Ooh! Ooh! I know the answer: NO.

LAMBERT: Very good. Now report to the principal's office.

Yes, it was a good speech. And you were an Edwards supporter. Sheesh...

LAMBERT: And in the best possible world Edwards will turn up as the AG in '09.

If they can't recognize bullsh*t, how the h*ll
will they be able to recognize honesty and candor?

I see yet another Jon Stewart montage of the commentators all saying the same thing, signifying nothing.

LAMBERT: I see my man Wolf has already got his schvanstucker in the ringer.

Obama is starting to remind me of a very good life insurance salesman. Full or promise and slick speeches, but little to back it up.

From Obama two months INTO his campaign:

“There’s nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group. And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude,”

Obama said that following the Don Imus nappy quote. I don't disagree with what Obama said about Imus, but he shows a complete double standard by then appointing Mr. Wright (sorry, I can't call him a pastor) to a committee on his campaign. Obama has slowly released more information as the heat has been turned up.

Your McCain shot is fair, the big difference is McCain didn't write a book talking about his relationship with Parsley. McCain also didn't consider Parsley a role model for 20 years.

Obama got the kid glove treatment through the early parts of the campaign, the media loved him. I do think the media has overreacted to some criticism and is now torching Obama like he was client #10.

The FOXNews angle? Hannity way overplayed this, and many media outlets just wouldn't stop playing the sound bites.

Still, I can't help but wonder if Obama has sold snow to an Eskimo. My life experience has told me to be very cautious with the slick unflappable types.

Brian you are a savvy media type. Any chance this mess was started by the Clintons? They are the ones that will really benefit in the short term.

LAMBERT: I'm sure the Clintons were delighted with the Rev. Wright controversy ... and dumbfounded at how Obama dealt with it. Hillary should have a similar game. She doesn't. But beyond that, Dave old pal, knowing you as a conflicted Republican, that is to say one who hasn't turned his higher brain functions over to Sean Hannity and Hugh Hewitt, I think I detect a certain existential discomfort over Obama. What if ... I mean it's an insane notion ... but what if ... he isn't a lying, scheming, self-aggrandizing jackal? What then?

Just checking, this "Dave" who's counseling us all to be as discerning about falling for a phony campaign persona as he brings to the election season, he voted for Geroge W. Bush, right?

One wonders what sort of embarrassing failure of judgment would instill in Dave a little chastened silence, or, at the very least a less doctrinaire tone. Guess it's not in the genes.

LAMBERT: Dave ... As Mr. Jensen, (Ned Beatty) says in "Network", "You have meddled with the primal forces of nature!"

re: Dave's post.

I keep coming back to, what's Obama ever done in his public life that indicates he's Wrightian in his approach? He's spent a decade in public office - do we have ANY record of mau-mauing?

I mean, I recognize the limited validity of guilt-by-association - I think McCain's a turd for playing patty-cake with Hagee and Parsley - but the fundamental question is not what Wright said, but how it influences Obama's governing.

Good piece, Brian. Thanks for taking the national stuff around here.

LAMBERT: Well, since you're soaking up all the local scoops what's a poor boy to do? (Mr. Brauer can be read over at MinnPost.com ... link is to the right.)

Barry threw his Granny under the bus!

Awesome.

Very "Presidential'.

He's done.

LAMBERT: I'm filing that under, "The Most Reliable Reverse Barometer".

The thing that struck me about the response is that it was overwhelmingly positive even from those people who are very conservative Republicans.

Sadly, most of the commentary after the speech was digested was about whether or not Americans were capable of following a speech in which the candidate didn't directly appeal to their base instincts. Essentially, are Americans too stupid to follow Obama's line of reasoning?

It's a bit of intellectual arrogance from the national media that I find disheartening. And it seems to be there equally on both the left and right of the politicial spectrum.

LAMBERT: Well, I have to confess I asked myself that very question. After generations of paternalistic pandering, not to mention outright duplicity, lying, whatever Mitt Romney was and so on and on, I'm fascinated to see how this plays with, as Howard Fineman said last night, quoting some Philadelphia politician, "the knuckleheads out there."

Politicians may be the worst offenders in terms of our floundering in bullshit. But they need a huge audience of knuckleheads to swallow the stuff.

My apologies for the imagery.

Response to questions on my post.

As noted by Mr. Lambert, I am a conflicted Republican. I'm not drawing any comparison of Bush to Obama. Bush has screwed up on many fronts, no arguments there. But Bush screwing up doesn't allow other (hopefully better) candidates to do the same.

On Obama, David Brauer makes an excellent point that I should have noted. Obama has not shown any of the tendencies of Wright. The only double standard for me was the treatment of Imus.

