March 18, 2008

Obama's Big Speech

By Thomas Lifson
It does not speak well of his campaign's crisis management skills that Barack Obama has taken five days to wheel out his heavy artillery and give a speech today on Jeremiah Wright, Jr. and "the larger issue of race in this campaign" at a venue called the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Given the opportunity to carefully write and rehearse the delivery of a speech, Obama's verbal presentation skills shine. But talking on his feet, in a press conference or television interview, he is less persuasive.Rather than get on top of the story, he has unconvincingly argued that he wasn't there when the bad things were said, that Wright is like a crazy uncle, and that we have to remember that the scars of the past have not healed for the older generation. Worst of all, his language has been transparently evasive, making him look like a man with something to hide.  Obama implicitly promised racial healing, which is exactly what makes his two decades of cleaving to...(Read Full Article)