Tammy Bruce: Obama's Speech

Obama's Speech

I find him arrogant, pretentious and manipulative. I also now believe he's more comfortable with pretending than with the truth, and I think this speech embodies all those concerns.

Drudge has the full text. I'll have more soon and of course we'll starts Tammy Radio this morning with my assessment of this attempt to explain how and why we shouldn't care that this man's mentor for his entire adult life is an America-hating racist and how Barack never, never knew.

Yeah, right.

Frankly, I think Michelle Obama should be giving this speech. We'd at least get a peek at the truth.

8:09am PT:

Here's what he just noted which is quite remarkable and at the core of where he stands. So he compares his "white grandmother" to a man who says American created the AIDS virus to genocide black Americans; that God should damn America; that the government funnels drugs deliberately into the black community; that Israel is a dirty word while inferring that Jews had something to do with 9-11. Amazing.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

Stunning.

Oh, and now the Reagan Coalition was based in racism. Lovely.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Oh brother. He really must be afraid of losing what's termed the "black vote" when this issue and our rejection of him is actually the one colorblind thing in this entire debacle. Americans reject Jeremiah Wright's statements. That is what crosses racial lines, yet this morning Barack Obama begs people to return to the politics of race, to the division of Identity Politics.

This is nothing less than a Race/Class warfare speech with little bits of Let's-all-come-together-to-change-awful-evil-Amerikkka speech with some Corporations-Are-Evil and Workers-Unite! thrown in. Fascinatingly deeply held positions for a man who claimed to be the candidate who transcended race.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

The folks at Hot Air are saying the audience was Democrat Super Delegates. The applause was sporadic and weak, strongest when Obama noted his opposition to the war, and certainly no standing ovation.

Posted by Tammy · March 18, 2008 07:58 AM · Permalink
Hypocrisy | Leftists | Politics

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I was getting choked up by a few of the platitudes and his melodious tone ... until he compared his grandmother's confession to the things that came out of Wright's mouth!! I hope he made to explain that one!

Posted by: KatieSilverSpring at March 18, 2008 08:43 AM

I was getting choked up by a few of the platitudes and his melodious tone ... until he compared his grandmother's confession to the things that came out of Wright's mouth!! I hope he's made to explain that one!

Posted by: KatieSilverSpring at March 18, 2008 08:43 AM

Just heard the whole speech...needed an extra cup of coffee to wake up just now.
One thing Tammy.....at last, a Democrat that recognizes "radical Islam". Guess he'll be begging for forgiveness on that one should it be called to the attention of CAIR.

Posted by: infidel at March 18, 2008 08:43 AM

Basically Rev. Rant is entitled to his anger as are all Blacks, and Whites and everyone else because America has an evil past, a pathetic present and no future unless we all agree to be our brothers keepers. Marxist drivel. We know you Barack Obama, we know you.

Posted by: pat_s at March 18, 2008 08:46 AM

You've nailed it Tammy! And to think he likened the Reagan Coalition to this filth. It's a sinister tactic. He wants to neutralize the evil racism of his minister by trying to infer that ALL of America engage in it in some form or another.

And for the record, being opposed to Affirmative Action policies is a FAR CRY from from the hate and stench spewed by that Hitleresque scumbag he calls a pastor!

Anyone who supports this guy from here on out is nothing but a racist themselves, and NOT a lover of America, in my opinion.

Posted by: girlsgotrhythm at March 18, 2008 08:49 AM

The great purveyor of change who decries stagnation in the way things used to be, repeatedly played in the same speech the Pity Card for all the po' black chiles -- not my words nor my beliefs, but clearly his. He is shameless and obviously thinks we are too stupid to recognize him once again as an empty suit and hypocrite. J

Posted by: jeweytunes at March 18, 2008 08:59 AM

PS -- How dare he generalize the lies and invective he has sat under the authority of for 20 years to the experience of the average church-goer of any race. J

Posted by: jeweytunes at March 18, 2008 09:07 AM

Amen to yur P.S., Jewytunes!

Posted by: girlsgotrhythm at March 18, 2008 09:09 AM

Tammy-I cringed during the speech when he brought up his grandmother, but hearing your comment really brings it more into focus. What a despicable thing to do. But it's typical of what the Left does in two areas. They love to (mis-)apply modern sensiblities to the past to denigrate America and our history. The second thing is to childishly deflect criticism by saying, "but they did too"--in this case, he's justifying having a racist, America-hating pastor because his poor grandmother made a couple of comments in her past.

Typical Leftist--refusing to take responsibility. But I can't recall anyone before pinning it on their grandmother. Despicable!

Posted by: Tink at March 18, 2008 09:38 AM

Obama has sat in a racist congregation for 20 years- he still sees race as the defining factor of America, he claims that his grandmother is a racist, to Obama all that he sees is racism. So he has put Wright's racist demagoguery on level with his grandmother's comments, with Geraldine Ferraro's comments. They are NO way similar. Trying to equate these disparate people is offensive.

Obama is an empty suit, always has been. I don't know who writes his speeches for him. He reads them really well, but I don't believe for a second that he wrote them.