If you've read my highly intelligent comments here before (tongue in cheek) you will note that I am not your standard right-leaning Republican. I tend to be more moderate overall but fiscally conservative. For the reason, the Hannitys of the world hate me.

Personally I'm tired of all the noise and wish we could get back to a serious debate on the many issues the country is facing.

LAMBERT: Dave, you're going to need to work on your brawling jones.

Bertram Jr., regurgitating the usual media cliches, says "Barry threw his Granny under the bus!"

BJr, aren't you the same guy who's been whining that Obama's keeping his white grandmother hidden? Now he mentions her, and you still mewl.

Surely Obama could share no anecdote with which you could more closely identify, except, one imagines, for the part about grimacing at hearing one's relative express such unexamined prejudices.

Your response, unfortunately, was to, instead, incorporate such atavistic beliefs into your own worldview.

LAMBERT: You know you're just encouraging him to write back, don't you?

Rick, took a look at AllYourTV.com Gotta' ask you: Do those shows you're helping promote strike you as predicated on an abiding faith in a discerning and critically thinking America? As H.L. Mencken pointed out long ago, nobody ever lost money underestimating the American intelligence or taste. Probably goes for most elections as well.

Dave: Let me see if I'm following you, here. You seem to be arguing that saying someone who fell for candidate Bush of 2000 and his disengenuous campaign rhetoric is in a rather weak position to lecture others who've been moved by candidate Obama's transcendent rhetoric of 2008, is to make an unfair comparison (the logic of which I must confess eludes me). And yet, you insist that your comparison of Obama's nuanced view of Rev. Wright's acrid criticism of American political, cultural and political history as it pertains to Black American experience from the pulpit of an Afraican American church and Obama's more monolithic condemnation of Don Imus's gratuitous and racist degredation of innocent women who won a college basketball championship on the public airwaves is perfectly valid?

You've lost me, Dave.

LAMBERT: It's like wrestling a salt water croc, Dave. Once he's got his teeth in you ...

Leinfelder should find someone to buy him a copy of the WSJ today and read their editorial.

It rather concisely calls B. Hussein Obama on exactly what he did, when faced with the words of his virulently racist "20 year confidant and spiritual mentor".

Threw Granny under the bus. It's rather common term, meaning sacrificing someone needlessly to save one's face.

Obama's done, get over it.

LAMBERT: Why am I so strangely encouraged by hearing this from you?

LAMBERT: You know you're just encouraging him to write back, don't you?

(sigh) Yes, even now, I can almost smell the Crayola shavings as he prepares a first draft of his rejoinder.

LAMBERT: He goes through a whole box sometimes transcribing Rush.

I think Senator Barack Obama's speech yesterday also presents an interesting paradox for the conservative media.

Right-wing pundits have thrived over the past few elections by taking a situation and pounding it ad nauseum until the more mainstream media picks it up. This in turn forces the Democratic candidate to respond. In all fairness, the response hasn't always been as well-crafted, logical, or forceful (See Kerry, John and Boats, Swift as an example).

All that changed yesterday. It's pretty obvious giving a response via a speech plays right into Senator Barack Obama's hands. It's his best forum by far. When he's allowed to speak on a topic, he can go to areas where no other candidate can and speak from a position that other candidates could never do just by who they are.

So if you're a right-wing pundit, do you really want to hand Senator Barack Obama an opportunity to give a national address on (insert topic of choice)? If I'm a right-wing talker, I for sure am going to think twice about making a mountain out of a molehill and allow Senator Obama a days worth, if not more, of positive press out of something that had no legs to begin with. It will be an interesting trend to watch how folks like Hannity and Limbaugh tread when faced with this paradox. I mean, even Dick Morris tried to caution Hannity about blowing this Wright situation up saying, "I hear at least two things a week at my Church that I strongly disagree with. This is story that has no legs." Hannity looked like Morris had just kicked him squarely in the midsection.

LAMBERT: Wait a minute! Dick Morris ... church? But you make an interesting point. I suspect FoxNews, etc. will go very light on actual sound bites from the speech, (likewise the radio crowd), because they'll have to slice it pretty thin to provide adequate distortion. But let's not kid ourselves, the "associative" factor of Obama and some "radical" -- has he ever been photographed with Al Sharpton? -- will return as a 527-style strategy.

Why the hate?

Are the facts bothering you?

LAMBERT" "Facts"? Have you ever actually seen one? I mean, up close?

Text book lib reaction: insult the person, ignore the issue / facts. Great stuff!

"Transcribe" this:

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB120588322321046835-lMyQjAxMDI4MDE1OTgxODkzWj.html

Enough "nuance" for you?

