But first, you are apparently agreeing with me that people can have different interpretions or reactions to the speech without being a sign of intellectual dishonesty as Pete and Justin seem to assert.

And second, you see the rest of the speech as answering the question I ask abou that one section- and I get that too- but then I put the whole speech up against the 20 years of doing nothing about the divisive rhetoric that was prevalent in his large church- and then the whole speech ends up coming across as a politically expedient one instead of a sincere expression of his belief about how important it is to marginalize the older, angry ideas about racism.

Get it?

That's what the rest of the speech is for.

You see, what I see as the flaw is that you seem to have an issue with one part of his speech that would lead you to believe he might not be willing to reject Wright's views. But plenty of places in the REST of the speech show that he does just that. It's ok that you worry about that one line, and if he had just said that I would agree with you, but he said a lot of other things, and they are directly related. I think it's misguided to point to one piece of the speech and decide on one interpretation of it, while ignoring the rest of the speech, where he specifically notes that that interpretation is wrong.

http://themoderatevoice.com/at-tmv/newsweek-blo...

Everyone saw what happened to him in 2004, at the hands of the political party whose members fancy themselves as supporters of the military.

Why wouldn't Republicans misrepresent Obama in a way that suits their own political ambitions? Don't you think they've misrepresented Hillary Clinton?

One of the problems with out current politics is that Republicans get rewarded for doing this.

It's not like they can run on the issues.

As for that “commenter”, maybe he's just sloppy or maybe he's acting in bad faith. Either way, he's just going to accuse you of sloppiness or bad faith.

It's time to break that cycle.

To repeat an earlier point: perhaps the commenter was wrong to say that his statement meant that Obama thinks all blacks are racist- but it still is the case that he implies that the black community isn't willing to have their racism called out.

My recollection of the speech had Obama saying that he could not 'disavow' when actually I see that the word he used was 'disown'. That actually makes more sense and leaves him less open to the criticism that was applied here.

But it also highlights again the missed opportunity; he could have said that he can't disown the person of Wright (nor the person of his grandmother) but he can (and must) disavow their racist views. That would have made a stronger point (sort of the 'hate the sin, love the sinner' meme) and would have underscored what I think is his true belief: that we have to accept that some blacks and some whites still harbor resentment which shows up as racism, but we don't have to consider those attitudes are actually acceptable any longer. We have to tell people like that that we understand their feelings but their feelings will have to be put aside in order to move on from the past.

And I asked the question earlier, but no one has responded: why is it illogical to say that this statement implies that all black people think as Wright does? In fact, that is the logical conclusion that a listener would have, and there's much there that could and should offend black people who aren't racists (and in fact, the commenter who wrote that criticism on that point also mentions that some blacks have expressed offense at it.)

Now, I don't for a minute think that this is what Obama believes, or that he meant it that way. But why is it wrong to point out that this is in fact what is implicit in that statement- that it was a mistake to say it that way? Is he somehow above a critical analysis, just because the speech on the whole was good?

Or, if Pete or someone else can demonstrate how that particular criticism was 'sloppy' or inaccurate, go ahead. But so far, no one has answered my question, other than to point out that there were OTHER reasons (personal ones) that Obama feels he couldn't disavow Wright. Fair enough, but if that's the real reason then he should have left this part out.

I think it's a fair criticism, not because I'd have wanted Obama to publicly tar and feather Wright- but because if he's serious about now understanding how incendiary Wright's attitudes are, he should have gone further in explaining why he didn't realize that before. He could have done that by pointing out how the friendship blinded him to it, or that the good works of the TUCC community blinded him to this other stuff going on, or whatever. But he really didn't go there, and that was a big missed opportunity IMO. As it is, he comes across as less serious than he ought to be about standing up to black racism just as much as to white racism.

Overall I thought it was a very good speech, and one that probably did what it needed to do (both in helping Obama plug up hemorrhaging from his campaign and in opening a much needed dialogue about race relations, in a way that is natural instead of contrived to help his campaign.)