His mentor, spiritual guide is a hateful black separatist. Were this man white he would get the denunciation that all racists deserve. But Obama embraces this rhetoric, he needs the black nationalist movement to back him, he just didn't want whites to see the hate that Reverend Wright has for America.

Obama is a liar, he has NOT taken offense at Wright's behavior he wants everyone to feel guilty for the "institutional racism" so that his 20 years of listening and agreeing with Rev. Wright can be overlooked. Trying to claim that Wright made mistakes, no Wright KNEW fully well what he was saying, is offensive.

The hype of audacity, Obama is a lying fraud.

Tammy you are 100% correct words do matter and Obama has shown that he just parrots words that he thinks will pacify his critics.

Posted by: Skeptic at March 18, 2008 09:43 AM

Amy Holmes has this to say on today's NRO:
Can you picture Michael Steele, Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, John McWhorter, Condoleezza Rice or any number of thoughtful black conservatives listening to Pastor Wright's sermoninzing for one afternoon let alone years on end?

Also, Shelby's article in today's WSJ on this subject should be required reading.

Posted by: billyv at March 18, 2008 09:50 AM

I echo all the previous sentiments. Obama doesn't fool me for a second. And how convenient that the dispicable reverend is out of the country just now. I wonder whose idea the trip was?? I have no doubt whatsoever that if Wright was confronted and questioned, he would ONCE AGAIN reveal himself, in very short order, to be the mean-spirited, hateful, anti-Semitic, anti-American racist that we now know him to be. This, the man Obama has known and revered for the last 20 years. Great taste in friends and mentors... .

Posted by: Kimj7157 at March 18, 2008 09:57 AM

We can call this Obama's Jeremiad!

He took no responsibility and actually excused the hate-filled, venom spewing Wright's oratory as experience from racism. The only racist in that group is Wright.

Tammy thank you for an excellent analysis of Obama's words. The hollow man is a charlatan.

Posted by: Skeptic at March 18, 2008 12:11 PM

Watching the pundits on MSNBC, except for Buchanan, made feel like the character Mugatu, played by Will Ferrell in Zoolander..............

"Who cares about Derek Zoolander anyway? The man has only one look, for Ch***t's sake! Blue Steel? Ferrari? Le Tigra? They're the same face! Doesn't anybody notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"

If his grandma is still alive she should go upside his head for giving her up like that.

Posted by: infidel at March 18, 2008 12:24 PM

These are some of the issues I have never heard Obama talk about:

Interview with Jeremiah Wright on 03-01-07 on Fox.
This is the web page to which Sean was referring in the transcript:

“We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.”
http://www.tucc.org/about.htm

“. . . HANNITY: OK, this is the same church. You do have the Web site, right, where it says commitment to the BLACK community, commitment to the BLACK...

WRIGHT: The BLACK value system, which was developed by the congregation, by laypersons of the congregation, 26 years ago, very similar to the gospel INAUDIBLE) developed by laypersons in Nicaragua during the whole liberation theology Movement, 26, 28, 30 years ago, yes.

HANNITY: All right, but we're not dealing with — this is on the Web site today. Let me just inform our audience, and I want you to respond, if you can.

It says . . . Commitment to the BLACK community, commitment to the BLACK family,
adherence to the BLACK work ethic. It goes on, pledge, you know, acquired skills available to the BLACK community, strengthening and supporting BLACK institutions,
pledging allegiance to all black leadership who have embraced the black value system, personal commitment to the embracement of the BLACK value system.

Now, Reverend, if every time we said BLACK, if there was a church and those words were WHITE, wouldn't we call that church racist?

WRIGHT: No, we would call it Christianity. We've been saying that since there was a
WHITE Christianity; we've been saying that ever since WHITE Christians took part in the slave trade; we've been saying that ever since they had churches in slave castles. . . .”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,256078,00.html

uhhhh …… does this educated man know about the WHITE Christians who fought and died to end slavery in the United States of America? Or the BLACK Muslims who own BLACK Christian slaves in Africa right now, today?

Is this what America gets after 50 years of “Affirmative Action”?
Where in Africa would any single African-American prefer to be living today?

Seven

Posted by: Seven at March 18, 2008 05:09 PM

Now, Barack Obama is calling his grandmother a "typical white pereson" which is offensive. However, the problem with all of Obama's recent comments is that he is skating past the ANTI-AMERICAN comments of his mentor, spiritual advisor, and former pastor. "They wnat us to sing God Bless America. No, no, no! God D*** America!" This comment of Jeremiaha Wright along with his 911 comments are the most offensive yet Barack Obama wants to focus on Wright's racial comments and compare him to his grandmother. Further, he who would be President says that he can no more disown the man who shouted "God D*** America" anymore than he could disown his white grandmother. I doubt Grandma walks around shouting "God D*** America!"

Also, Barack Obama told Major Garret, that had he know of Wright's comments previously, he would have left the church. However, now he clearly knows about the comments yet he does NOT leave the church because Wright has retired. However it is clear from the videos that the congreation approved of what Wright was saying. Yet Obama continues to be a member of this organization. What does that tell you?

Posted by: MCB at March 21, 2008 06:27 AM

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