Obama's speech was good, but questions remain

It might have been funnier if Bill Cosby had written it, but I think Barack Obama was fairly balanced:

"For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life.

"But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family.

"And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny."

On another point, the link between Rev. Wright and Barack Obama's grandmother is not that their statements are ethically equivalent, although they both share a tendency to unfairly stereotype others. The point he was making is that he is bound to them both like family, even while he disagrees with them. This is something that I think can seem bad about Obama, but is really a rare and powerful strength: he does not tend to see people as good and evil. He's sees almost all of us all trying to make our way, and capable of change. I'll be very glad if we get a president like that.

Well I think it was about time someone has called it what it truely is.
We are lead by money driven polititions and if you think this war and our economy problems are not the problems of our own making, as a country, I don't know what else you can blame it on.
I personaly wish American's would get off their "high horse" and clean up Washington. Mc Cains and Clinton's "experience" is exactly why I will not vote for either of them.
We are a country of people that believe we have a "right" to dominate and pass judgement on other country's and how they should be governed. We need to clean up our own yard before we start talking about "the axis of EVIL".
I think Bush has done a good job at being pretty evil himself.

Every American newspaper that aspires to be more than a shopper has a right - some would argue a responsibility - to present thoughtfully considered editorial opinion. When the Paradise Post publishes fear-mongering, right-wing propaganda it fails its readers and swims in the sewer of divisiveness. The PP writes: "One has to ask the question: just how much of Jeremiah Wright has rubbed off on Obama and what does he truly believe?"

The real question might be: is the editorial board of the PP so mired in the conservative swamp of hatred that it advocates the dissemination of disinformation, innuendo, and irresponsible rumor?

Is the PP a newspaper or a house organ of the Republican Party? From this perspective appears to be a Bush league journalistic backwater gutter rag.

The problem with the Post's editorials is that they start from a rigid rightwing perspective, deny reality of the mistakes of republicans politicians in general and the Bush administration in particular, and wind up casting blame on people that have no authority to effect the outcome of such actions as Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq.

That this newspaper and it's editorial board would cast aspersions on a political candidate that they seem to really hate is unethical journalism.

Since when is a person responsible for the beliefs of a minister, the throughts of a spouse or the actions of a friend? As a noted Catholic from Indiana put it: "I was raised as a Catholic. My brother is a priest. The church I go to recently had to weather the embarrassment of having one of the priests assigned to us indicted for molestating a child. But for a newspaper, broadcast pundit or even a fellow parishiner to suggest that I leave my church because of the actions of that priest, and then try to burden me with the responsibility for that act because I would not walk away from my church is reprehensible.

When it comes to both the broadcast and the print media: People that live in glass houses really shouldn't throw stones!

How can obama attend his church for 20 years listening to such racist sermons and not be influenced by them? If my white church had the same type sermons we would no doubt be labeled racist without question. the Rev Wright uses the lords name in vain in his sermon. I would never tolerate this from my minister.

I agree with the the other commentators. I am so sick of the right wing propaganda station, FAUX "news" continous lies and smear of Democrats, Obama in particular. and then you the Editor of the only newspaper in town, jumping on the band wagon. Why don't you editorialize about McCain asking for the endorsement of kook fringe pastor Haggee, who advocates the genocide of Muslims, who calls the Catholic Church the Whore, who claims Katrina was punishment of New Orleans for being sinful? Or how about McCains other Kook Pastor endorser, Parsley, the one who claims that America was founded to wipe out Muslims. Both of these hate merchants are leading the dumb as Bush McCain right down the path to "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Iran. Yet you flip out over Pastor Wright for weeks on end. Is that what you REALLY want, more war and killing in the name of warped religion? If that is the case, what makes Pastors Haggee and Parsley any better than the Islamic extremists who preach jihad against America? Killing is killing.

Typical lefty trying to justify things like damning America and blaming whites for giving the aids virus purposely to blacks by saying silly things like some "kook fringe Pastor". Frank, you liberals purposely IGNORE the hateful words of Wright and IGNORE that Black militants and Black Muslims and Haters like Wright are all over Obama's web pages and have INFLUENCED this maulatto's way of thinking. Plus he is a liar when he denies knowing anything about it. So Frank what you are really saying is OUR guy is a militant, pathological liar and we prefer him over what we perceive as OTHER liars who may be in your political party. And this is the best we can do in terms of offering leadership for America? Ptoooey!

