Now this is a great speech:

In recent weeks, every one of us has been made aware of a simple truth — white Americans and black Americans often see the same world in drastically different ways — ways that go beyond and beneath the Simpson trial and its aftermath, which brought these perceptions so starkly into the open.

Abraham Lincoln reminded us that a house divided against itself cannot stand. When divisions have threatened to bring our house down, somehow we have always moved together to shore it up. My fellow Americans, our house is the greatest democracy in all human history. And with all its racial and ethnic diversity, it has beaten the odds of human history. But we know that divisions remain, and we still have work to do. (Applause.)

Recognizing one another’s real grievances is only the first step. We must all take responsibility for ourselves, our conduct and our attitudes. America, we must clean our house of racism. (Applause.)

Of course, that was Bill Clinton’s speech on the Million Man March in 1995 — the very same Bill Clinton that the Obama campaign has been systematically marginalizing as a racist, and the very same Bill Clinton who arguably took much greater political risks that day than Obama did yesterday, since the Million Man March was organized by Louis Farrakhan, a figure then far more demonized than Wright today, and Clinton was a sitting President, rather than a candidate seeking to kick start a stalled campaign. Obviously, we can answer Cornerite Charles Murray’s rhetorical question (quoted approvingly by Mat Yglesias) “Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one?” with a resounding “Yes! Bill Clinton did!” But then, the creatures of the Conservative Movement have never give the Clintons credit for anything, and their descendants in today’s famously free press and today’s famously self-correcting blogosphere play by those same rules.

But let that pass. After all, 1995 was a long time ago, and many may not even remember that time. Let’s focus on Obama’s — I hardly dare to use the lower case “s” — speech. We all know that Obama gives a terrific speech — not least because prepared-for eloquence rules out any requirement that he think fast on his feet or take questions — and so the excellence* of Obama’s rhetoric** really isn’t the question here. (Nor do I care about Wright, who is certainly as sane as, say, Henry Kissinger. So Obama’s beautiful description of his church is interesting but to me, academic.) But when I, case-hardened cynic that I am, start looking at the pesky detail… Start trying to match up Obama’s words with Obama’s actions… I start asking questions.

Questions like:

Does Obama live up to his own speech in the way he’s running his campaign?

Question: How do these words from Obama on March 18 in Philadelphia, PA:

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

square with these words from Obama on March 10 in Jackson, MS:

[OBAMA] When in the midst of a campaign you decide to throw the kitchen sink at your opponent because you’re behind,” he said, “and your campaign starts leaking photographs of me when I’m traveling overseas wearing the native clothes of those folks to make people afraid…

Answer: They don’t.

Senator Obama, I call bullshit! Not only did you yourself “pounce” on a “gaffe” by the Hillary campaign, the “gaffe” was bullshit perpetrated by Matt Drudge designed to smear Hillary as racist! Kevin Drum:

Hell, even I fell for the racism meme a couple of weeks ago, getting suckered into passing along a Drudge slander about Hillary’s campaign supposedly circulating a photo of Obama in “Muslim” garb.

Please, Senator Obama, fewer words, and more actions that match the words. You could start with an apology, but I have the feeling that Hillary won’t be getting one soon. And like the Unity Pony, apologies for the racism smears from Obama’s supporters are probably on back order.

Question: how do these words from Obama on March 18 in Philadelphia,PA:

The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

square with the record:

Pollsters—along with nearly everyone else on earth—failed to predict the result of the New Hampshire Democratic primary. According to Real Clear Politics, they estimated that Barack Obama would defeat Hillary Clinton by an average of eight percent. She won by three, and eleven percent is an awful lot for pollsters to be wrong by—well beyond the margin of error. In the scramble to explain how this could have happened, several writers, including Andrew Sullivan and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, have suggested that the discrepancy might be the result of what is called the “Bradley effect.”

Answer: They don’t.

