Hillary has got to come up with something to counter that speech, or else she is going to be marginalized.  I have no idea what it might be, however.  That's a tough act to follow.

The speech was Lincoln-esque in its use of rhetoric.  Rather than condemn unequivocably either side of the racial divide it sought repentance and reconciliation from and with both.  Logically constructed, it also appealed to our emotions, but to those that represent our better selves, as you said, rather than the darker emotions of fear and hatred, much as Lincoln's best speeched did also.  Regardless of what happens in this campaign, this speech will be remembered as the high point of this campaign, and one of the great speeches of the 21st century.  If I were a super delegate and watched this speech, I'd be calling Obama up right now to offer my support.  The contrast with Clinton, who has run an uninspiring and mainly negative campaign in the primaries, could not be starker.  Imagine the last night of the convention when the nominee gives his or her acceptance speech and consider who you would rather have standing there talking to millions of voters.

Obama is a Patriot

I was just running over here to paste the quote you started with. THAT, in a nutshell, is why the speech was so good.

Not this time.

This time, we have a choice. And it's our choice. Will we continue to focus on hate, negativity, and the things that divide us from each other?

Or will we give up those security blankets and chart a new course into the 21st century, one without boundaries, one where we realize our individual needs can only be met by taking care of our collective needs?

I fear that the politics of hate and division are dragging us down into a third-world position, with the rich exploiting the poor, and race and gender and false dichotomies of "left" and "right" when we should be talking about "haves" and "have nots."

I hope that we can indeed say, "Not this time," and move the debate into more productive territory.

"If you look for the social economic motive, you will not have to wait for history to tell you what was propaganda and what was truth." - George Seldes

I did a write up on the speech on my own blog using that exact same quote.  What I heard was him telling the press, "This is it.  After this, it's a non-story.  I wrote:

This is where the spin, the media's filter comes into play. You saw that on the faces of the chatterboxes after the speech. The white pundits looked morose. They didn't know how to spin it. The black pundits were thrilled. Impressed. Without expressly pointing out the media, he did call them to task over their gossipy ways and their involvement in talking about nothing, while the important issues that truly affect our lives are ignored

.

It took me awhile to figure out why they looked so beaten.  Then when Buchanan tried to get back on the old story, the look on Scarborough's face said it all:  That horse is dead.  The vultures tried to pick it clean, but Obama just lifted it up and buried it with dignity.  

As I said before, anyone who doesn't see what this speech just did is heavily invested in their hate.  I've seen comments from people who've made it clear that they oppose Obama because of his skin color try to attack this speech.  Even their fellow Clinton supporters are asking them to stop because they do look petty and small.

The entire time watching it though, I wondered what Clinton's reaction would be.  Over at TPM they have this statement from her:

"I did not have a chance to see or to read yet Sen. Obama's speech. But I'm very glad that he gave it. It's an important topic. Issues of race and gender in America have been complicated throughout our history, and they are complicated in this primary campaign.

"There have been detours and pitfalls along the way. But we should remember that this is an historic moment for the Democratic Party, and for our country. We will be nominating the first African-American or woman for the Presidency of the United States, and that is something that all Americans can and should celebrate."

Pure Clinton through and through. But I tell you what, there is no way Clinton could have given a speech like this.  She lacks the charisma and believability to pull it off.  Even if it was about women, it still would have felt like a lecture.  No worries, the Clinton's campaign will try.  As I wrote:

Then, Obama's speech did a beautiful thing.  It proved that his is about unity.  It proved that he understood the way America works.  In fact, the next part I'm going to quote, I guarantee will be stolen and woven into Clinton's upcoming speeches:

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 worldview 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.

This was an historical speech.  This was an impressive speech.  This was a presidential speech.

Blogging While Brown Convention Atlanta, GA July 25-27, 2008

I am disturbed to see that the speech is not 6 hours old and it seems to already be (nearly) pushed off the front page by the rate cut, stock surge and 7 year old infidelity by NY's first couple.

Perhaps, like the Gettysburg address, no one will notice to much later. :(

OTOH if he completely defused race as an issue, then maybe that's a good thing

Well I am watching Chris Mathews now and he seems to have been truly moved by the speech. Yesterday he was agreeing with Tucker Carlson that Wright's remarks were extremely damaging and may make Obama unelectable. But this speech seems to have changed him in some fundamental way. All three guests so far as well, including Michael Smerconish, a conservative radio host.

I suspect that the speech has caused the news media to step back and take a look in the mirror. And many of them don't like what they see.

If so, it's about time.

When this silly tempest broke, I thought Obama might just have it in him to turn crap into gold. He managed brilliantly to use a fake scandal to take his campaign to a deeper, more personal, more substantive level. He has risen to the level of the very best of our politicians.

