Me, I'm with Charles Murray, who has borne more than his share of race-baiting slings and arrows:
I read the various posts here on "The Corner," mostly pretty ho-hum or critical about Obama's speech. Then I figured I'd better read the text (I tried to find a video of it, but couldn't). I've just finished. Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one? As far as I'm concerned, it is just plain flat out brilliant—rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in America. It is so far above the standard we're used to from our pols.... But you know me. Starry-eyed Obama groupie.
Seriously, I really wonder about today's conservatives. Have we gotten to the point that we can't even appreciate a great speech, even when it's given by someone we oppose?
2. Along these lines, Wes Comer really isn't very thoughtful is he? I honestly had some (waning) hope for him ever since he started gracing us with his presence, but I've now officially given up. (By the way, what's with the getup Comer puts Obama in? What's he going for there?)
3. Hey! Wes was a big supporter of Mike Huckabee. Wonder what he thinks about this quote from his guy:
And one other thing I think we've gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say "That's a terrible statement!"...I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack -- and I'm gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you -- we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told "you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus..." And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.
Mike! You sell-out!
4. The other thing I'm finding really irritating is this conservative-ish "defense" of Geraldine Ferarro, which, I suppose to be fair, is less a defense of her than it is an excoriation of political correctness and so forth. "Well, it's true!" is the going refrain.
Well, yes...and no. There is no doubt that part--indeed a big part--of Barack Obama's appeal is his race, in the sense that his election--even his mere nomination--would be a history-making enterprise. But to suggest that, essentially, his race is the whole reason for his appeal, which is where I think she goes in her statements, trivializes him and his candidacy to nothing more than some black guy who happens to be running for president, as though just any black guy could accomplish what he has by virtue of nothing more than his being black.
And to draw the comparison between herself in 1984 and Obama now doesn't help either. He's working for his shot all on his own. She was just tapped by some old white guy to be his running mate in a largely doomed campaign for no better reason than that she pees sitting down.
5. Well, John, all of this is helping you quite a bit, isn't it? Good. Go out and raise some cash.
