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Dialog Anyone?

From the emerging Obamian Dictionary:

di?a?log
Noun

I speak; you listen. My Philadelphia Speech was the beginning, and end, of a much-needed national dialog on race.

ORIGIN Modern Elite American English, born in cites, rich suburbs, academic villages (Hyde Park, Cambridge, etc.) and bred in the Ivy League and similar institutions.

Obama has had, so far but still counting, three responses to Rev. Wright.

1. Hide him in the basement; hope he will be ignored;
   
2. ?Contextualize? him; refuse to to ?disown? him;
   
3. Disown him.
   

What he hasn?t done is deal substantively with any of Wright?s assertions. He?s ignored them, rationalized them, and finally denounced them, all without ever confronting them or arguing with them. What specifically does he disagree with, and why, and when did he begin to disagree? Who knows?.

Wright, in short, provided the ideal opportunity for what Obama said he wants but has fled from as though it was the plague itself ? a dialog.

Gregory Rodriguez captures this point perfectly today.

Right about now, his much-heralded tutorial on race relations is looking more like Richard Nixon?s ?Checkers? speech than the Gettysburg Address. Because, after last Tuesday?s formal renunciation of his ties to Wright -- and presumably also his white grandmother and all blacks -- Obama looks not only tardy but thoroughly hypocritical. Didn?t Obama?s vaunted speech call for an open national dialogue on race, a subject he said was too important to ignore? Didn?t he urge us to address those ?old wounds? that still fester today? Whether you agree with him or not, isn?t that exactly what Wright was doing last week when he reappeared in public to make more provocative statements on race and politics?

That?s no way to start a dialogue, Mr. Obama. You don?t call on people to talk and then renounce someone for speaking his mind. Because Wright didn?t really say anything new last week, it seems that his only new sin is that he called Obama?s bluff and, well, sparked another national dialogue on race. Which, of course, points to the absurdity of Obama?s call for more racial dialogue in the first place.

Indeed.

Full post as published by Discriminations on May 05, 2008 (boomark / email).