Janny Scott in NYT on "The Speech"

MSNBC has this posted from Janny Scott and the Times:  Obama Chooses Reconciliation over Rancor.  The Times version is here.  This could have been written by a Kool Aid drinker on this site.  I'll admit, I didn't expect to see such full acknowledgment in the media.  

In a speech whose frankness about race many historians said could be likened only to speeches by Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, Senator Barack Obama, speaking across the street from where the Constitution was written, traced the country’s race problem back to not simply the country’s "original sin of slavery" but the protections for it embedded in the Constitution.

Even in our surrealistic age of media-fed reality, it looks as though God's honest truth still cuts right through smirking innuendo and gleeful smears.  Rightwing hacks say, "See, Obama associates with angry black me."  Smirk, smirk.  So, you want to talk about race?  Obama says

Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

The conversation is suddenly about something serious, and it is grounded in reality, compassion, and vision.

And now we have real commentators weighing in:

Yet the speech was also hopeful, patriotic, quintessentially American — delivered against a blue backdrop and a phalanx of stars and stripes. Obama invoked the fundamental values of equality of opportunity, fairness, social justice. He confronted race head-on, then reached beyond it to talk sympathetically about the experiences of the white working class and the plight of workers stripped of jobs and pensions.

We need this man as our President.  Instead of using fear for manipulation, he taps into the inherent goodness of our people to bring us together around so many things that have brought us pain for so long.

I want to end with the photo of compassion and honesty from the beautiful diary:   Obama Made Michelle Cry.  It symbolizes what I cherish most in this Obama campaign.  I see people who have suffered through racism; agonized at the distortions of a calmly violent and insidiously abusive media; and struggled in the face of disfranchisement at the hands of our government.  These people are crying because a national figure is speaking their truth.  This photo shines with what makes us best:  compassion, honesty, and heartfelt engagement.