[Marxism] Peggy Noonan on Obama: "A Thinking Man's Speech'

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As George Will demonstrated earlier, there's some reflection going 
on among the political class in the United States. Some clearly do 
not think that being despised by the people of the world is good 
for business. Some even think that the racism which is so central 
to the culture of the United States could be its Achilles' Heel.
Except for what he had to say about Israel, Obama's speech was a 
good example of how to confront a political challenge promptly as 
well as effectively. Obama's speech constitutes, in my opinion, 
something of a gauntlet thrown down, rather politely, at Senators
Clinton and McCain, asking them how they will address the issues 
of race and racism in the life of the country which sets itself 
up a judge of every other country on earth. Let's remember that 
segregation was ruled unconstitutional, in large part, because 
of the harm it was doing to U.S. foreign policy interests at the 
hight of the Cold War. Well, fifty years on, segreation, though 
in some important ways different in form, remains a central issue 
in the life of the United States. Senator Obama's effort to openly 
address the issue, given who he is and what he's aspiring to become, 
is something which should be welcomed by all who would like to see
U.S. society altered in profound and progressive ways.

No single speech, as Obama points out, and not even his election 
as president, he rightly emphasizes, can change the nature of this 
society. But it can open up a conversation about the nature and 
prospects for this society. THAT is what should be welcomed now.
Cynthia McKinney understands that, and the rest of us should, too.


Walter Lippmann
New York, New York.
===================================================================

WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 21, 2008   
DECLARATIONS
By PEGGY NOONAN         

A Thinking Man's Speech
March 21, 2008

I thought Barack Obama's speech was strong, thoughtful and important.
Rather beautifully, it was a speech to think to, not clap to. It was
clear that's what he wanted, and this is rare.

It seemed to me as honest a speech as one in his position could give
within the limits imposed by politics. As such it was a contribution.
We'll see if it was a success. The blowhard guild, proud member since
2000, praised it, and, in the biggest compliment, cable news shows
came out of the speech not with jokes or jaded insiderism, but with
thought. They started talking, pundits left and right, black and
white, about what they'd experienced of race in America. It was kind
of wonderful. I thought, Go, America, go, go.

You know what Mr. Obama said. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright was wrong. His
sermons were "incendiary," and they "denigrate both the greatness and
the goodness of our nation." Mr. Obama admitted that if all he knew
of Mr. Wright were what he saw on the "endless loop . . . of
YouTube," he wouldn't like him either. But he's known him 20 years as
a man who taught him Christian faith, helped the poor, served as a
Marine, and leads a community helping the homeless, needy and sick.
"As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me." He would
not renounce their friendship.

Most significantly, Mr. Obama asserted that race in America has
become a generational story. The original sin of slavery is a fact,
but the progress we have lived through the past 50 years means each
generation experiences race differently. Older blacks, like Mr.
Wright, remember Jim Crow and were left misshapen by it. Some rose
anyway, some did not; of the latter, a "legacy of defeat" went on to
misshape another generation. The result: destructive anger that is at
times "exploited by politicians" and that can keep African-Americans
"from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition." But "a
similar anger exists within segments of the white community." He
speaks of working- and middle-class whites whose "experience is the
immigrant experience," who started with nothing. "As far as they're
concerned, no one handed them anything, they've built it from
scratch." "So when they are told to bus their children to a school
across town," when they hear of someone receiving preferences they
never received, and "when they're told their fears about crime in
urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced," they feel anger too.

This is all, simply, true. And we are not used to political figures
being frank, in this way, in public. For this Mr. Obama deserves deep
credit. It is also true the particular whites Obama chose to paint --
ethnic, middle class -- are precisely the voters he needs to draw in
Pennsylvania. It was strategically clever. But as one who witnessed
busing in Boston first hand, and whose memories of those days can
still bring tears, I was glad for his admission that busing was
experienced as an injustice by the white working class. Next step:
admitting it was an injustice, period.

* * *

The primary rhetorical virtue of the speech can be found in two
words, endemic and Faulkner. Endemic is the kind of word political
consultants don't let politicians use because 72% of Americans don't
understand it. This lowest-common-denominator thinking, based on
dizzy polling, has long degraded American discourse. When Obama said
Mr. Wright wrongly encouraged "a view that sees white racism as
endemic," everyone understood. Because they're not, actually, stupid.
As for Faulkner -- well, this was an American politician quoting
William Faulkner: "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't
even past." This is a thought, an interesting one, which means most
current politicians would never share it.

The speech assumed the audience was intelligent. This was a
compliment, and I suspect was received as a gift. It also assumed
many in the audience were educated. I was grateful for this, as the
educated are not much addressed in American politics.

Here I point out an aspect of the speech that may have a beneficial
impact on current rhetoric. It is assumed now that a candidate must
say a silly, boring line -- "And families in Michigan matter!" or
"What I stand for is affordable quality health care!" -- and the
audience will clap. The line and the applause make, together, the
eight-second soundbite that will be used tonight on the news, and
seen by the people. This has been standard politico-journalistic
procedure for 20 years.

Mr. Obama subverted this in his speech. He didn't have applause
lines. He didn't give you eight seconds of a line followed by
clapping. He spoke in full and longish paragraphs that didn't summon
applause. This left TV producers having to use longer-than-usual
soundbites in order to capture his meaning. And so the cuts of the
speech you heard on the news were more substantial and interesting
than usual, which made the coverage of the speech better. People who
didn't hear it but only saw parts on the news got a real sense of
what he'd said.

If Hillary or John McCain said something interesting, they'd get more
than an eight-second cut too. But it works only if you don't write an
applause-line speech. It works only if you write a thinking speech.

They should try it.

* * *

Here's what didn't work. Near the end of the speech, Mr. Obama
painted an America that didn't summon thoughts of Faulkner but of
William Blake. The bankruptcies, the dark satanic mills, the job loss
and corporate corruptions. There is of course some truth in his
portrait, but why do appeals to the Democratic base have to be so
unrelievedly, so unrealistically, bleak?

This connected in my mind to the persistent feeling one has -- the
fear one has, actually -- that the Obamas, he and she, may not
actually know all that much about America. They are bright,
accomplished, decent, they know all about the yuppie experience, the
buppie experience, Ivy League ways, networking. But they bring along
with all this -- perhaps defensively, to keep their ideological views
from being refuted by the evidence of their own lives, or so as not
to be embarrassed about how nice fame, success, and power are --
habitual reversions to how tough it is to be in America, and to be
black in America, and how everyone since the Reagan days has been
dying of nothing to eat, and of exploding untreated diseases. America
is always coming to them on crutches.

But most people didn't experience the past 25 years that way. Because
it wasn't that way. Do the Obamas know it?

This is a lot of baggage to bring into the Executive Mansion.

Still, it was a good speech, and a serious one. I don't know if it
will help him. We're in uncharted territory. We've never had a
major-party presidential front-runner who is black, or rather black
and white, who has given such an address. We don't know if more
voters will be alienated by Mr. Wright than will be impressed by the
speech about Mr. Wright. We don't know if voters will welcome a
meditation on race. My sense: The speech will be labeled by history
as the speech that saved a candidacy or the speech that helped do it
in. I hope the former.


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