The Wrong Speech

Obama's race speech was brilliant. Unfortunately it was the wrong speech.

Many things were explained by it, but the gist that I got out of it was: the history of race in this country explains the source of the hateful remarks of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Various sound bites were distilled and reported in the media, none of which are likely to influence casual voters.

The problem is, the pastors remarks were not racist, they were anti-American. An anti-war candidate's biggest weakness is the impression of a lack of patriotism. The picture of Obama smiling with pastor Wright puts him smack in the middle of the 'blame america first' crowd. This is political suicide. Look what it did to Ward Churchill, who described WTC victims as 'little Eichmanns'. Surely it is academically worthwhile to try to understand the motives of the enemy. Yet he lost his tenure at a liberal university, even though that is impossible for controversial speech.

Americans don't want to know that an anti-American tirade is an understandable consequence of historical injustice, they want to know deep in their gut that the candidate disagrees with it. The speech Obama should have given would have said: "America is blamed by many people for all sorts of things. Here's why they are wrong."