No, not the speech — all that is is Obama in 2002 preaching covert class warfare and leaving open a justification for violence against the rich, or rather, an empathy toward the root causes that brought it on.
Rather, what’s ugly is the fact that someone found it and posted it.
How galling!
And after the Daily Caller’s temerity of last evening, posting the full Obama speech that had previously only been shown in bowdlerized fashion, this latest foray into the very sensitive issues of race and racial politics, by which I mean class warfare as articulated by a one-time member of a black nationalist church, might just be a bridge too far.
Listen: if people on the right are going to continue to notice and make public, using his own words and images as their evidence, that Obama is not the man he claimed to be in 2007-8, what with his academic markers and his nice pant crease and all his pleasing bromides about unity and pragmatism, then I’m afraid I’ll have no choice but to support him for President in 2012.
Because racism.
I said good day, sir!
(h/t leigh)
****
update: such ugliness must not stand! Having noticed your noticing, I must condemn noticing in all its forms, unless of course we are talking about my metacommentary on your vile noticing.
Did I say good day sir, yet? Because if not, good day, sir!
what’s that law about not being able to effectively satire reality because reality becomes ever more ridiculous? I read this post and at the same time instapundit links to Althouse linking to Conor Freiersdorf calling everyone on the right a racist for posting/viewing these videos.
Which is why Muggeridge’s Law is: there is no way that a writer of fiction can compete with real life for its pure absurdity.
“Because racism.” -> Because Gutless. Because Head in the sand. Because easily shamed by charlatans. Because might get frogged on shoulder by bully! Because confused. Because long since conditioned. Because Stockholm syndrome.
By falling for this bullshit, the GOP virtually authorizes and provides an incentive for EVEN MORE bullshit. Pattern recognition really should have kicked in by now. The GOP is damned afraid of being indefensible that they don’t defend each other or even themselves.
Shit, the GOP really makes me want to rent a room in a small town and just mail order and play solo sci-fi board games until the reaper stops by.
“The GOP is damned afraid of ” -> is SO damned afraid of
Breaking News: Alan Gribben has been hired to review all of the wonce’s speeches
With their passing, but revealing, anti-suburban regionalist remarks, we’re learning more from these old videos about Obama’s second-term plans than President Obama himself has been willing to tell us. If you’re wondering why Obama hasn’t itemized his second-term agenda, it’s because his plans come straight out of the policy menu on display in these videos.
link
At least Obama’s consistent. He’s always in favor of excusing violence when practiced by people of color against the “haves” whether the “haves” are individuals or the “haves” are Americans. It’s almost as though he were raised on the idea of “revolution” as a practical method to achieve social justice.
and by ‘or the “haves” are Americans’, I mean American interests around the world, e.g. defenseless ambassadors, consulates, and/or American allies like Israel.
I hereby comdemn myself for noticing that the president is a lying liar what lies.
On camera.
Did any of you guys read the whole speech?
Gotta love that InstaPundit link in your update. Especially the revelation that Obama voted against waving the Stafford Act after Katrina and then told that black crowd that ‘dem racis’ honkies in Washin’ton done voted agin wavin’ da Stafford Act’! I think we all know the guy is two-faced, but that really takes the prize.
Just out of curiosity, and not saying there is one brewing, but is there a dollar and cents value to a blog war?
I have no interest in a blog war. I have an interest in pointing out a passive aggressive rationalization for rejoining the liberal tribe that does so by making ugly accusations against people who haven’t earned them.
It’s almost like a theme here.
So posting videos of Obama speeches is ugly, but a front page story about Romney cutting a classmate’s hair 40 years ago (who might just have been gay – so homophobia!) is totally relevant. Also, a rock with a racial slur painted upon it, on property that Rick Perry’s father leased decades ago (and who painted over the offensive slur), is likewise relevant. Let’s not forget how relevant VA Gov. candidate Bob McDonnell’s college thesis was to the Washington Post.
But, no. An ugly, racially-charged speech given by Obama way back in 2007 – you know, when he was running for president – is totally off-limits. And old news. Lalalalalalalalalalala don’t make people hear or see anything that makes the Lightbringer look bad. It makes people like Althouse feel bad about their vote in 2008, so they just might vote for him again in 2012 to avoid admitting they were total suckers. Also, it gives them the opportunity to break out their superiority act – how dare you bring race into the race, you raaaacist!