Frank I see lies coming from your posts, so far those are the only lies I see. You are equating two ministers who endorse McCain and the Rev Wright. McCain does not attend these ministers’ churches. They are not his pastors. Whereas Obama did attend Wrights church for 20 years and does say that Wright is his mentor and spiritual leader. You cannot honestly compare these two situations. Are the two ministers who endorsed McCain part of his campaign team? Was Obamas’ pastor on his campaign team, until this all blew up on him? Frank there was hardly any media coverage on what those two ministers said. Don’t you think if it was as big a deal as you are trying to make it into the left leaning media would have been all over it? Why did it die Frank? It is like comparing apples and oranges. Besides that Wrights comments were not about religion, his comments were political.

I have a solution for you as far as Fox news is concerned. If you don’t like their opinion or their reporting then don’t watch.

Since you like olbermann.
http://www.olbermannwatch.com/archives/2008/0...

This man saw the difficulties with the Obama campaign before they happened and wrote a book about his fellow African American.

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

Uh, its a little hard to understand you, but I will try to respond.
I have said, as has Obama, that the Comments of Rev. Wright are wrong headed, far fetched, and that I, and Obama disagree with them.
In the overall scheme of issues and problems that America faces, the whole Wright thing is small potatos, and has been very much overblown. Lets try to move on please.
Have you really gone to Obama's web site? From your political veiws expressed, I really don't think you have. Come on, be honest here. I haven't been to McCains.
Please... Obama has not denied knowing anything about it. I know it would be tough for you, but if you actually listened to Obama's speech, you would know that what you said was not true.
Oh I get it now, you are saying that I think that McCain is a militant pathological liar. Well, its pretty clear that he is using militant rhetoric in speeches, songs, and press interviews. It is also pretty clear that he is making innacurate statements about the situation in Iraq and Iran in general. Pathological? I dont think he's insane, just foolish, unethical, and no smarter than Bush.
I'm not all that happy with my political party either, I just think they are less destructive than your's.
I agree with you that the "Leadership" in general could use alot of improvement in both parties, and that America deserves better that what it has been getting. ptooey is right.

Brad II,
McCain ASKED for Haggee's endorsement, and shure isn't repudiating either one, like Obama has with Wright. It is fair to tar McCain with the even more objectionable Pastors that he courts. While Obama has rebuked and distanced, McCain has cozied up. What about the Airbus lobbyists that ARE, part ot McCain's campagn team? How do you like that situation?
Well yeah! how about that lack of media coverage... Pretty despicable isn't it! Left leaning Media? You have got to be kidding. THe mainstream media is all for the most part middle to far right. Even MSNBC, they have Olberman, and thats it. The concept of the "liberal" media is a right wing myth. Like you don't know that already.
I have to get most of my stories off the Internet, because the center to far right media just doesn't cover it. Why dont you read up on the Sibel Edmonds story, and lets talk about that.

The Rev. Wright's rants give new meaning to the word "change."

For all you that think the Iraq war is worth it. For all you that think more war with McCain is just fine. Here is a picture for you to consider. Each red flag represents an American soldier, someones son, husband ,or father... dead. Then compare them to the number of white flags. Each one represents a dead Iraqi man, woman, or child... Think about it. Make sure to enlarge the picture, then scroll across.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/170/416901761_...

From Mark Steyn:

“To do this, he promoted a false equivalence.“I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother,” he continued.“A woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street.” Well, according to the way he tells it in his book, it was one specific black man on her bus, and he wasn’t merely “passing by.” When the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dumped some of his closest cabinet colleagues to extricate himself from a political crisis, the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe responded:“Greater love hath no man than to lay down his friends for his life.” In Philadelphia, Senator Obama topped that: Greater love hath no man than to lay down his gran’ma for his life. In the days that followed, Obama’s interviewers seemed grateful for the introduction of a less complicated villain: Unlike the Reverend Wright, she doesn’t want God to damn America for being no better than al-Qaeda, but on the other hand she did once express her apprehension about a black man on the bus. It’s surely only a matter of days before Keith Olbermann on MSNBC names her his “Worst Person In The World.” Asked about the sin of racism beating within Gran’ma’s breast, Obama said on TV that “she’s a typical white person.”

Which doesn’t sound like the sort of thing the supposed “post-racial” candidate ought to be saying, but let that pass. How “typically white” is Obama’s grandmother? She is the woman who raised him — that’s to say, she brought up a black grandchild and loved him unconditionally. Burning deep down inside, she may nurse a secret desire to be Simon Legree or Bull Connor, but it doesn’t seem very likely. She does then, in her own flawed way, represent a post-racial America. But what of her equivalent (as Obama’s speech had it)? Is Jeremiah Wright a “typical black person”? One would hope not. A century and a half after the Civil War, two generations after the Civil Rights Act, the Reverend Wright promotes victimization theses more insane than anything promulgated at the height of slavery or the Jim Crow era. You can understand why Obama is so anxious to meet with President Ahmadinejad, a man who denies the last Holocaust even as he plans the next one. Such a summit would be easy listening after the more robust sermons of Jeremiah Wright.