Over at Open Left and much of the rest of the "left" bloglandt, the concern trolls are all over the comments wringing their hands over how he's lost the white vote, blablabla. I think that's a load of crap, but if that's the way it plays, fine. Obama has abstained from the easy apology, the happytalk blur that would have been SOP among politicians most of this century. Instead he chose to share his understanding of the failings as well as the triumphs of the American state. He has offered to take us back to renew the vision of our founding: a Great Experiment.

For me, whether he helped or hurt his campaign is almost beside the point now. He has spoken with a depth and insight unseen in presidential campaigns during my lifetime. If he gains the White House, I'll celebrate without reserve. If not, I'll be contented that he lost the election but won a shining place in history.

Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense." --Former Nixon counsel John Dean

Re: Israel

When an article penned by Robert Wexler is on the front page of the Jerusalem Post defending Barak Obama, you know things have changed.
I believe Clinton surrogates sent out the Wright tapes and I know they sent out emails mentioning him.
Clinton surrogates like the following don't woman want change which is why I won't vote for Hillary no matter what she does.

http://www.wilshireandwashington.com/2008/03/hwd-clinton-bun.html

Daphna Ziman, a Hillary Clinton bundler well-known in Los Angeles political/entertainment circles, raised a lot of hackles last month for an e-mail that questioned Barack Obama's support of Israel.

Ziman has a new piece now circulating,  "The Road to the White House Is Paved By a Distorted Media," that chides the media for the coverage of the Eliot Spitzer story (she calls them "wolves" and uses the admonishment "shame on you") but charges that they've treated Obama with kid gloves. But she also questions whether and why he has changed his name, and again brings up his support of Israel.

(According to Newsweek, AIPAC says Clinton, Obama and McCain "have strong congressional voting records on issues important to the U.S.-Israel relationship.")

Well, now that I've seen it I understand why people are saying they've never heard a speech like this.

Boo, I agree with the other Longman. The brilliance of this speech isn't the politics (although I think he did what he needed to do).

Jack Balkin, among others, writes that the legitimacy of our constitution requires that members of the political community see themselves as part of a political project that extends through time. The community can only understand where we are presently in this political project by identifying with what happened in the past. And for the political project that is our constitutional system to succeed, the community must have faith in the possibility of a future where the flaws in our political system are redeemed.  

For the last forty years ordinary citizens have not been challenged by their political leaders to talk about our constitutional project. The narrative of progress had stalled. Obama, the civil rights lawyer, law lecturer and community organizer, opened up that discussion again today.  

It was brilliant.

Help me raise money for Jay Nixon, the next Democratic governor of Missouri

  All the young Jews I know are supporting Obama.  I'm not sure about older Jews.
  There is a divide in the community: there are "Israel Jews" and "social justice Jews."  I think you can understand the difference.  We all heard Obama's stump speech when he mentioned the Jewish freedom riders who were killed.  We heard.

Prior to today, I hadn't watched much of Obama's speeches -- I haven't watched TV or listened to the radio since 1993, and I've never felt like I was missing anything. But after listening to everyone and their mother rave about this speech, I watched it online a few minutes ago.

It was a great speech. As an English major with an emphasis on rhetoric, I watch (usually, I read) speeches with a coldly analytic eye. I'm not given to trust or to giving anyone, least of all politicians, the benefit of the doubt. And having recovered from a couple of cults of personality when I was younger, I'm not especially prone to being suckered into them now.

This was probably the first major speech I've heard when my mental red pen was mostly still. If I'd had the job of editing it, I'd have tidied it up a little bit here and there, but those are just minor stylistic quibbles. The fact of the matter is that the speech was brilliant, not just from a tactical, political standpoint, but for actually being thoughtful, persuasive, and being phrased and constructed in such a way that it could preach to more than just the left-wing liberal choir.

More importantly, it's the first time in my lifetime I've heard an American leader talk like a mature adult. If there is one thing that has stood out about the Obama campaign from the very beginning, it's that he has consistently refused to accept the invitation of his detractors to wallow in the mud. Instead, he has at every point elevated the discourse -- a phrase I have never before used without irony or sarcasm.

There's a notion that appears in many Eastern religions under a variety of names, my favorite being "stopping the wheel of karma". The idea is that we are constantly spinning that wheel when we react thoughtlessly to unjust actions, when we instinctively deal as we have been dealt. And despite the nobility of our intentions, the result is always more injustice. To stop the wheel is to take the evil that comes our way and not to answer it in kind. Let it go, let that impulse die with you instead of turning it loose on the world with new life. I'm sure Mr. Obama would probably think of it in terms of Jesus' admonition to turn the other cheek, but the concept is the similar, and Obama is apparently a master of it.

Our politics, mostly right-wing but also the oft-mentioned Dem Establishment, is invested fully in spinning the wheel. Playing that game is a guaranteed loser: you can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game. But it's the only game they know how to play. If Barack Obama can walk into the middle of that game and stop the wheel -- well, I wouldn't go as far as to say that anything is possible, but a whole bunch of new possibilities will open to us as a nation.

