was locked and no one else would have made this observation.

One in three black men between the ages of 20 and 29 years old is under correctional supervision or control.

Source: Mauer, M. & Huling, T., Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later (Washington DC: The Sentencing Project, 1995).