Not all of it. Who has time? There’s the most important debate in the history of earth about to happen tonight. Plus a den meeting.
Did you? Any thoughts or revelations?
Like i said, not saying a war is being fought, but if there was one, does it translate into money? My background obviously is not blogging, so i honestly don’t know. And i honestly am curious.
Exactly, nr. Kurtz has been pointing this suburban drawback as a point of Obama’s second term for quite some time.
Still, it’s racist that we’ve now seen it articulated. And Kurtz is racist for knowing of it before the racists released racist video of Obama engaging in racism that it’s racist to look upon.
Depends, BT. If I’m involved, it usually ends with my marginalization and removal from polite company. On the left, they even took to spelling my name wrong so that I wouldn’t find out when they were attacking me.
It was much easier when I didn’t show up and hand their asses to them.
So from my perspective, it leads to the loss of revenue. But it’s still the right thing to do.
I think Herr Friedersdorf is overly obsessed with the obsession of right-leaning folks regarding the matter of race.
What’s that make him, then? I can’t quite wrap my mind around it.
At least we know he’s not voting for Obama, right? I mean, he promised.
This is what he said before the part everyone is freaking about:
And this is the resolution:
Its bullshit, but it is relatively harmless bullshit.
It isn’t exactly what it is being portrayed as.
Which is probably why it conveinently surfaced just now.
Did any of you guys read the whole speech?
the problem with that question is that baracky went off the script in this speech.
Hey beemoe, how about that part of the speech when Roomney interupted and said “Poor people are all for non-violence, unless they are perpetrating it” That was sump’tin.
this points to baracky going rogue
OUT: “You selectively edited that!”
IN: “You put back in all the parts we selectively edited out!”
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/152543/
Yes beemoe, it’s bullshit.
But I don’t agree that bullshit is harmless.
Oh sorry to misquote, beemoe. It’s “relatively harmless bullshit”.
Truth? Relative. So sayeth zerothustra.
What is harmless about abandoning the principles of the Declaration?
Seems more or less the opposite of harmless to me, especially when it’s done by pulling the wool over people’s eyes.
My point is he was taken out of context, the speech isn’t about what is being implied.
That used to matter here.
My point is he was taken out of context, the speech isn’t about what is being implied.
your bs is of a stinky kind
Maybe Romney will ask Obama about his vote against waiving the Stafford Act after Katrina.
Just kidding.
Sarah Palin, Facebook, presumably unaware of The Althouse Rule:
Doh!
Did you catch Insty’s update to the linked post? Neo-neocon: Obama and that Katrina vote
As Mojo Nixon likes to say, LYYYYIIIING COCKSUCKER!
I don’t see the “out of context” you’re seeing B Moe.
He brings up empathy before bringing up more empathy? I don’t follow, and there’s only some many times I can attempt to parse his “Ya feel me? I feel me!” empty rhetoric.
Thanks for drawing out the context, bmoe.
Let’s just put it this way. Videos like this surfacing now are useful because, again, they show Obama adjusting his “beliefs” to the crowd he’s speaking to. I’ve long called him a constructed candidate. I think these speeches show the parts being worked on.
In fact, I look at these as some of his training wheel speeches. Developing the proper modulation. The cadence and diction appropriate to the venue he has to sell. This was minor league new leftism giving one of their top draft picks some needed extra at bats. Because they had big plans for this one. Big plans.
Having said that, the “a pox on all our houses” pablum is betrayed by the notion that the wealthy hold certain views because they are content and taken care of. Some do, I’m sure, but it’s a gross simplification, a marker of class politics rather than a respect for individual difference, and it’s coupled with a carefully understated empathy for the kinds of acting out by certain put upon groups that are a result of such a perception of disconnect. We need to understand their rage — in response to the beating of Reginald Denny, or the attacks on the WTC, for instance.
Obama used the theme again in the 2007 speech. Only he did it while apparently holding a mint to the roof of his mouth to get that black preacher / Bill Cosby sucking-in and drawing out of the esses. Which I found kind of humorous, in an Arsenio Hall in Coming to America kind of way.
Just my opinion. YMMV.
Does the part I quoted sound like he is advocating class warfare to you?
Because it sure reads to me like we all need to try to be more empathetic.
This isn’t from the 07 speech, this is from the 02 one the LA DA just found.
6:52 was for sdferr
Empathy is really big in Hobbes’ analysis of natural right. Right up there with zero. Don’t be taken in. This isn’t MLK’s view.
