In which Matt and I discuss:
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Obama's Speech: The Podcast
19 Mar 2008 04:59 pm
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Has Victor Davis Handjob ever been right about anything at any time? He's the same pockmarked chickenhawk fool he's always been, and anyone who uses him as an oracle is delusional.
Super Dave Osbourne could play Handjob in the forthcoming movie version of "Fiasco." Imagine the scene where Handjob assures his fellow NRO wankers that the Iraq war will be over in weeks and will cost $50 billion bucks which will be recouped within a year as the oil starts to flow.
And then they all reach for the Kleenex simultaneously.
Ross, thanks for linking to the podcast; it was an informative exchange of ideas.
Thomas, I would like to dismiss Hanson's comments as facile, but unfortunately I can't. He has a point. I believe he's wrong; I don't believe that the language of Obama's speech was nothing more than "self-serving relativism," because I simply don't think that the capacity to make judgments, even strong moral judgments, is so crucially dependent upon the maintenance of "an absolute sense of wrong and right that transcends...[all] individual particulars"--at least not when what we're talking about is words rather than actions. Still, he's clearly getting at something, something about the way highly educated people--even apparently sincerely religious highly educated people like Obama--talk about community and morality and tradition, a way that smacks of elitism to many of exactly those voters he wants to win over to his cause. (More about this point here.) I'm doubtful that Pennsylvania is going to be such a sure marker of the success or failure of his speech as Hanson assumes, but he may be right, through this speech, Obama has clarified an argument which the white working and rural classes can use against him.
"I'm doubtful that Pennsylvania is going to be such a sure marker of the success or failure of his speech as Hanson assumes, but he may be right, through this speech, Obama has clarified an argument which the white working and rural classes can use against him."
The polls show Obama trailing in PA, so Handjob sees an opportunity to appear to be right for once. An Obama loss in PA won't derail his run at all, but it would amount to a rare Handjob "prediction" that came true. Much better than his track record on Iraq, that's for sure.
After the Dem process wraps up the electorate will have a choice between an effective 3rd Dumbya term headed up by a senile old cancer patient or a shot at something new led by a young man who doesn't need Joe Lieberman whispering in his ear to tell him what he really meant to say. We're going to be in the middle of (to put it mildly) an economic downturn. And Repiglicans think their best shot is sniggling, sniggling, sniggling about Obama being a Muslim plant who goes to a church that was led by a preacher who hates whitey? That's the best the "party of Lincoln" can come up with?
Actually, it is. They can't run on what Dumbya did, since he's a proven retard with a record of malignant, epic incompetence.
An Obama loss in PA won't derail his run at all, but it would amount to a rare Handjob "prediction" that came true. Much better than his track record on Iraq, that's for sure.
I kind of hate to say it, TBMLAJ, but in this case, you're right.
An Obama loss in PA won't derail his run at all, but it would amount to a rare Handjob "prediction" that came true. Much better than his track record on Iraq, that's for sure.
I kind of hate to say it, TBMLAJ, but in this case, you're right.
Good podcast Ross, but there are some greater points about the speech I wish you and Matt would have discussed, specifically what does Obama's speech mean in the overall terms of race relations in America? I mean you guys analyze it through a pretty strict political lens, meaning-- does it dismiss the Wright issue? And obviously, for conservatives and possibly Clinton supporters it won't since he says he refuses to disown Wright (although he also specifically says he condemms those statements making the rounds--obviously that's not enough). And obviously if that was what he was strictly trying to do he wouldn't have made that speech. Instead he uses the Wright situation to make the point about the racial rift in America--a rift that I think even you can agree is there (though you might have disagreements how it takes shape)--then isn't this greater point worthy of commendation?
Following that I notice that you're caught up in Obama's 'left-wing' solutions to this racial problem. Well if you admit that there is a problem then what conservative ideas could be used to fix it? In other words, if you had the chance to make that speech what would have been your solution?
And finally, on the topic of Wright and on whether Obama should disown him (or distance him or reject him, or whatever your verb of choice) can we admit that a) we haven't seen Wright's whole speeches and b) we know next to nothing of him as a minister and community leader? I notice that many of his critics who claim that basicly, "how can Obama, if he wants to be a uniter, support and be friends with some one that hateful" can't tell, with certainty, how much of that 'hateful' talk makes up the corpus of his rehetoric and deeds. The man has preached for what 20? 30 years? How can a couple of 20 second sound bytes truly represent a minister's message especially when, if you take Obama at his word, he's done so much more to unite and help people? We all know and have said hurtful things--but does that dismiss us as people? And anyone say with any amount of certainty that "Goddamn America" is all Wright was about? 90%? 30?
PS: Extra credit question--if Wright did a prime time interview, could that help or hurt Obama?
Sorry for the length of this post.
Good podcast Ross, but there are some greater points about the speech I wish you and Matt would have discussed, specifically what does Obama's speech mean in the overall terms of race relations in America? I mean you guys analyze it through a pretty strict political lens, meaning-- does it dismiss the Wright issue? And obviously, for conservatives and possibly Clinton supporters it won't since he says he refuses to disown Wright (although he also specifically says he condemms those statements making the rounds--obviously that's not enough). And obviously if that was what he was strictly trying to do he wouldn't have made that speech. Instead he uses the Wright situation to make the point about the racial rift in America--a rift that I think even you can agree is there (though you might have disagreements how it takes shape)--then isn't this greater point worthy of commendation?
Following that I notice that you're caught up in Obama's 'left-wing' solutions to this racial problem. Well if you admit that there is a problem then what conservative ideas could be used to fix it? In other words, if you had the chance to make that speech what would have been your solution?
