I'm eager for Obama's comments on "race" tomorrow. But from what I'm reading in the first few chapters of The Audacity of Hope, I don't dare raise my expectations too high.
It was Edwards, not Obama, who dared quote Dr. King on his memorial: "There comes a time when silence is betrayal." The part of Audacity I've read so far, which attempts to portray the politics of Dr. King's era the 1960's, has too many conspicuous silences.
The early chapter Republicans and Democrats has Obama working so hard to portray balance between 1960's liberals and conversatives that:
*not a single Vietnamese death is mentioned
*the lies and claimed 'threat' posed by Vietnam are absent
*the invasion and unilateral attack are missing
*liberals are depicted "spitting on vets" (p. 29) - exactly the opposite of veterans' true role in the peace movement
Obama is a masterful debater and politician, but I worry that when he works this hard to see "conservatives'" side, his ability to tell the truth is compromised. Tomorrow he needs the courage to channel courageous thinkers like Martin Luther King, William Sloane Coffin, and Michelle Obama.
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