Obama hits one out of the park

I just finished listening to Barack Obama's speech on race relations that he delivered earlier today at the Constitutional Center in Philadelphia.

In short, I was pretty blown away with his speech - I really was. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that as I was driving in my car yesterday, I had a few twinges of doubt about whether Obama was going to survive this pseudo-scandal and I was listening to Bill Press on Sirius Satellite Radio. I have never personally believed Reverend Wright's highly offensive words to be any real reflection on Obama the man, but for a time, I felt that point of view was the minority opinion.

Quite frankly, this is one of the greatest political speeches I've heard, ever, and certainly the best one on race in my lifetime. I sincerely doubt that it will placate the right-wing nuts, and that's fine; nothing he says will ever satisfy them anyway. But, I'm thinking it will help him move beyond this controversy.

Since the presidential primaries began at the beginning of this year, it's nothing short of remarkable (and outrageous) about the press treatment that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have received. From my chair, it seems that the press vilified and slammed Hillary at every turn with overt misogyny by treating unfavorable opinions of her as fact, and also by bringing up every "scandal" ever associated with the Clintons, true or not. Clinton's early front runner status even presented the vapid Gennifer Flowers with another business opportunity to profit off the Clintons' public service.

And now, the press is all Obama, all the time, and not in a good way. And many of the negative stories are the result of a concerted effort by two of the most dominant and popular media outlets - Faux News and The Drudge Report. I've already written a great deal about this - Click Here. It still amazes me that major media networks and outlets report what they see and read on Drudge as if it is fact. This has happened so frequently in the past few years that it receives little if any attention, but it should. This right wing hack and provocateur has been doing the bidding of the Republican Party leadership for years, not to mention the numerous times he's taken stuff down from his Website that proved to be either false or riddled with half-truths. And apologies? Forget it - this guy apologizes less than my uncouth stepfather.

Here are some excerpts that I found particularly poignant and powerful, with my highlighted comments:

Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism. [Bill O'Lielly, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter, anyone?]

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own. [Sorry, Fox News - looks like Obama is humble and human after all. I can almost hear Roger Ailes screaming, "How dare he be humble! He wants humble? Get me more dirt on this Barack bin Laden and I'll show him humble!]

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

[...]

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and YouTube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way. [You mean there is possibly more to Reverend Wright than those 30-second YouTube clips? What a no doubt disappointing thought for the likes of Sean Hannity, Michael Wiener, O'Lielly and Limbaugh, but I'm sure this won't deter the throng of "the Obamas hate America" crowd.]

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

[...]

Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - 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, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. [Good - Obama is sticking by him, which shows guts and political courage - it would have been quick and expedient for Obama to throw him to the wolves, but he didn't do it.]

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American. [Sustained Applause]

[...]

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their world view in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

[...]

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

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; [Applause] they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

[...]

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

[...]

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change. [Yes! This is a theme that Democrats need to hammer over and over again - when the press spends time on someone a candidate is associated with a long time ago, we aren't spending time talking about the real issues that are affecting us: the wars, the deficit, lack of health care, etc. and this is just how Repubes want it. In '04, gay marriage was the big wedge issue. This year, it looks like it's race and (surprise) the Clinton scandals.]

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." [Emphasis Mine] This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time. [Emphasis Mine]

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

I can't even think of much to add to this speech, other than to say I think it hit just the right note, and now hopefully Obama can get started on putting this behind him. There's little doubt it will continue to get flogged on Drudge, Fox News and the like, but I believe that once people begin making reasoned, thought-out opinions on whether they should vote for Obama because of what his Reverend has said, he should be fine. I still believe he has too many delegates to not get the nomination.

I began poking around on Huff Po and YouTube for reactions to his speech, and to my surprise just about all of them were very encouraged by his speech and were generally positive. That alone qualifies as a "Wow," because those comment and message board areas can be fertile ground for cranks and intolerant rubes. Here's one of my favorite comments that I found: It's sad that a lot of these posters are cynical, angry, resentful and don't understand the history of America and the country and they want to sooooo much be proud in the superficial way, that they hate anybody that says anything bad about it.

Hmm - sound familiar? Michelle Obama, anyone? How dare she say that she hasn't been proud of her country in a long time?!? The NERVE!

Bill Clinton is wealthy. So what?

The Washington Post reports today that President Bill Clinton has earned more than $40 million from speaking fees in the six years since he left office, at $150,000 per speech. It's not news that former presidents become fabulously wealthy. What's not well-known, according to Bill Press this morning, at least, is that the $40 million is only from 20 percent of the speeches he made - the other 80 percent of his fees he either did pro bono, or he donated the money to his AIDS Foundation.

Tucker Carlson was upset the other day, saying it doesn't look good for a former president to become so wealthy. I would tend to agree with that, but it's the reality that all former presidents will become wealthy when they leave office. After going through all of the misery it takes to become elected in the first place, I say let them have their money, and that opinion applies to both political parties.

