Wow

A couple of posts ago I wrote how the Obama speech on race blew my mind. Now, that same speech managed to blow my mind again, straight out the back of my head, and deposited it in an adjoining county due to this one simple revelation.

He wrote it himself.

Our standards and expectation have been lowered so much in this country we fully expect a candidate to speak words that are not their own. We expect a philosophical direction from a candidate and a general zeitgeist for the movement, but really candidates are expected to have two jobs; raising money and kissing babies. A campaign exists to take the pressure off the candidate so they can, for all intents and purposes, make money and look pretty.

Huge speeches, like Obama’s, usually go through several drafts. The language is carefully vetted and run past “experts”. It might take weeks to write a major speech depending on the circumstances and sometimes the person delivering it is the last to see it.

But Obama wrote it, all of it, by himself over the space of a couple of days and only showed it to a couple of people before speaking it. The man delivered one of, if not the most, sophisticated, respectful, and eloquent pieces of American oratory in recent memory on one of the most controversial topics imaginable…at a time when his reputation and campaign were at great risk, and he did it all with his own words. No army of speechwriters. No panel of “experts”. Just him.

Amazing. Just amazing.

Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to go reinforce my walls. Any more news like this and I’m sure the Kool-Aid man will come bursting through…and I’m still not particulary thirsty for that beverage.

Still…damn.

~ by Sean on March 22, 2008.