There are no guarantees here. Obama could turn out to be an incompetent president, or he could be overtaken by the terrible reckoning which is our due after so many years of spinning the wheel, but if not, I am now convinced that he could be a catalyst for tremendous change for the better. Not by himself, not by magic, not by opening the clouds for the heavenly choirs, but simply by giving us the opportunity to break the vicious cycle in which we have been trapped for so long. It will be a brief opportunity, and it will be up to us -- all of us -- to seize it and do the hard work necessary to earn the rewards, but I think people are hungry for it, starving for it, desperate for it. I think the invitation will be accepted.

So yeah, obviously I'm a believer now, however tentatively. Seize this chance. It will be a long time before another comes.

---Cthulhu for President: Why vote for the lesser evil?

I'd like to add something to my previous comment: I think the most important part of this speech, by a massive margin, is the story at the end, the story of Ashley Baia. It's a frank and heartbreaking picture of the face of modern poverty. Of having to choose between paying for rent, paying for basic utilities, paying for medical care, or paying for food. It's an image and awareness that's been completely absent from political discourse in America for as long as I've been paying attention - since the mid-90s. Oh, there's been plenty of words spent discussing the poor in general, broad strokes, and quite a few bemoaning their stupidity, bad choices, or simple ill luck But there's been precious little spent discussing poverty or poor people. There's been no awareness that actual people are suffering for the sake of the ideals of neo-liberal economists and the pocketbooks of Wall Street.

While I'm not holding my breath, I've now got some hope that Senator Obama might be able to reintroduce this awareness to modern discourse. He might even be able to do something to rebuild FDR's safety net, casually shredded by decades of incompetent economic policies under Reagan, Bush, and Clinton.

Kill because somebody was killed. Get killed because he killed. Do you think peace will ever come like that?

i agree with you all over the place....but this also is where i have a problem with obama...he says all the right things....but he does things that negate it so it seems like pandering to me when i hear it...for example...he gave a great speech in front of a mostly AA audience on extending equal rights to the lgbt community...it was a really moving speech....but then you hear he doesnt want his picture taken with gavin newsome (not a rumor, it was right out of the horses mouth) and he keeps donnie mcglurckle or whatever his name is on his tour....it leaves me with a feeling of disingenuity.....like he will say anything ...there is no doubt he has a silver tongue....i want to believe....but words arent proof....actions are....and i cant ignore them....i apply the same standards to the rest of them and im not saying ill ever find perfection....but something niggles away at me and keeps me from believing....count me as a very wary, unconvinced, reluctant supporter....not that i will stay home, not vote or vote republican....but if we get to the convention without a clear winner and either clinton or obama seems mortally wounded, im all for picking someone else....even biden.

speaking of which....obama doesnt seem as "clean" as biden described him a year ago....he has been dirtied during the process.

Edible panties taste like crap.

for those who are still perplexed after a savvy brilliant speech, Too Sense ponders maybe Obama could convert to Judaism

If he's interested, there's a whole congregation of black Jews in Chicago waiting:

then they'll brag, Oy, look at my president Barak Obama.

just sporting.

Well, "You can't vote for war and disown the results"

There is no way Hillary could have given that speech or have a counter to it.

It is not because of her oratory skills, but because of her world view and approach to leadership.

Boo, your critique, while I largely agree with it, I think included too much political "calculation" in the speech (while admittedly, including little).

The brilliance of this speech, as with much of his candidacy, is that he is not pandering. He is not doing the predictable. He is not calculating. He is educating and shifting the discussion to a far more productive place.

And America seems ready for it. While I have always thought McCain to be honorable, I am pleased nevertheless to see his quotes with Hannity. As with Obama he is not willing to go there. Hillary seems so out of place in this time.

on line vote
1st about the success of the speech and
2nd about whether the country is ready for a black presnit

(Although after 7 + years of having an idiot presnit, any other presnit with an IQ over 40 would be nice!)  

(Shouldn't BO be labeled a WHITE presnit since he is 50% white?)

Grandma Jo

You want to be president? Or don't you? Obama has to reassure the Jewish community that he supports Israel, not that he agrees with the politics of Netanyahu and Sharon. ...

As a Jew, I'm not sure that he really needs to reassure a group that comprises less than 2% of the US population.  Would it even matter if all Jews voted against him?  Likely not unless one subscribes to the old Jews control the world manner of thinking, and I don't believe that you fall into that category, BooMan.  

Fear will keep the local systems in line. -Grand Moff Tarkin Survivor Left Blogistan

Booman,

It seems that Rachel Madow reads your blog. You wrote "The reason I think this is effective is that does two important things. First, it appeals to our better angels and speaks the truth to us in a direct way."

She said the same thing, including the "better angels" reference.