As domajot says, we can separate the politician from the message. In that sense, though, I think those who don't want to analyze the politics of the speech are going overboard. It's fine to point out that some people are fawning over it too much, and some are criticizing it too much, but in criticizing people for willfully misconstruing it we should also be careful not to willfully misconstrue what those people actually said about the speech. If you disagree with the specific points made by critics, then you have to demonstrate why that person was wrong in their analysis, and on this one point I don't think the commenter being criticized was wrong to point out a flaw in the speech.

Again, Pete is right to point out that in other parts of the speech, Obama clearly indicated that he DOESN'T think that all blacks are racist. But this one statement does imply that- or at least it implies that the black community supports racist members and wouldn't want him to call them out on it too strongly. And of course the reason some of us object to that is that we feel that racism can't be the response to racism- that someone like Obama needs to call them out on it, to disavow that segment of black culture more stridently. He's in a unique position to do that, and he's coming closer than most any black poliiician before him has, but some of us believe he needs to go a bit farther (despite realizing how difficult that is.)

I've been discussing this via e-mail, and even the most conservative of my group (3) agree that most of the failure to understand the gist of Obama's speech is a willful failure of political convenience

What is most difficult for us to wittle down to clear questions for debate is the topic of appropriate means of expressing dissent. We are still prone to go off on tangents there.
Oddly, it's the black friend living in Berkely, California who is harshest on Rev. Wright and Obama's association with him. That would seem to back up Paul's comment about politics being a personal and emotional matter: how does this affect me? Even he, understands what Obama was trying to say, though, and his criticism is more about tactics than essence.

The more centrist and liberal of us, even those who wouldn't vote for Obama in a genral election. are all solidly behind his speech and see it as a monumental moment in American public life. All of us can separate Obama, the politician in the flesh ,from Obama's message.

He touched on this briefly, but I would love to hear Obama speak at length about productive vs corrosive ways of debating differences. I can't think of another current public figure with the intellectual power to do it. Even Obama can't do it now. Maybe, one day.

When the media slapped their foreheads and said “Gee he really is a politician after all.”

ironically, the same thing happened to Bush with the TANG story in 2004. Did any Bush opponent really care about Bush's National Guard service? No. Even if he served, he still didn't go to Vietnam. But when Dan Rather trumped up a story about Bush and TANG, so many opponents of Bush – for other reasons – defended the TANG story to the very end. It's about sides, not logic.

This is how politics works. We rarely support or oppose candidates because of discrete events or supporters or statements. We take a more totalizing approach, and we use these episodes to bolster our case to the shrinking minority of undecided voters.

Now, that said, if someone really is caught doing something bad then they can genuinely hemorrhage support. If Obama had tried to justify Wright's 9/11 comments, for example, then his own support base would have crumbled. But Obama clearly does not believe in the paranoid black nationalism of Wright. It is now about association and not values – as he made fully clear in his speech – and those who make illogical arguments about Obama's speech never liked him in the first place.

There is a strong argument to make that Independents are the ones most tired of the flag-wrapping politics-as-usual, which is why Obama appeals to them. If the attacks against him are the usual mess of cherrypicking statements to tear down his character and question his patriotism (something that anyone paying attention knows is bull) then it may just backfire this time – there is palpable anger at those who go negative, and a growing realization that negative campaigning reflects more on the person engaging in that behavior than in the target of that behavior.

It will cost Obama very much among indies that were considering supporting him, and it plays very nicely into the Repub playbook of wrapping their candidate in the flag for POTUS elections.

I'm sure they have already cut the commercials featuring Rev Wright.

It wasn't about disavowing all blacks. Obama was married by the guy, and then the entire country asked him to write him off because he spoke his mind at church. And Obama didn't do it and he elaborated pretty clearly why.

Basically in a nutshell, if I pretend I never had anything to do with anyone I know becaue they suddenly become a liability, then its indeed politics as usual, and the voters of America know it. Instead, lets think of why I might know this guy in the first place and open ourselves up to the idea that even though he's quick to blame his own country for things that went wrong, maybe he's still got something to offer people. Maybe he doesn't need to get burned at the stake for that, especially since I'm trying to get people to take a harder look at the big picture. Maybe behind the difference in opinon of the why and the how we all still want the same thing in the end and need to stick together.