Oops...

I forgot to actually activate my post yesterday morning so this is what I wrote:

"I'm going to cede my time to Barack Obama, who may have given the most cogent speech on race in America...ever. Whether you're an Obama fan or not, please watch this and learn.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23695322#23691239

We'll cover John McCain's Al Qaeda in Iran speech at another time.

The Question: have you ever heard any politician talk about race like Obama? If so, tell us when."

Ok. That was then. This is now. Let's talk about reaction to Obama's speech and then we'll get to reaction about John McCain's 'speech'. These are excerpts from my discussion with a white conservative co-worker:

'I just don't care about race that much...I was hoping for specifics but I just heard the usual Obama stuff...nice words, high minded stuff...he shouldn't have brought slavery into it, that's the past; we need to move to the future...he only made the speech because he was in the soup; he's just like every other politician...'

So...based on that, I wouldn't hold my breath for an Obama victory in PA. The problem with the speech is twofold: 1) Most Americans won't listen to it in toto. They'll only hear selected excerpts. And robbed of total context, the speech can be reduced to 'just being about race'. 2) It doesn't let Obama escape the charge that if he objected to Wright's approach toward white America (as Obama said he did), why didn't he object before this? I mean, he has never said that he ever registered any concern to Wright. So it does give the impression that the speech was merely a brilliant gambit to escape a perilous political situation.

But y'know what? I don't care. I simply loved hearing such a thoughtful, even handed explanation of the race issue and how we can transcend the negative aspects of that issue. Even, today, Obama had another great line: "I think the African-American thinks of the American experience...less as a John Philip Sousa march played by a brass band, but more as a jazz composition with some blue notes." C'mon folks, after seven years of hearing a President communicate simple things in a way we can't understand, let's give Obama some props for communicating complicated stuff so that we can understand.

And speaking of simple things, let's have a simple test. How many Al Qaeda insurgents are being trained by Iran? Well, that depends. If you're John McCain, you said, 'a lot'. And you said it was well known. And you thought it was really 'too bad'. And you repeated the assertion that Iran was training Al Qaeda. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWf7w--TwyU But if you're Joe Lieberman, you said, 'None". Which was the correct answer. Because you knew that Al Qaeda is Sunni and Iran is Shiite and they've only been at war with each other for, oh, hundreds of years. And then you told your friend John McCain, very quietly, in his ear, so that no one could hear you say it: 'extremists, not Al Qaeda'. So your friend could say, Oh, I knew that, I just misspoke. As if a slip of the tongue was the difference between the words 'Al Qaeda' and 'extremists'. And then when NBC's Kelly O'Donnell asked, very respectfully, if your friend McCain was confident he knew the difference between Sunni and Shiite, your friend took offense. And said that he had been to Iraq eight times! and that he was astonished that anyone could question his knowledge of such things. Even though he made the most preposterous statement about Al Qaeda and Iran imaginable. And then, in another part of his soporific interview, O'Donnell asked your friend if he thought there would be a reduction of troops soon . 'Oh sure," he said. 'it's already happening". It is? When? "...but the number doesn't matter to me..." What?

People, people, people. I've been trying to give McCain every break. But we can't have another myopic leader who thinks he has foreign policy answers when he doesn't even have the facts! And for those of you who are buying this 'I misspoke' deal, here's another test. What if Barack Obama had said that? Would you say, 'Hey, give him a break. He just misspoke'. Or would you say, "See, I told you! He has no foreign policy experience! He can't be trusted to keep us safe!" This was an embarrassment of the highest order for McCain. The man is running on one issue: foreign policy expertise. And this is how he showcases that? At his own dog and pony show? God help us all. For the next hundred years.

So please tell me why this doesn't matter that McCain said this, especially in light of the fact that he's the one that wants to stay in Iraq. I'm really open to a convincing argument on his behalf.

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