MLK Day Speech by Obama

[drpaisley]

While I still have some issues with positions taken by and statements made by Barack Obama, this speech, delivered today at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, is simply an amazingly powerful and brave statement.

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/01/a-good-sermon-f.html

Read it all, and watch the video. Damned impressive.

Comments

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

His 2004 speech to the Democratic convention made me actually post that I thought he'd be the first black president. Glad he's had Secret Service protection for months already.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Yes, impressive -- powerful and brave, just like you said. Many thanks for the link!

It's also impressive on an utterly mundane level. Back when I worked in Corporate America, I sometimes ended up writing speeches for the company president. I grew to expect not just minor deviations from the written speech, but on-the-fly rearrangement and reconstruction of the material at hand.

In the years since, I've rarely compared written speeches with the words actually spoken. I've seen or known of minor differences between what was on the teleprompter and what the speaker said, but I haven't seen this kind of speaking skill, of both following the script, of embellishing it in real time, and wholesale substitution of material that both stays on track and eventually wraps back around to an important piece of the original script that fell by the wayside or was otherwise tucked into a pocket to be pulled out later.

Up until now, my take on Barack Obama has been "too inexperienced, at least 8-12 years too soon." Seeing and hearing this has me thinking "here's a politician I'd like to listen to." I wish I could remember the last time that happened, or when I last felt inspired by anything that came out of a politician's mouth.

So, yes, thank you. Really. I don't think he has magic answers. That's find; I don't think there are magic answers. But I do want to listen more.

[the-snowgoose.livejournal.com]

Truely a powerful speech. I also noted that the delivery, in it's cadence, was very simular to Dr. King.