Politics and Culture

What's up with politicians and unnecessary speeches? Mitt Romney started the trend with his religion speech. Then, Barack did it twice: First, he started his conversation on race that he a) didn't think important before they caught his mentor, Reverend Wright, speculating on the origin of AIDS and b) never brought up again, making it the shortest conversation since Mike Tyson bit off Holyfield's ear.

Then, Barack shocked the earth by suggesting that fathers should stay with their children (A braver statement would have been for him to exhort women to marry before having children.).

Now, Obama intrepidly says that patriotism is OK with him, and that he is willing to not question John McCain's patriotism. The latter's a mighty big sacrifice for him- no doubt Obama strategists were begging Obama to attack McCain's patriotism (A bigger sacrifice would have been for Obama to keep his promise on public financing.).

Next, Obama will give a speech in praise of flossing and promise not to make fun of McCain's grandmother (Oh, wait: maybe not.).

Besides being intellectually boring, the speech wasn't particularly effective, for all he did was remind people that he has a patriotism problem; it's kind of like if Don Imus had given a speech listing all of his black friends- Obama simply protested too much.

It was also defensive in that Obama didn't take any chances; he simply wants to ride the wave of discontent to the White House.

Obama repeated the canard that conservatives called liberals unpatriotic for not supporting the war. Who?

Obama again mentioned that he loves America for its potential, like a woman who marries a man whom she wants to rescue. If we want to "change" for the better, why do we need Barack? If we don't, will Barack make us?

Bottom line:

To the extent that Obama's patriotism is a problem for him, it's so because Obama doesn't mind hanging around America-haters like William Ayers.