I loved Obamas speech at the DNC in 2004. It was obviously an homage to Dr. Kings I Have a Dream Speech, and to a lesser extent President Reagans ,A Time for Choosing speech. The point of this article is to suggest that Obama failed to live up to the promise of his 2004 speech and specifically to look at 6 lines he regrets. In doing so the reporter misses the bigger narrative. In 2004, then Senator Obama spoke to our better nature and described a hopeful nation that was able to put partisanship aside for the greater good of the nation. Unfortunately his own personal style of politics has never worked that way. The disconnect between his rhetoric and his actions has been apparent since day one. His time and energy have always been on pressing his leftist agenda with no room for compromise. His expansive win in 2008 with large majorities in the house and senate only exacerbated his partisan inclinations. So many people voted for his healing, calming rhetoric and were frankly shocked when he handed his agenda off to Nancy Pelosi. He burned bridges quickly with Republicans by the way he jammed through his stimulus and then again with Obamacare. The TEA party was an extreme reaction to his unilateral approach to governing. For all of his faults, President Bush was smart enough to co-opt democratic issues and develop major bi-partisan laws (NCLB, Medicare expansion, etc). Hillary Clintons campaign in 2008 tried to educate people that Obama lacked the right experience to be a good president and that giving a good speech was not enough. She and her husband were counter attacked as racists for attempting to disqualify Obama this way. I still love the 2004 speech and I read it every year on MLK day. I cannot help but be sad though because so very little of the promise of the speech was achieved. I know some will read my comments here and want to disregard them because I am white male republican. Some will want to counter my comments (no need the POLITICO article is the counter punch). If you want to read an analysis that blames everyone else except President Obama then just click the link.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 22:48:56 +0000
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