For the last three days, Obama’s speech has been sliced and diced by the media talking heads. Predictably, liberals found it brilliant, conservatives said his explanations didn’t go far enough, and open-minded people were thankful somebody finally is getting real about the race issue.

Here are some insightful reactions from three people I respect.

Mike Huckabee

Huckabee wins the second place ribbon for campaign persona and speaking ability, only because the competition is really steep. He will, not doubt, wind up with a book deal, a talk show, and probably another run for the white house in 2012. What I really like about him, is that he broke with the party line and showed some Jesus like compassion.

Particularly important is this paragraph:

“…And one other thing I think we’ve got to remember: As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, “That’s a terrible statement,” I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I’m going to be probably the only conservative in America who’s going to say something like this, but I’m just telling you: We’ve got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, “You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus.” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had a more, more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.”

Thanks to David Kuo.

Steve Brown
Steve is always good for a a tasty cocktail of wit, wisdom, and honesty.

“If you ever visit the Key Life building, you should note a cartoon that hangs on the wall in the lobby. It’s a picture of a pastor standing in front of a shocked congregation…their eyes wide, their hair standing on end and incredulity all over their faces.

The caption reads, ‘Now Steve didn’t really mean what you thought he meant.’

When Obama vigorously disavows the comments of his pastor, I think of the “eat the frog syndrome.” That’s when someone seems sane, balanced and rational, and just when you are about to join the club…a frog hops across the floor and the formerly sane, balanced and rational man or woman picks it up and eats it.

Rev. Wright ate a big, juicy frog and Obama has to explain it.

Obama said that his pastor told him about Jesus and taught him about his obligation to love others, to care for the sick, to feed the hungry and to help the poor. I’m sure that all of Rev. Wright’s sermons weren’t as divisive, hate-filled and wrong-headed as the ones we’ve seen and heard in the media. I know that black anger isn’t totally without reason and that preachers get caught up in the excitement of the moment and…well…uh…say stuff that might cause them to wince when they have an attack of sanity.

Okay. But there’s still the frog.

As you know, I wasn’t going to vote for Obama anyway, so I don’t have a horse in this race. But I do like Obama and wish him well in trying to explain the unexplainable and defend the indefensible. That’s a hard place to be…especially with a beloved friend or pastor.”

Thanks to Steve Brown. (You can read the entire post here.)

David Kuo
The former conservative political operative usually has an insightful perspective informed by faith and and the dangers of blending the two.

Rod Dreher has written something beautiful about Holy Week and Jeremiah Wright… please read:

“I bring all this up because I am bothered by the idea that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright passes off his hatred of oppressors as somehow Christian, and the idea that we should indulge it in light of what he’s been through. It is addictive, but it is poison. But look, I am a bigger sinner than Jeremiah Wright, because even though I would never do as he does, and present hatred of a particular sort as in some sense holy, it is possible that the Rev. Wright is so blinded by his own experience of oppression — which was far more real and embittering than anything I have ever experienced — that he cannot understand what he’s truly saying. His culpability may be, in the eyes of God, mitigated.

What I do know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that while I would never, ever be able to preach what Wright preaches about Islamic extremists of the sort who committed the 9/11 atrocities and who celebrate them, I have failed to love them as the man I call Lord and Saviour commanded. And in failing Him, I sin, and open up a chasm between my failure and his transcendent goodness. Truth to tell, when I think of Obama sitting there listening to this garbage from Wright without protest, had I been sitting in a church at any time in the year following 9/11 and heard a pastor excoriate Arab Muslims in the same way Wright excoriates whites, I can’t say that I would have protested in any way, no matter what my personal misgivings.

For all I know, Wright has a good excuse. For all I know, I do not. I am the chief of sinners. And there is nothing left to be done but to repent, and ask for mercy, and try against my own prideful nature to extend mercy, every day of my life.

You too. We’re all in this together.”

Thank you Rod for your humility and for your example.

Thanks to David Kuo.