really, some of the extreme conservatives ought to take note that it's okay to give a little. you can disagree politically but you don't have to tear a person to shreds at every chance. i think that john mccain is a honorable man with great character but I disagree with his political views.
see, conservatives, you don't have to entrench further into your hole out of duty. if you think obama's speech was brilliant just go with it. it feels nice. and don't worry, we won't get the wrong impression and think you like us. we should be debating the politics anyway not the stupid stuff.
NRO Charles Murray:As a Republican who will vote for John McCain in November, I watched Barack Obama's Philadelphia speech with awe--as a New England Patriots fan might have watched the New York Giants' Eli Manning hit David Tyree with 75 seconds to go. I was like the Oakland A's fan during the 1988 World Series when crippled L.A. Dodger Kirk Gibson limped to the plate in the bottom of the ninth. As Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully said about Gibson:
All year long, they looked to him to light the fire.
Gibson quickly fell behind 0-2 then worked the count up to 3-2. The A's pitcher Dennis Eckersley threw a slider, and Gibson, using only his upper body strength, yanked it out of the park. The Dodgers won 5-4. The national TV announcer, Jack Buck, said:
I don't believe what I just saw!
On Tuesday Obama, whose momentum was evaporating in the heat of his pastor scandal and poor Pennsylvania poll numbers, did what he had to do.
He did more than that, actually. He stepped to the plate and swung for the fences. Obama gave the best, straightest talk on American race relations ever heard from a national politician.
The reaction to Obama's speech quickly broke along partisan lines. Rush Limbaugh called Obama a "guilt monger," while Michael Gerson spoke for many conservatives when he said, "Barack Obama is not a man who hates--but he chose to walk with a man who does." The unfailingly sour Michelle Malkin wrote: "Barack Obama--the self-anointed soul-fixing, nation-healing political Messiah--has lost his glow."
What speech were they watching?read the rest. it's pretty good.
read the various posts here on "The Corner," mostly pretty ho-hum or critical about Obama's speech. Then I figured I'd better read the text (I tried to find a video of it, but couldn't). I've just finished. Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one? As far as I'm concerned, it is just plain flat out brilliant—rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in America.
and here's an outright republican switcheroonie:
Camp Hill Mayor Lou Thieblemont switched his lifelong Republican registration this week so he can vote for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary.
"I'm sick and tired of the politics of fear in this country. He's the only one who doesn't do that," Thieblemont said of Obama. "He's the only candidate who's said he'd talk to our enemies and try to get some common ground."
A retired airline pilot, Thieblemont, 62, said he doesn't believe the Bush administration's claims that the United States is safer now. "We're all alone in the world. We have basically lost all our friends in the world with comments like 'bring it on.'"
