Obama's Speech

Damage control. Nothing but damage control. That and a hefty dose of deflection.

Dr. Thomas Sowell said it better than anyone else could have in his most recent column:

Either Barack Obama or his staff must have known then that Jeremiah Wright was not someone whom they wanted to expose to the media and to the media scrutiny to which that could lead. Why not, if it is only now that Senator Obama is learning for the first time, to his surprise, what kinds of things Jeremiah Wright has been saying and doing? No one had to be in church the day Wright made his inflammatory and obscene remarks to know about them. The cable news journalists who are playing the tapes of those sermons were not there. The tapes were on sale in the church itself. Obama knew that because he had bought one or more of those tapes.

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Obama knew about the racist and anti-American nature of Jeremiah Wright. 20 years worth of attendence? $20,000 in donations? He definitely knew.

Accordingly, Obama's Philadelphia speech -- a theatrical masterpiece -- will probably reassure most Democrats and some other Obama supporters. They will undoubtedly say that we should now "move on," even though many Democrats have still not yet moved on from George W. Bush's 2000 election victory. Like the Soviet show trials during their 1930s purges, Obama's speech was not supposed to convince critics but to reassure supporters and fellow-travelers, in order to keep the "useful idiots" useful.

That really is it. That is the damage control part. Most of middle America will remember this come Election Day. I know I will remember it.

And Dr. Sowell's parting shot:

Shelby Steele depicts Barack Obama as a man without real convictions, "an iconic figure who neglected to become himself." Senator Obama has been at his best as an icon, able with his command of words to meet other people's psychic needs, including a need to dispel white guilt by supporting his candidacy. But President of the United States, in a time of national danger, under a looming threat of nuclear terrorism? No.

An excellent column.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Obama's Speech
Dr. Thomas Sowell
TownHall.com
March 19, 2008