The Speech

Man, I want this guy to be my president.

Barack Obama's speech this morning was brilliant and daring. I am sadly afraid that it might not be successful.

I did not come to support Obama quickly, easily, or with the messianic fervor of many other whites in coastal America. I did so slowly, deliberately, with eyes wide open to his shortcomings and weaknesses. I felt he was not nearly as strong a general election candidate as many pundits did, and I was unsure of his readiness to be commander-in-chief in an uncertain and scary time. I considered seriously Bill Clinton's warning that voting for Obama was a risk.

With time, I decided I wanted to take that risk. I needed to take that risk. Over the course of fall and early winter, I slowly saw in Barack Obama the potential for something different in America, in her politics, and to a certain extent, in myself. I witnessed and grew enamored of a candidate who possessed a steely calm, who championed a cause without demonizing the opposition, and who challenged a broken, dysfunctional political system.

The past week, the endless cable TV loop of the worst of Jeremiah Wright filled me with dread. I have spent enough time in black churches and among the political hard left to be unfazed by Wright's politics or by his tone. But I am enough the member of a family of Reagan voters, enough the product of an ethnic mill town, and enough the political operative, to realize that Wright's comments had thrown Obama onto the third rail of American politics, and tied him there, firmly, tightly.

I was nervous about the speech this morning. I was skeptical that he could salvage his campaign from this crisis. Twelve hours later, I am not sure he did, but I feel genuine awe and gratitude for what I witnessed this morning.

What impressed me was not his eloquence, or his grasp of history, but his uncommon courage. Alone on stage, reading a speech written by his own hand and from his own heart, Barack Obama forcefully, calmly and eagerly broke every rule of modern American politics. He refused to simplify and pander. He opted for loyalty over political expediency. He thoughtfully explained instead of deliberately obfuscating.

Most remarkably, though, rather than try to short-circuit or bury an agonizing conversation about race in America, Barack Obama chose to start one. He understands this nation needs to embrace the complicated dialogue he has had within his own head for much of his life. He understands the discussion needs to be unflinching, unvarnished, and often painful. And while he understands the conversation will never be finished, that the union will never be perfected, it is necessary, productive, and ultimately transformative.

I am in awe of Barack Obama for what he did today. I have never felt as proud of supporting a candidate as I did today. I have never before felt that a candidate was really trying to change something big and deep and troubling in our country. And I have never before felt a leader was sincere when he said this was something "we" needed to do.

But I am skeptical that this speech will save his campaign. The significance of his message is either being lost or deliberately obscured by the rabid hyenas on CNN and Fox. And although I try, I cannot muster the faith he has in the American electorate to not only embrace the dialogue he calls us to, but to see and understand his candidacy as being about not that one conversation, but about so many more.

I don't quite believe we can, but he makes me want to. He makes me just audacious enough to hope that I am wrong.

Manners Can Rude

Tonight at the gym, I asked two 20something guys if they were done with a piece of equipment.

"We have just one more set, sir."

Sir? To a guy in his early 40s, desperately clinging to the last gasps of youth, that's rubbing it in.