hard truths

I need to come clean on what I think about Obama's Notre Dame speech:

It is his best.

Including the 2004 convention speech and all those "best speech ever" moments last year - the Wright talk, the convention acceptance and the wildly overrated and forgettable inauguration speech. It had two elements always missing from his mountain top sermons: True bravery and real, cold truth. On one issue, abortion, Obama said in no uncertain terms that there are irreconcilable differences. There are elements on which both sides will not ever be able agree, so we must work in those areas in which we can find some common ground. This is hard stuff. But it is the stuff of real leadership. No bromides about bipartisanship and nonsensical, dishonest hooey about "change."

I may well be a sore loser (but being sore is fine. I'm also right.). I am almost certain that Hillary Clinton could have and would have told us the hard truths on all things. (And when I say "all things" I mostly mean the fix we are in economically.) The right man for the job was THAT woman - with her brass balls and husband in the background playing the good cop. I am not sure Obama can stomach telling us too many hard truths. Evidence so far indicates he cannot.

As much as I distrust the man now, if he can muster the will to tell us the hard truths on issues other than abortion as his term progresses he will become a President I admire and respect even if I disagree. For now we are stuck watching the same foolishness as before unfolding with a new face. I still find it remarkable that so many did not see this coming. It was obvious well over a year ago. With the limited knowledge I have it remains clear to me - clearer now, actually, that he is working to save a system that is unsave-able and shouldn't be saved even if it was. The element that bothers me the most is that his "movement" absorbed the opposition. Or rather, they absorbed themselves. It amused and pained me to see so many "progressives" joyfully dance to a tune orchestrated by George Soros and Goldman Sachs. Some of them now stunned to be coming to with a President printing money for bankers and imitating Bush on civil liberties.

In his career Obama has used his considerable skills as a speaker to one end - to promote himself. If he decides to use his gift as a speaker to actually lead, historians may look back on the Notre Dame speech as a turning point.