He went way left on race, blaming white people for disparities in income and education. I almost expected him to call for reparations.
He also equated his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, with all black people, saying he couldn’t disown Wright without disowning the entire black community. I would think many blacks would be offended by that. He said white people just don’t understand the depth of black anger (if I had to listen to rhetoric like Wright’s every Sunday I’d be angry too). He also equated Geraldine Ferraro’s comment that Obama’s race is an asset to him in this campaign (what a terrible thing to say!) to Wright’s many offensive comments.
He also played the anti-capitalism card, accusing corporations of taking jobs overseas for “just for profit.” What, he’d rather see the companies go out of business for lack of profit? He also went Code Pink on the war, something that may play with the Democratic base but not with America overall.
And while he mentioned that most white men may vote for John McCain because of his race (it has nothing to do with his strong national defense stance, you understand), he never mentioned that blacks are voting for him in far greater percentages than white men are voting for McCain or women are voting for Hillary Clinton.
And finally, he kept talking about how America “can change” without ever acknowledging that is has changed. In short, it was a speech skillfully delivered but with content that won’t help him, and will probably hurt him, in the polls.
UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan goes over the top:
I do want to say that this searing, nuanced, gut-wrenching, loyal, and deeply, deeply Christian speech is the most honest speech on race in America in my adult lifetime. It is a speech we have all been waiting for for a generation. Its ability to embrace both the legitimate fears and resentments of whites and the understandable anger and dashed hopes of many blacks was, in my view, unique in recent American history.
“Legitimate fears and resentments of whites”? Where did he hear that? He accused the Reagan administration and talk radio of fanning the fears and resentments of whites. What a healer.
UPDATE 2: He’s lost Allahpundit:
Partisanship aside, as much as I loathe his politics, I always liked Obama the man and believed that his devotion to racial reconciliation was sincere. I don’t anymore.
I just heard Sally Quinn’s comments on radio. She’s having an orgasm, just like Andrew Sullivan.
UPDATE 3: Michelle Malkin’s summation:
Obama’s bottom line: Everyone’s a victim. You’re part of the problem if you keep talking about Jeremiah Wright. Everyone’s churches have crazy demagogues. Schools need more money. Leave illegal aliens alone. Never mind all the black grievance-mongers who have built careers sowing seeds of divisions. Look at all the talk show hosts and conservative commentators! Elect Obama. Fixer of souls.
UPDATE 4: Victor Davis Hanson’s take:
Obama is right about one thing: We are losing yet another opportunity to talk honestly about race, to hold all Americans to the same standards of public ethics and morality, and to emphasize that no one gets a pass peddling vulgar racism, or enabling it by failing to disassociate himself from its source — not Rev. Wright, not even the eloquent, but now vapid, Barack Obama.
UPDATE 5: This is just embarrassing. It’s ’60s radical Todd Gitlin’s reaction to Obama’s speech. What is it about left-wingers and the news media losing control over Obama? (See Andrew Sullivan above, too):
Talk about hope; talk about audacity. Tears came to my eyes. I don’t think I’m especially hard-hearted, but I cannot think of another time when the speech of a presidential candidate watered me up.
UPDATE 6: Roger Simon’s take is, shall we say, unambiguous:
Barack, your speech was bullsh*t.