It does have a Familiar Ring to it... <br><br><br><br><br>[color:green]"...or am I a butterfly that's dreaming she's a woman?"</font color=green> [color:green]. . . _ _ _ . . .</font color=green><br>

You need to read the speech before you think that Reverend Wright would be pissy about the speech. The only ones pissy, including the right, are the ones who really refused to listen. Not really Obama's base. I think Obama continues to win over conservatives and cranky right wingers. If they are willing to listen.<br><br><br><br><br><br><br>

So there?<br><br>Okay, so there. I suppose you could go read any number of blogs for reaction to the speech and ignore the spirit and the words themselves and be perfectly fine with it because it conforms to the viewpoint you chose beforehand. There are plenty of places to go, all just falling over themselves to determine your interpretation for you.<br><br>And it's easy.<br><br>It's much much easier to read and understand someone else's characterization in ten words or less. Then it's easier to hang on to some motto created in an echo chamber and sound to other people as though you have an opinion when you might not actually have an opinion. You might have someone else's opinion.<br><br>That's fine for some people.<br><br>-- Cee Bee Double-U

That's the most striking thing about the speech and the posture that Sen. Obama is taking. It seems the most beaten track for a politician when challenged to just attack someone else or blame things on someone else. Sen. Obama's approach has been to explain, even if it seems miniscule. I hope people listen and interpret his words for themselves.<br><br>-- Cee Bee Double-U

<center><br><br><iframe height="339" width="425" src="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/23691239#23691239" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><br><br></center><br><br>[color:green]"...or am I a butterfly that's dreaming she's a woman?"</font color=green> [color:green]. . . _ _ _ . . .</font color=green><br>

If it were anything but rhetoric I may have praise for Obama's words. It was an amazing speech from the sheer aspect that a modern politician talked about race openly and evenly. I do not discount the language that he used, artfully, to express the feelings of angst that many voters, white or black will identify with. But I do not think he accomplished his aim of distancing himself from the hatred that his pastor of twenty years has expressed. Prior to today, Obama has been able to transcend race as a candidate. If anything, whether intentional or not, he has now made made himself to be the black candidate. <br><br>

If that's your response than the next question is: what exactly did you want/need him to do?<br><br>I don't know what else Sen. Obama could have done to explain the differences between himself and his pastor other than what he did which was to lay out his vision of race in America and how the whole country could work on the problems together. If you could find some evidence of the same resentment and anger in Sen. Obama's record and his proposals, then perhaps he would have more questions to answer. However, the rhetoric he used today to describe his approach to race has been totally consistent with all of the messages in his campaign: to take resentments and fights to a broader context that affects the entire country.<br><br>It's strange to think that you are seeing him more now as the black candidate when he made an argument against identity politics that you seem to agree with.<br><br>-- Cee Bee Double-U

I don't want him to be a liberal. I don't care what the man's skin color is. I just do care that his solutions are not the path's that I agree with. <br>His silence regarding the hateful rhetoric that has certainly come from Rev Wright is evidence. And his recent recognition of when the chips are down is disingenuous. <br>Inadvertently, this Rev Wright story is defining Obama as the black candidate. Obama needed the connection to the Trinity church for political expedience in his district early in his career. It made him legitimently black. That's okay. He had to make that connection and establish those relationships. <br><br>

That was a very eloquent speech. But where exactly does Obama stand on any of the very specific issues raised by Rev. Wright and his hate speech.<br><br>Until Obama addresses specifically his stand on 20 years of this doctrine, there will be an unending parade of questions.<br><br>

There will only be an unending parade of questions from people who believe that Senator Obama has to explain every word of ever person he has ever had the courtesy of spending some time with.<br><br>These questions will come from that same group who cannot transpose themselves out of their lives and into the life of this man. It really shows a form of idiocy. That they can form only one thought. Until a Rush Limbaugh comes to tell them to think something else.<br><br>