We assign as a requirement for all gentle readers the text of Senator Obama's speech delivered today in Philadelphia, which we read not long after posting the preceding missive on his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Our differences with Senator Obama in regard to particulars of economic and foreign policy do not for us obscure the impressive clarity with which he expresses the ideals of American citizenship and the present state of race in our Republic. We can't recall a better recent statement of either gravid matter.
Only three speeches belong in the first rank of American oratory: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address and King's "I Have a Dream." We will rashly nominate Senator Obama's speech today as belonging in the second rank.
Those gentle readers who fail to read the speech will hereafter be known as "harsh nonreaders."
4 comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp-v2tHaDo here is a link for those of us who would prefer to hear instead of read. i know, not scholarly.
I am a gentle reader, but I harshly choose to adapt a Platonian/Miltonic suspicion of rhetoric and the "interested rhetorician".
One other thing to note: Did Obama even write this speech? Bush has had some unbelievably talented writers as well (even if his delivery will never be on par with one of Obama's 'bad days').
I know a subsequent endorsement of Obama was not implicit in this post. However, I do fear that, like the reader of Paradise Lost, we could be gently seduced and persuaded by rhetoric and charisma alone until we also are 'of the devil's party without knowing it'.
Let's give the devil his due. The Obama campaign says that he substantially wrote the speech, but from the SWNIDish POV, a person who contends for an executive position should be commended, not derided, for employing skilled speechwriters to help him articulate his message.
We will not be seduced unless Senator Obama adopts more market-based approaches to domestic and foreign problems and acknowledges the grim necessity to use military force to restrain tyrants like Saddam. But Senator McCain has not so eloquently expressed our ongoing struggle to overcome our racist heritage as has the Junior Senator from Illinois. And the Junior Senator from New York has never expressed anything eloquently in her life.
Patrick Henry and his "Give Me Liberty..." speech are certainly among the among the very best.
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