I just read the Obama speech.

I made a point to not watch a video of it, I know Obama is a skilled orator and I did not want to be influenced by his skill as a speaker. I went straight to the text. The reason I did this is because of all the media hype about it, how it was supposed to be such a ground-breaking, world-changing speech: Obama's Gettysburg address, his "I have a dream", his "ask not what your country can do for you" speech. That was the gushing and obsequious liberal response: no black can do no wrong. The conservative response was equally predictable and more sneer than sentimental. But that's their style; it's how they keep all their old friends but why they never make any new ones.

Well, I'll be honest with you. The speech was no big deal. It was nothing new. No, don't get me wrong, it is well written and eloquent, and it communicates his ideas well, and it is remarkably fair and even-handed as it looks at both sides of the issue, and why there are two sides of the issue. In fact, it pretty much sums up my opinions and feelings about the race issue in America, and there is little, if any, of it I disagree with.

But that's just it. The speech offers nothing new, no breakthroughs, it's just common sense. I would have thought it would just be what everyone who was neither a racist nor a racial radical activist was thinking. It is not a great revelation for the future, and it is not a profound insight, it is just what everyone should already know. We should have all figured this out a long time ago. Obama has just gone over what we should all agree on, except for a few extremists on both sides, and if we needed his speech just to remind us of this, we're probably in pretty deep trouble.