But America is not Ahmadinejad’s Iran. Free societies live in truth, not in the fever swamps of Jeremiah Wright. The pastor is a fraud, a crock, a mountebank — for, if this truly were a country whose government invented a virus to kill black people, why would they leave him walking around to expose the truth? It is Barack Obama’s choice to entrust his daughters to the spiritual care of such a man for their entire lives, but in Philadelphia the senator attempted to universalize his peculiar judgment — to claim that, given America’s history, it would be unreasonable to expect black men of Jeremiah Wright’s generation not to peddle hateful and damaging lunacies. Isn’t that — what’s the word?— racist? So much for the post-racial candidate.”

Brad II wrote:

From Mark Steyn:
“To do this, he promoted a false equivalence.“I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother,” he continued.“A woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street.” Well, according to the way he tells it in his book, it was one specific black man on her bus, and he wasn’t merely “passing by.” When the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dumped some of his closest cabinet colleagues to extricate himself from a political crisis, the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe responded:“Greater love hath no man than to lay down his friends for his life.” In Philadelphia, Senator Obama topped that: Greater love hath no man than to lay down his gran’ma for his life. In the days that followed, Obama’s interviewers seemed grateful for the introduction of a less complicated villain: Unlike the Reverend Wright, she doesn’t want God to damn America for being no better than al-Qaeda, but on the other hand she did once express her apprehension about a black man on the bus. It’s surely only a matter of days before Keith Olbermann on MSNBC names her his “Worst Person In The World.” Asked about the sin of racism beating within Gran’ma’s breast, Obama said on TV that “she’s a typical white person.”
Which doesn’t sound like the sort of thing the supposed “post-racial” candidate ought to be saying, but let that pass. How “typically white” is Obama’s grandmother? She is the woman who raised him — that’s to say, she brought up a black grandchild and loved him unconditionally. Burning deep down inside, she may nurse a secret desire to be Simon Legree or Bull Connor, but it doesn’t seem very likely. She does then, in her own flawed way, represent a post-racial America. But what of her equivalent (as Obama’s speech had it)? Is Jeremiah Wright a “typical black person”? One would hope not. A century and a half after the Civil War, two generations after the Civil Rights Act, the Reverend Wright promotes victimization theses more insane than anything promulgated at the height of slavery or the Jim Crow era. You can understand why Obama is so anxious to meet with President Ahmadinejad, a man who denies the last Holocaust even as he plans the next one. Such a summit would be easy listening after the more robust sermons of Jeremiah Wright.
But America is not Ahmadinejad’s Iran. Free societies live in truth, not in the fever swamps of Jeremiah Wright. The pastor is a fraud, a crock, a mountebank — for, if this truly were a country whose government invented a virus to kill black people, why would they leave him walking around to expose the truth? It is Barack Obama’s choice to entrust his daughters to the spiritual care of such a man for their entire lives, but in Philadelphia the senator attempted to universalize his peculiar judgment — to claim that, given America’s history, it would be unreasonable to expect black men of Jeremiah Wright’s generation not to peddle hateful and damaging lunacies. Isn’t that — what’s the word?— racist? So much for the post-racial candidate.”

I laughed so hard...you gotta love Mark Steyn...

He wrote a great book too....America Alone

Brad, Steyn is great. I read Steyns book last year shortly after it came out. Did you hear Hewitt today? Hewitt was playing clips of Obamas '95 audio book, Dreams From My Father. Steyn had some great insight into Obamas book. Obama is/was searching for who he is. Obama has some good points but do we really want someone who is not sure who he is as president?

Brad II wrote:

Brad, Steyn is great. I read Steyns book last year shortly after it came out. Did you hear Hewitt today? Hewitt was playing clips of Obamas '95 audio book, Dreams From My Father. Steyn had some great insight into Obamas book. Obama is/was searching for who he is. Obama has some good points but do we really want someone who is not sure who he is as president?

Only parts of it...he's been reading it for several days and I must admit the drama in Obama's voice as he puts on his phony African accent portraying his sis makes me a little sick....

I saw Miller on the other post....guess I'll have to sent it to my brother...he's a big Obamma fan...

Noticed you've been reading another book common to us both. In my previous readings on Iran I'd already known about Kermit Roosevelt, but that book I've seen you mention in your posts had new information I found fascinating....Norman Schwartz croft …was the US General in charge of military policy at the time of Roosevelt's interventions....that blew me away. The Iranians KNOW the history far better than Americans. It must have been deja vu to have his grandson and namesake in charge of the Iraqi theater in 91....fascinating...