I get what you are saying, Jeff. Pablum, bullshit, its all the same.
I don’t mean it is totally harmless, just that it isn’t the incite the peasants outrage that it is being portrayed as, imho.
Aren’t beemoe and bmoe two different commentors?
The no votes on the Katrina Stafford Act waiver:
Boxer (D-CA)
Burr (R-NC)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Dodd (D-CT)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feingold (D-WI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Obama (D-IL)
Sanders (I-VT)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
Because it sure reads to me like we all need to try to be more empathetic.
why? your bs is really stinky
Flip Wilson does a much better preacher man immitation.
Different speech nr. The 2002 one has a good transcript, itm is the 2007 one where he went off script and the MSM pretended it didn’t happen.
As for the 2002 one. He’s a crafty liar. His actions show what he believes is true and real. That he can try to sing the bull to sleep by slinging the bull simply means he has the lying part mastered and knows what slop to feed each audience.
The 2007 one is important both for where he slipped up and spoke his heart and for what the press in their guise as protectors of all things progressive saw needed to be covered up. They point to what is important to know by where the dog is muzzled to silence the bark.
Aren’t beemoe and bmoe two different commentors?
Nope, same guy. I had to change handles, and create a new email, lol, because WordPress weirded out on me.
Second time that has happened.
This feels like class warfare — or rather, someone working to justify class warfare without engaging in it explicitly and keeping plausible deniability. I think his ascension and successes have made him cocky. He’s more open now. I think he believes America is more ready to hear it explicitly argued. A year after 911? Probably not so much.
But it’s in there.
Empathy is overrated. Expecting it is a fool’s errand. And Obama’s references to it are just a nicer way of calling “the rich and powerful” assholes.
Do you really think he gives a shit? Do you really think he’s empathetic?
WordPress has weirded out on me too. Thus we are both strangers in a non-gravatar strange land, yes?
Different speech nr
no i was talking 2007 see @6:31
Steven Hayward on Kesler’s parsing of Obama’s Philadelphia “race” speech: Obama has the Wright Stuff
Just recall the original formula of the Forgotten Man: A and B concert together to help C by taking from X. X is the Forgotten Man.
But Roosevelt adopted the phrasing of Forgotten Man and used it to refer to C. This is Obama’s way. Empathy.
Or to put it more correctly: enslaving X.
Well, it’s interesting that Obama voted against the bill, but it’s not as if the Katrina measures were central, or even a substantial peripheral part of the bill. I got about 10% through the text of the public law and I was up over $110B in appropriations and just got tired of punching the calculator.
Still, it’s usually best to keep track of what was in what you voted for, and against. Any young genius law professor ought to know that.
If anyone wants to try and do a walkthrough of that mess, have at it.
This is Exhibit ZZA3725 for the case that government appropriations ought to be done in blocks, instead of lumping them into huge bills with completely unrelated stuff.
But, well, look at the several billions that got appropriated for the military, just in the Katrina section. I understand part of that, but it would be keen if Congress could be persuaded/cudgeled/waterboarded into showing at least part of their work.
I think I can sense where you’re coming from, there.
beemoe at 6:01 was speaking about the 2002 speech and at 6:25 was quoting the 2002 speech.
At least that is my take.
Rove claimed that Bush had waived the Stafford act for the first 16 months after Katrina, and that when it came up again in 2007 the State of Louisiana was running a $1 Bil. surplus.
I think the uncomfortable part is the race baiting. The part we aren’t supposed to even think on, because it’s complex racial stuff.
beemoe, you can make a case for over-reaction (though I’ll disagree with you on who is over-reacting probably), but what you can’t squirm away from is Obama race baiting.
When you are arguing people should ignore new information on a man running for POTUS, pretend it doesn’t even exist, to avoid any appearance of gloating and evil, shameful racist nastiness, you should probably rethink your position.
Of course we all need to be more empathetic. There also need to be more sunny days but also less drought.
And there are still people who think Obama is a different kind of politician — the kind that doesn’t indulge in empty platitudes.
So, bullshit or not, maybe it helps.
Clear, concise and to the point.
Who are you and what have you done with our sdferr?!?!?!?
President Tire Gauge’s campaign is looking a little flatter after tonight. Mitt strapped him to the hood of his car and took him for a ride. Four more years of ditch? I think not.