Friends, Romans, Countrymen...

Oh politics, you rear your ugly head at me again... this time, it's Obama's speech on race in America. For the record, two things: I do not currently identify myself as Republican or Democrat, regardless of my registration. I think of myself as a moderate (you know what they say, all things in moderation...). Second, I think Obama is a wonderful orator. He has cadence, measure, charisma to burn, posture, grace, and erudition.

Now, the speech. For starts, I think Hilary is pretty finished. The speech was what people want from a politician: someone to stand there, look good, deliver lines with a shred or more of conviction. Never forget that politics is show business.

One nitty gritty point: I think the beginning, which was intended to be strong, muddled the Constitution and the Declaration together into an abominable wreck. I'm a student of the Constitution... I've studied it almost continuously for the past year, reading and rereading the commentaries, the document, the convention, the writers. I think most people forget that those two documents were not written in strict succession, and I don't think it was helped by the opening. I also don't agree that the founders ever thought that the Constitution, and the country by extension, were ever supposed to be perfect. Just 'more perfect': more perfect doesn't mean perfection, it means better then the union we had under the Articles of Confederation, better then the union of the Empire, better then any nation before. It doesn't mean that we can ever attain a level of perfection, but that we should strive for it. I grant you, that's what Obama said at the end, but not at the beginning. So that bugged me.

Strong points:

• tying the pastor to his white grandmother --it showed that he is considering his experience-- multi racial-- as a microcosm of the American experience, and that he is trying as hard as he can to take race out of the equation.
  
• tying the black experience to the white experience to the immigrant experience-- because it showed a consideration for problems that are universal, or that are rooted in particulars other then race
• focus on education-- a return to an actual issue from the "race card". A lot of Americans care about education, and to be able to go "Schools that are predominantly Black suck, so do other schools. Let's fix it!" will stick in the minds of the listeners.
• Hope and Change!-- a worn record, but slightly re-invented by calling for a "different kind of campaign" which focuses on action instead of rhetoric.

Problem with any of this? We're still in the land of rhetoric. I cannot vote for him because, as a practicing Catholic, I cannot vote for a someone who does not seem to show any respect for life-- I grant you that he has half the equation (no death penalty), but euthanasia, abortion, "right to die"-- these are issues that bother me. For the record, it is far from our only point of difference. I do not agree with putting medicare in the hands of the government in any capacity (because do we really trust the people who can't get us through the DMV in less then 5 hours to get us to medical help in a timely manner? It's the same system to be based on you know...). I do not agree entirely with the education scheme-- taking a child out of the home almost immediately destroys the family, not strengthen it, and it's not worth it to improve reading levels. Education and family can co-exist, why destroy one for the other? Economics... is a messy field that I hate, but I'm not 100% on board there either.

The transcript of the whole thing is here. It's also on most every other news agency, so it's not hard to find. Analysis will be out in the next hour or two. For now, all I'll say is that the speech as a speech was perfect for the occasion, that many people will find it comforting, and that with oratory like that Obama can easily defeat McCain. I just wish I could vote for him. But I can't.