Because “the press” that Obama mentions turns out to be Obama surrogates Eugene Robinson and Andrew Sullivan—heck, Bareback Andy was the original Obama cheerleader. And not only are Robinson and Sullivan quick to call Hillary voters racist, they miss one very real possibility that would have explained the NH results, as opposed to the quickly touted Bradley Effect, for which there was little evidence at the time:

Here we come to a far more likely explanation (albeit one of several) for why the pre-election polls were wrong: Women—and college-educated women in particular— shifted to Clinton. The polls show that while four percent of men switched over to Clinton, 12 percent of women did. Since there was very little change among voters without college degrees, one must infer that the bulk of the change came from women voters with college degrees. And it seems unlikely that racism can help to explain that, since well-educated women may be the least racist sub-group in American society.

Far be it from me to suggest that Obama’s surrogates were so busy smearing Clinton voters as racist that they missed the most under-reported story of the campaign: “invisible women” voting for Clinton. (For more on the polling problems, and how the Bradley Effect was not a factor, despite the narrative, see “Polling the New Hampshire Primaries” and “Did racist voters cost Obama the primary?”.)

Senator Obama, I call bullshit! One the one hand, you deplore “scouring” the polls for evidence of division; on the other, your surrogates are not only “scouring” the polls, they’re smearing Clinton voters as racists without evidence—and missing the biggest story of all!

Question: How do these words from Obama on March 18 in Philadelphia,PA:

We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some*** have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

square with these words from Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod:

“[Ferraro’s remarks] should be denounced, and she should be censured by the campaign for them.”

Answer: They don’t.

Because what did Ferraro say, exactly? Let’s look at the record:

The most persuasive case for Obama has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting. …

What does [Obama] offer? First and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan. Such a re-branding is not trivial—it’s central to an effective war strategy. … There is simply no other candidate with the potential of Obama to do this. Which is where his face comes in. … A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy [of Islam].

Oh, wait. I got my quotes mixed. That wasn’t Geraldine Ferraro; that was Obama supporter and movement Conservative Andrew Sullivan saying Obama would make a better President because of the color of his skin, and not Geraldine Ferraro at all. My bad. Here’s what Ferraro really said. In the Daily Breeze. A fucking shopper, for pity’s sake:

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she continued. “And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

Tactless, maybe. But in terms of content, how exactly is what Ferraro said any different from what Sullivan wrote? How is “lucky” different from “the moment he is meeting”? How is “If Obama was a white man” different what Sullivan says Obama offers: “first and foremost,” his “brown-skinned” face?

Senator Obama, I call bullshit! In your speech, you say that “some dismiss” Geraldine Ferraro for “racial bias,” but outside the hall in real life, your own chief strategist is doing the dismissing! Not only that, but your guy claim Geraldine Ferraro showed “racial bias” in a California shopper, when your own surrogates show the same bias in the pages of a national magazine! Please, Senator Obama, fewer words, and more actions that match the words. If you really believe what you say in your speech, you could have Axelrod walk back his remarks in Ferraro, but I have the feeling that won’t be happening any time soon.

Summing up: As soon as you start judging Obama and his campaign tactics by the standards that he himself sets up in his own speech — whether pouncing on “gaffes”, pushing putatively “divisive” narratives in the press, or ginning up examples or “racial bias” that aren’t really there — you’ll find Obama’s operatives — or Obama himself — in the thick of the action, doing themselves exactly what they decry in the name of Unity.

Personally, I think Ashley deserves a President who finds eloquence in words that match actions, not just words. Don’t you?

Because when Obama’s words don’t match his actions — and he shows no sign of recognizing the disconnect — Obama’s just saying one thing:

“Honey, I’ve changed! That Unity thing? This time it’s for real!”

When the Obama campaign stops smearing the Clintons as racists, or stops leveraging the Hillary hatred, or walks back the Ferraro incident, that might be some indication of change. Until then, Obama’s fine words are only words.

NOTE * Merely the speech evah by a Presidential candidate? Or the best speech ever given by a sentient being in the history of the universe? Opinion in the Obama Fan Base is divided.

NOTE ** Except for the mixed metaphors. I think any one of Obama’s Harvard professors would have redlined “tensions” that “bubble to the surface.” I mean, if tensions were in any way like bubbles, my back pain would be iridescent, wouldn’t it?

NOTE *** “Some”, eh?