shades of gray
I’m perhaps a bit late to the party, but I finally got to see The Speech.
Just, Damn. Brilliant in its honesty, fantastic for its integrity, unbelievable in its authenticity. I think, as he often does, Jon Stewart said it best — “and so, on a Tuesday at 11 a.m., a Presidential candidate actually spoke to Americans about race as though we were adults.”
A bold tactic, to be sure. Will it work?
I actually think it will. Of course I file this whole issue about his pastor in the “Dumbest. Controversies. Ever.” file, so clearly I don’t grok Joe Dirt’s mind — and Americans have disappointed me time and time again — so who knows.
Via Mark Mays, I see words from Andrew Sullivan that capture it pretty well:
it was the right speech, with the right nuance and brave. If America cannot embrace such complexity, then that says more about our current polity than it does about Obama.
Of course, as the ever thoughtful Roger Abramson notes, the usual suspects *are* already saying by example those sad things about our polity.
But perhaps the whole point of this election is that it’s time to shift those voices into the minority, so that the rest of us can finally come together to solve the real problems that plague us. And I suppose we can’t expect them *not* to squeal like the pigs they are as it happens.