LAMBERT: Just so I'm clear. The "facts" are a Wall St. Journal editorial? I hear NewsMax has some good "facty" stuff, too.

I will ask you and your psycho-phant point blank:

1. Did the "Reverend" Wright make virulently racist and anti-American statements?

2. Has Obama claimed Wright as his "spiritual advisor and mentor" of the past 20 years?

Yes or no.

Gut check time. Let's see what you got.

LAMBERT: We've got you. That's what we've got.

Uh, I can't think of a better backing than the WSJ vis a vis the "throw Granny under the bus" issue that Leinfelder is struggling with.

It's pretty clear to most right thinking Americans.

Why such a struggle for you?

LAMBERT: By "most" I assume you mean ... you?

Here's some more juicy bits for you to chew on.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120585801828545495.html?mod=mostpop

I am somewhat surprised that someone of your "esteem" in "media analysis" has or will not consider the widely accepted and generally RIGHT ON POV of no less than the WSJ.

Instead, we get ad hominem attack.

Sad, really.

LAMBERT: What point is there in arguing with the Journal's hidebound editorial page? Find me something the rest of the paper reported and maybe I'll offer a comment.

When do you suppose Bertram jr and Jim Leinfelder are going to rumble behind the high school?

LAMBERT: I betting on Leinfelder when they do.

Lambert is the likely second for Leinfelder, although there are others waiting in the wings.
Who will be in Bertram Jr's. corner?

Bjr, did you have a chance to read Maureen Dowd's piece in the NYT today? Oops, I forgot, it is a liberal rag.

LAMBERT: Bertram generally acts as Burgess Meredith to a podcast of Hugh Hewitt out in the ring.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So from what I can gather here from our conservative poster, most "right" thinking Americans are for religious freedom and speech except when that religion or speech espouses a viewpoint with which they disagree?

Yes, Rev. Wright made statements that were extremely strong in nature against the injustices that he perceived were made against the people in his congregation. Under the Bill of Rights, it's entirely his right is it not? I think even Scalia is siding with me on this one.

Yes, he was Senator Barack Obama's spiritual adviser. However, advising one spiritually and what one says on the pulpit on a Sunday are not one in the same. And I'm wondering how the "right" knows exactly what that spiritual advice might have been? Hopefully, it was one along the lines of "When God tells you to say heckuva job Brownie, don't listen to God."

Your argument boiled A + B = SO WHAT. In no way have you drawn a line between the preachings of Rev. Wright and Senator Obama's thinking, beliefs, and actions. You're taking a giant leap in logic of which you have no proof.

Now, two questions for our "right" thinker:

1. Does the U.S. Constitution allow for the freedom of religion and allow Rev. Wright the abilility to practice any brand of religion and the freedom to preach his religion?

2. When has Senator Barack Obama espoused the views of Rev Wright, which you cite, in any aspect of his public life or private life? How does what one man thinks automatically become what another man thinks just because he "advised" him?

I realize that President Bush's reliance on Cheney's mind has probably colored the "right's" ability to assess independent thinking versus taking the word of your advisers, but this might be fun to read anyway.

This whole thing reminds me of a certain and current President who gave a speech in 2000 at a college which I can't recall that espoused a divisive and (some argued) biased ideology and/or religion. The idea was that because Bush went and spoke there, he was somehow endorsing that ideology and/or religion and those biases.

It was a weak argument against George Bush then. It's a weak argument against Senator Obama now.

LAMBERT: Very good. I of course always try to bear in mind the oxymoronic quality of "independent-thinking conservative". Years ago I used to understand what that meant. Now, when so few can argue with anything other than what has spooled out to them on a radio show, the "independent thinking" thing kind of falls apart. (The same of course could be said for "liberal coalition" ... uh, wha?)

Obama is what MLK had in mind when he asked the United States of America to judge a person by the content of their character.

He is that man that W never was, not just these past tragic presidential years, but W's entire legacy son's life.

Frankly, I dare anyone to vote against Obama...AND face themself conscientiously in the mirror the rest of their life. This is the leader we have all wondered if we would see again in our lifetime in this country.

I tried to avoid him and played the electability card against him and teetered toward Edwards, because I wondered if this country could handle him as President, to see past his color into the character within. I saw the disappointing case in TN in '06 where obviously bigoted ads shot down a leading black candidate poised to win, and I thought Obama would be doomed to that same fate. And then I realized, if I avoid him for this reason, I too would be part of the problem and not part of the solution. So I opened my mind to Obama, and not only has he not disappointed, he has delivered leadership unseen in politics in this country in ... shall I say 40 years?

