I finally got a chance to read the transcript of President Obama’s speech in Selma. It struck me, at least on paper, as a pretty epic stemwinder. I assume he wrote it with minimal help for his speechwriting staff, although we’ll hear more about that in coming years.
Would I be off base to predict that future students will read and watch this speech like we did with Kennedy’s inaugural and Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg?
Some people said that the president seemed like the old candidate Obama, high on hope and change. I prefer to think that this is who he has been all along.
At this point in his presidency, he just doesn’t give a damn anymore. So, he went to Alabama and talked about the patriotism of the people who gay marry each other and swim across the Rio Grande to get here.
I wouldn’t want to reduce his grand speech to its most hilariously trollish elements, but if Obama was hoping to get reelected again he would have toned that shit WAY down.
Nothing was more satisfying than, 50 years on, having a black president in Selma, saying, “We’re the slaves who built the White House.”
If you don’t like it, too bad.