And finally, on the topic of Wright and on whether Obama should disown him (or distance him or reject him, or whatever your verb of choice) can we admit that a) we haven't seen Wright's whole speeches and b) we know next to nothing of him as a minister and community leader? I notice that many of his critics who claim that basicly, "how can Obama, if he wants to be a uniter, support and be friends with some one that hateful" can't tell, with certainty, how much of that 'hateful' talk makes up the corpus of his rehetoric and deeds. The man has preached for what 20? 30 years? How can a couple of 20 second sound bytes truly represent a minister's message especially when, if you take Obama at his word, he's done so much more to unite and help people? We all know and have said hurtful things--but does that dismiss us as people? And anyone say with any amount of certainty that "Goddamn America" is all Wright was about? 90%? 30?
PS: Extra credit question--if Wright did a prime time interview, could that help or hurt Obama?
Sorry for the length of this post.
Good podcast Ross, but there are some greater points about the speech I wish you and Matt would have discussed, specifically what does Obama's speech mean in the overall terms of race relations in America? I mean you guys analyze it through a pretty strict political lens, meaning-- does it dismiss the Wright issue? And obviously, for conservatives and possibly Clinton supporters it won't since he says he refuses to disown Wright (although he also specifically says he condemms those statements making the rounds--obviously that's not enough). And obviously if that was what he was strictly trying to do he wouldn't have made that speech. Instead he uses the Wright situation to make the point about the racial rift in America--a rift that I think even you can agree is there (though you might have disagreements how it takes shape)--then isn't this greater point worthy of commendation?
Following that I notice that you're caught up in Obama's 'left-wing' solutions to this racial problem. Well if you admit that there is a problem then what conservative ideas could be used to fix it? In other words, if you had the chance to make that speech what would have been your solution?
And finally, on the topic of Wright and on whether Obama should disown him (or distance him or reject him, or whatever your verb of choice) can we admit that a) we haven't seen Wright's whole speeches and b) we know next to nothing of him as a minister and community leader? I notice that many of his critics who claim that basicly, "how can Obama, if he wants to be a uniter, support and be friends with some one that hateful" can't tell, with certainty, how much of that 'hateful' talk makes up the corpus of his rehetoric and deeds. The man has preached for what 20? 30 years? How can a couple of 20 second sound bytes truly represent a minister's message especially when, if you take Obama at his word, he's done so much more to unite and help people? We all know and have said hurtful things--but does that dismiss us as people? And anyone say with any amount of certainty that "Goddamn America" is all Wright was about? 90%? 30?
PS: Extra credit question--if Wright did a prime time interview, could that help or hurt Obama?
Sorry for the length of this post.
I have a more fundamental criticism of movement conservative Victor Davis Hansen's point. At this point, after movement conservative justifications for torture, executive lawbreaking, unchecked surveillance, lies in the runup to the Iraq War, etc., I don't think they can talk to us with a straight face about an absolute sense of right and wrong.
Further, given the fact that movement conservatives still condone race-baiting and endorse gender discrimination (tacitly) and sexual orientation discrimination (openly), it's truly rich to see one of them lecturing liberals-- BLACK liberals, no less-- about the absolute wrong of racism.
Dilan writes: "At this point, after movement conservative justifications for torture, executive lawbreaking, unchecked surveillance, lies in the runup to the Iraq War, etc., I don't think they can talk to us with a straight face about an absolute sense of right and wrong."
There was never a point where anyone with a functioning brain should have allowed movement conservatives - or anyone else, for that matter - to claim that they were operating under an absolute sense of right and wrong. The very notion is foreign to human rationality and is explicitly rejected by the long tradition of Western justice for very good reasons.
I'd say rather that movement conservatives have brought into question whether they have any sense of right and wrong at all, or if they just drop to their knees and accept whatever definitions their Great Leaders are giving them on a particular day.
I don't understand why the commenters feel the need to attack arguments with name calling and arguments that amount to "the previous commenter is a known idiot therefore all his ideas are idiotic". If the comment has no merit point out what it is. Develop some debate skills that go beyond, you are stupid and your mother is a hamster. The only people you speak to are those already so inclined to agree with you.
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Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream
Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class
The Tragedy of Obama's Speech [Victor Davis Hanson]
The tragedy of Obama's speech and the mindless endorsement of it was the rejection of any constant moral standard—an absolute sense of wrong and right that transcends situational ethics, context, and individual particulars. And once one jettisons such absolutes, they won't be there when one wishes to seek refuge in them in a future hour of need.
When he failed to "disown" Rev. Wright, and then brought in parallels of things purportedly as bad, or offered excuses that Wright had done good things to balance the bad, or that there were certain mitigating circumstances that explain his hatred, then the universal wrong of Wright's racism and lying disappears and with it any ethical standard by which we have moral authority to condemn such vitriol.
That this self-serving relativism was used to address a self-induced political disaster is especially unfortunate for a self-appointed moralist. I think the liberal blanket endorsement of the Obama speech will later come back to haunt its enthusiasts, once they see the creepy freak show that emerges from the woodwork, immune in public discourse now from absolute standards of rebuke.
In that regard, the grandmother metaphor, the radio talk show simile, the evocation of Ferraro, the context of the black church, etc. were meaningless without any unequivocal rejection of Rev. Wright and what he stands for.
This was a transformational speech—but in ways its endorsers can hardly believe but will surely regret. The voters of Pennsylvania will be the first indication of Obama's folly, followed by the moral paralysis that meets the next outbreak of racism and hatred in the public forum.
Posted by Thomas Nelson | March 19, 2008 7:52 PM