Guardian UK: Imperfect union

[marmar]

Imperfect union
US elections 2008: Barack Obama's speech today was an honest and unflinching dissection of race in America
Michael Tomasky

March 18, 2008 6:00 PM | Printable version


Barack Obama's speech on race, delivered in the city of Philadelphia where American democracy was founded and made concrete, was admirable, powerful, substantive and nuanced.

That much is easy to know. What's harder to know, what I don't know, is whether it will prove successful as a piece of politics.

He addressed head-on the firestorm over the incendiary and anti-American remarks of his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He denounced Wright, making it clear where he disagreed with his spiritual mentor.

The "profound mistake" Wright made in his most scabrous utterances, said Obama, rested in his assumption that "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 this was no facile "distancing" project of the sort politicians in extremis undertake to make a problem go away. For he embraced Wright as well. He is, Obama said, "like family to me." Say what you want of Obama, he didn't take the easy way out here.

By longstanding tradition, the stage-crafted biographies of presidential candidates are presented to make Americans feel happy about both candidate and country. Where possible, tales of heroism in battle are featured (John McCain, John Kerry, George HW Bush, Bob Dole). .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_tomasky/2008/03/imperfect_union.html

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1. The Guardian gets it done. Great paper, great reporting on

international affairs, U.S. politics, and science in general.