“So here the problem is, Jeremiah Wright is conducive to a 10-second sound bite and the speech is not … This is the problem. The Wright thing is perfect for our short attention spans, and this requires a little bit of attention. It takes some sitting down and settling in and not a lot of folks are willing to do that.”
— Michael Smerconish, morning drive-time host for Philadelphia’s 1210 AM WPHT, on Obama’s race speech and reactions to it.
I’d like to hope Mr. Smerconish is wrong, but — after writing one and then another long post on this subject — I continue to have a very sick feeling he’s right.
On the other hand — as Justin Gardner suggested in the comments on my second related post — every time someone tries to unfairly cancel Obama’s 45 minutes with 10 seconds of soundbite, if we all agree to speak up and fight back, maybe our collective effort will make a difference. Or, as the Senator from Illinois said (and Joe Klein echoed yesterday), we have a choice: To let this situation be like every other situation before it, when the subject of race is raised, or to at last say no, “not this time.”