As for the misguided punditry and media talking heads, that is the value of listening directly to a true leader speak...suddenly, you no longer need their spin. Has anyone looked up what the pundit's reviews were on JFK's 'ask not what' speech lately, or MLK's 'I have a dream'?

Precisely.

LAMBERT: I say the all the scuffing and body-checking Obama is taking now is good for him. My primary concern is whether he can be consistently tough enough to push the transformational, hell, "cauterizing", legislation we need. The more successful he gets the more unhinged the looney bin will get. I never worried that Edwards would not be prepared for a very long term brawl requiring aggressive strategies and tactics.

In A Bound Man, Shelby Steele’s insightful book about Barack Obama, Steele distinguishes between two types of successful African-American public figures: bargainers and challengers. Bargainers state, in effect, “I will presume that you're not a racist and by loving me you'll show that my presumption is correct.” Blacks who offer this bargain are betting on white decency. Naturally, whites respond well.

Challengers take a different approach. They say, in effect, that whites are racist until they prove otherwise by conferring tangible benefits on them. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are paradigm challengers. In fact, Steele finds that black politicians tend to prefer this approach because not adopting it leads to suspicion among black leaders and their constituents who fear that if whites are let off the hook too easily, black power will be diminished.

Barack Obama made his political breakthrough as a bargainer. By constantly referring to the national yearning (including, he said, by many Republicans) to "come together" as blacks and whites, Obama presumed we are not racists. His reward was an almost magical appeal to broad portions of the electorate.

Obama, of course, would like to remain a bargainer. But Steele predicted this would be difficult given the scrutiny presidential candidates receive because bargainers must wear a mask. Once we learn who they really are and what they really think about race, the magic is lost. They can no longer offer us the required assurances that they know we’re not racists, and hence they can no longer receive our unconditional love.

Obama, it is now clear, has been wearing a mask. No one who listened to his post-racial happy talk would have guessed that he regularly attends a church run by a pastor who preaches hatred of “White America,” much less that Obama is close to that pastor.

Once the offensive tapes of Wright surfaced, Obama quickly recognized that his candidacy had entered a new phase (call it post-post-racial). Now he would have to remove and/or replace his mask. Now he would have to tell us, at least to some extent, who he really is and what he really thinks about race.

This week Obama did this, and with more candor than might have been expected. Although Obama did not reveal what I take to be his full ambivalence about America as a force in the world, he talked seriously and sincerely about race. He admitted that his election alone will not satisfy our yearning for a post-racial America. To the contrary, Obama disarmingly declared, “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.”

Obama also confessed that, despite his disagreement with Wright’s most extreme statements, “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.” And this is not just the result of personal loyalty. It’s also because Obama considers Wright’s extreme views an understandable, though mistaken, reaction to the evils of the America Wright experienced growing up. In fact, Obama was clear that without understanding Wright’s views and taking seriously the “complexity” they reflect, America cannot get on with “solving” its other problems – health care, education, etc.

To some extent, then, Obama became a “challenger.” Whites no longer will be let off the hook easily. They now must confront the “complexity” of race relations that Wright, however imperfectly, raises. And this must be done over an extended period, not just in a single election cycle.

Obama still wants to make a deal with white America, but the deal no longer seems like a great bargain. As Obama puts it:

[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 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.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.”

For whites to avoid the division and conflict that results from tackling race only as a spectacle, they now must do more than just vote for Obama. They must also

acknowledge[e] that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations.

Thus, white America is back in the dock. This is challenger talk.

But Obama is not prepared to become Al Sharpton. So he offers a few statements in which he acknowledges that blacks share “complicity in our condition” and that some whites are understandably resentful of measures like busing and racial preferences. He then offers to help us “work[] together” so “we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds.” Obama also makes it plain that we ignore his offer at our peril because “race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now.”

In effect, Obama is insisting on a national conversation about race, the kind Bill Clinton called for, only with a more authentic moderator.

But I doubt that this is what most non-leftists who fell for Obama were looking to him for. Race remains something that most Americans do not have a strong urge to talk about. And I suspect that many will find the preposterous anti-American remarks of Obama’s spiritual leader, and the fact that some blacks are inspired by them, an insufficient basis for Obama’s invitation to have a national conservation about race. Indeed, some voters previously well-disposed to Obama may even be offended that he is calling for this conversation in response to having been exposed as something other than what they thought he was.

(From the great minds at Fraters Libertas).

They really do eat your lunch. Leinfelder wouldn't have a prayer of having a seat at the table.

