Barack Obama Speaks

[Photo is from an Obama rally yesterday in Beaver PA]

Obama is (has by now?) delivering a speach on race this moring, largely in response to the endless media flogging of his pastor's intemperate remarks. (for more see here)

I can't watch the speach, but I hope that someone will post it on youtube so I can see it when I get home (who am I kidding, of COURSE someone will post it on youtube). The NY Times has the text of his remarks here.

I suppose we'll see how it's recieved, but if I don't miss my guess I think this speech will be the start of an important dynamic. The Hillary campaign is fond of making the argument that making nice speeches is not the same as effective government. This is true as far as it goes, but the ability to deliver a truely moving and persuasive speech (which, I think we can all agree, is something Obama has in spades) can be a PART of effective government. The news cycle has been harping on this for a few days now, generating a great deal of heat if not light on the topic. Normally this sort of "looks bad but not really substantive" allegations are hard to deal with. If you take the argument seriously, you give them legitimacy in some sense. If you ignore them, the story morphs into an ominous smear of "UNANSWERED QUESTIONS LINGER." If Obama is able to take all the attention to this issue and use this speech to pivot the narrative to "Great Speech Answers Critics" we may see a real sea change in the abilities of these subtle smear tactics to harm him. He's certainly got the media spotlight. He could turn this attack into an opportunity. I hope he does.

Photo from Flickr user Barack Obama used under creative commons license, some rights reserved.