From Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic comes the reporting that
Obama wrote his speech on
race and America himself. Reports Ambinder:
This wasn't a speech by committee... Obama wrote the speech
himself, working on it for two days and nights.... and showed it to
only a few of his top advisers.
I spent the last five hours in my woodshop with a lathe and sandpaper and
an awl, carving this beautiful oak chair that I now present to you.
I did it because you will need something to sit down on when the full
measure of what Ambinder wrote crashes upon you like all the heavens and the
stars above.
Let me repeat it.
Because it bears repeating.
That speech today? The one that has pundits--from the liberal
David Corn at The Nation ("This is as sophisticated a discussion of race
as any American politician has sought to present to the public") to the
conservative
Charles Murray, of National Review Online ("it is just plain flat out
brilliant—rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in
America. It is so far above the standard we're used to from our pols."), and
those inbetween--noting the brilliance, sophistication, sincerity and candor
of the words spoken by Obama? That speech?
He wrote it himself.
Once more, with feeling:
He wrote it. Himself.
Barack Obama did. He wrote it.
Now, if you are like me, and I pray for your soul you are not, you had
the normal reaction to finding out this piece of information. You rushed
right to the Library of Congress to determine exactly the last time that a
President or a presidential candidate wrote a major speech alone, by himself
or herself.
And, of course, what you discover is that other than the speeches Obama
has written for himself, the last time a major speech was written without
the aid of a speechwriter by a president or presidential candidate was
Nixon's "Great Silent Majority" speech delivered on October 13, 1969.
Now that was a good speech. Evil, no doubt, to its very core, and
designed to proliferate the feelings that allowed the great Southern
Strategy success, but a good speech nevertheless.
In other words, not in my lifetime. And I am oldish. I have kids and
wear dark socks with slippers and complain about the quality of my lawn and
get hungover way too easily. But in the last 37 years there hasn't been a
speech like this written by the man himself. Not like this.
Here is a chair. Regardless of who you support, or what you think of
Obama, I want you to sit here, right here on this chair and consider
something wonderful. To wit:
It is possible that we will have a President who not only will speak in
full, complete sentences, but who will do so in a manner that is
eloquent, and who will also be articulate and eloquent in
delivering words he is intelligent enough to know, understand, and use
in a speech he is capable of writing himself.
This chair, it is oak.
Sit and think about that.
After seven years of the worst crumble-bumblings of the nattering nabob
from Crawford, think about that.
He wrote that speech. He wrote it. He, himself.
