Jay Cost offers up what could be the most damaging question to be asked of Obama in reaction to his speech (in the context of the Democratic primary). He writes:
My concern with the speech is the following. I am not sure what I think about Obama’s claim that he never heard Wright make incendiary comments. I think that hinges on the definition of “incendiary.” More importantly, I have always thought this was a moot point. Incendiary comments make for great television–but the bigger concern, especially for somebody as smart as Obama, is the philosophy that undergirds them. . . . . This philosophy is divisive, and Obama was aware of it even if he had not heard its most extreme articulations. At the same time, this philosophy is clearly not the core mission of Trinity United Church of Christ. Jeremiah Wright does not wake up every morning dedicated to dividing people. However, the antipode of this divisiveness is the core mission of Barack Obama. . . . Accordingly, this inclines me to ask what Obama did about this profound philosophical error. . . . I must ask whether he worked to persuade Wright and the parishioners who applauded so jubilantly at his divisive words that they were wrong on a matter of existential importance. If he did, what was the consequence of those efforts? Did he succeed in bringing about change at Trinity?
With the afterglow of the speech’s delivery fading, it seems to me that it created or fed at least as many problems for Obama as it put to bed. Cost’s question is of a piece with one of Clinton’s major lines of attack–that Obama is “just words.”