For instance, how wealthy do you think President Bush will become when he leaves office, with all of his corporate donors and friends? Anyone think he won't have tens of millions of dollars at his disposal? Good for him. Let's check back on this in a decade and see how wealthy President Bush is. I can't say I'll have a problem with it, really; former presidents are in demand to give speeches and be heard, and they have a right to earn money, too.

Funny how I didn't hear conservatives whining much when President Ronald Reagan earned $2 million for one speech in Japan after he left office. I also wonder how wealthy President Bush Sr. has become since he left office? The guy isn't hurting, that's for sure. But then again, as a one-term wonder, he might not be as in demand as Reagan was or Clinton is.

The bottom line here is that conservatives are angry that Bill Clinton has continuously beat the odds, and efforts to destroy him. I have a great amount of admiration and respect for Clinton - a whole lot more of both than I do for our current president. At least Clinton admitted his mistakes (albeit late). When is the last time Bush has publicly stated he made a mistake about anything?

People also forget that Clinton was basically bankrupt when he left office, with millions in legal bills that needed to be paid, mostly from right-wing funded witch hunts, which he needed to defend himself against in the courts.

But boy, Paula Jones sure did get a nice nose job from her settlement, didn't she? James Carville said it best about her - she's what you get when you drag a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park.

Wishing Sirius Left would leave

I'm a big fan of Sirius Satellite Radio, ad most of you know by now. But, in one aspect, I wouldn't mind seeing Sirius and XM merge, because the Sirius Talk Left channel on Sirius is pretty much God-awful from top to bottom, with a few exceptions.

At the top of my list of peeves about Sirius Talk Left is Lynn Samuels (below right). She could be the worst radio talk show host I have ever heard. Ever. Samuels and Rush Limbaugh should mate to create the ultimate anti-Christ of radio.

From her voice (a dead on ringer for Linda Richman on Saturday Night Live's Coffee Talk), to her ridiculous opinions, she has no business being on radio, period. To wit, just today alone, she's laughing about a joke that Sarah Silverman made about Anne Frank's genitals; she also is whining and complaining about how several Mexican actors were waving Mexican flags last night at "the AMERICAN Academy Awards!" (emphasis hers) She later goes on to say, "They can take those Mexican flags and stick them up their f------ a----. Sniiiiiffffffffffff! Smell the diversity. This moron calls herself a Democrat?!?

Last week, Samuels said this about men, and she wasn't joking: "There isn't a man alive on Earth who doesn't hate women. Men would have exterminated women a long time ago if they could have gotten away with it - they would have just left a few of us around to make babies." Yea, sure Lynn. My favorite thing about Samuels is how she's always saying on the air, "Nobody likes me. I don't have any friends." I can't possibly imagine why. What a sick, twisted, bitter old maid.

Weekday mornings from 6-9, Bill Press (at left) is on, who's at least listenable. But, at times, I can understand why CNN fired him, too. His reasoning on the issues, whether I agree with them or not, is generally well thought out, but then he'll turn right around and revert to Sean Hannity-like name calling that gets old in about 15 minutes.

The Alex Bennett Show follows Press' show, and it's a close second to Lynn Samuels' blabbering as the most annoying show. Bennett (left) has a cohost, Garrett, argues with Bennett about everything he brings up. Nothing is out of bounds for argument between these two. When I listen to talk radio, I want to be informed, not annoyed. Some good-spirited debate is one thing, but listening to this show is akin to listening to a three-hour battle royal. The commercials during Bennett's show are like islands of reality in a sea of diarrhea.

The Thom Hartmann Show is a good one, but unfortunately, he's mostly on Air America now, and he's only on Sirius from 12-1, right before the Lynn Samuels train wreck. I like him, but I'm never around to listen to his show at noon. And, what's worse, Air America Radio has an exclusive deal with XM. Figures, too - when Air America first launched, it was on both satellite networks, but right before I get Sirius, it goes to XM. Again, that's one good thing I can point to about the proposed Sirius-XM merger - getting Air America.

The Ed Schultz Show is on from 3-6 in the afternoon, and he's my favorite. I flat out love his wit, banter, realism, and properly controlled and articulated anger. I could listen to him for six hours. I do wish he'd get more air time, but 3-6 is good, too, because that's generally when I'm driving home.

The Stephanie Miller Show follows Schultz's. So far, from what little I've heard, she's pretty good - she seems like an Ann Coulter, but more attractive, even tempered and intelligent. Basically, she's everything Coulter is not, and that's about as ringing of an endorsement as I can give.

I guess this ended up going long, but my whole point was to riff on Lynn Samuels. She's God-awful, but there aren't any other liberal channels on Sirius, and when I'm in the mood for politics, I put it on. Sometimes, however, when Samuels sends me over the edge with her absurdities, I switch over to NPR.