LAMBERT: bertram, for a second there -- OK a nano-second -- you had me going. I thought YOU put two whole thoughts together. Shelby Steele -- and people like John McWhorter -- (look him up, he'll help you expand on this, I hope not fleeting adventure in upscale rhetoric) -- at least attempt to make a coherent case, and, despite this bottom line that Obama is just another self-serving demonizer of the oppressed white majority, black intellectuals like them actually contribute -- something -- to Obama's basic appeal, which is to talk about race beyond the usual knuckle-headed slogans of Rushbo, Hannity, Ingraham. Michael Savage, etc. What your deep-thinkers at Fraters choose to underplay is Obama's very clear message to adult blacks that they have a responsibility too to "man-up" and see things through the eyes of low and middle class whites. Those two groups are in effect co-equals in classist inequality, and would do better forming an active voting coalition to represent their self-interest.

If your reading list is actually expanding beyond bumper stickers, I can suggest a few titles for you.

Now that Obama has delivered his version of a "Checkers" speech, can we start comparing his vague promise of "change" to Nixon's "secret plan to end The War" ?

LAMBERT: If the only changes he brings are staunching the flow of money to Iraq and delivering universal health care ... he'll be a declared a saint.

You want the best analysis of all?

Read Krauthammers piece.

An absolute bulls-eye.

LAMBERT: Has anyone checked to see if Krauthammer is leaking embalming fluid?

(Terrific name, by the way, "Krauthammer". Onomatopoetic ... )

BTW, I see nothing in the way of Barry advising blacks to "man up".

I think Bill Cosby has the market cornered on that.

LAMBERT: When has McCain scheduled his, "Hey, geezer whities, stop your whining!" speech?

Krauthammer is always spot on. I especially enjoyed his running columns about Iraq's WMD arsenal and the threat that Saddam posed to US interests by having access to those weapons. They were similar in frequency to Nick Coleman's 35 bridge columns except Coleman actually did a little reporting and fact-checking by walking down Washington Ave. and confirming the bridge had indeed fallen into the river. In the end, I guess Nick wins because his columns contained opinions about real things unlike Krauthammer's pieces.

But that little oversight aside, when one is looking for true objectivity and analysis of the facts, the list would most certainly begin with an op-ed by Charles Krauthammer. He's shown a true affinity to model the "facts" around his opinion. I'm surprised Cheney hasn't offered him a gig in the VP's office.

I'm guessing Chuckles nor BTjr have actually taken the time to look at the whole context of Rev. Wright's sermons outside of YouTube. If they had, they might see that a general premise of that church is one of personal responsibility in the face of great challenges. I guess the phrase "man-up" might not actually be used, but not everybody is as versed in the language of the streets as BTjr.

LAMBERT: Yeah, "street crede" and "bertram" don't exactly roll together, if you know what I mean.

Wright's "sermons" and his church (see their "educational" class listings) espouse nothing but black separatism, victimhood as lifestyle, and hate.

Bertram Jr's got more of what you might call, "cul de sac cred."

For those still wondering what Rev. Wright could still be so worked up about, NPR's Talk of the Nation had an excellent hour today devoted to what sounds to be a compelling non-fiction book, "Slavery by Another Name," by Douglas Blackmon of the Wall Street Journal (the news section, not the Op-Ed page), in which he argues that slavery did not end in the United States with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862. Rather, Blackmon writes that it continued for another 80 years, in what he calls an "Age of Neoslavery."

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20080325/47e886d0_3ca6_1552620080325746166617

LAMBERT: You're not suggesting that the average black person has had a tougher time in modern American society than a privileged suburban whire male are you?

All I'm suggesting is that the people who got obscenely rich off of slavery and neoslavery are STILL rich and the people who were unimaginably harmed and exploited by it likely have a similar half life to their side of that ignoble legacy of unconscionable exploitation.

So I reckon I don't really feel qualified to tell anyone when they ought to be over it. But the Rev. Wright only gave vent to the collective spleen of his flock once a week while Bertram Jr. and his fellow bellyachin' white men can be heard mewling and bleeting from coast to coast on talk radio, FOX News and CNN seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

LAMBERT: Maybe if we added another hour every day they'd be happy. You know, 25/7.

I'm an Obama supporter, and agree with your post. It's not what he says, but how he says it, and what his tone reveals about the kinds of assumptions one makes about the nature of power in this country, that matter.

But you've got one detail wrong.

What he actually said in that debate was "Oh, you're likeable enough, Hillary..." (emphasis on 'enough')

And it did read to me as kind of a vaguely condescending, vaguely snotty thing to blurt out, in the context at the time and in retrospect. He hasn't really done anything similar since, that I've seen.

LAMBERT: I may be beaten down by jousting on forums like this, but my take was more casual and ... tired.