Words Failed Him

Mo

Obama has always firmly believed first and foremost in the power of his words. As the LA Times said, describing Obama’s Farewell Address: “Whether as candidate or president, Obama knew it came down to words, the way they spun and gathered, lifted and fell on precise beats with restrained flourish.”

Indeed, Obama rose to national prominence based on the speech he gave in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention, a speech which was widely praised for its soaring rhetoric. The most famous line from that speech was this:

​Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

Obama continued:

The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too: We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States, and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States.…

Obama’s speech was extraordinarily well-received and widely praised for its inclusiveness. “I have to tell you, a little chill in my legs right now. That is an amazing moment in history right there. It is surely an amazing moment. A keynoter like I have never heard,” gushed Chris Matthews. The Chicago Tribune declared: “Obama delivered a brilliant, passionate and heartening speech.” Just this year, Salon argued, in retrospect: “Using his own eclectic background and biography as evidence, Obama forcefully argued that America’s greatness derives from its diversity.”

For whatever reason, people believed him. They believed he was extolling the virtues of true diversity—diversity of opinion—and was eschewing division based on skin color or ethnicity. For decades, Leftists had been using PC language rules to bludgeon anyone who didn’t speak correctly, tagging as “racist” anyone who refused to toe the line on identity group politics. When Obama was elected in 2008, as America’s first black president, he had the credibility and capital to deliver on the promise of his 2004 speech. He utterly failed.

Look at the record:

• In 2009, Cambridge police arrested Henry Louis Gates after being informed someone was attempting to break into his home. It turned out Gates had locked himself out and then, according to the police report, was belligerent with the police officer who was investigating. Before getting any facts, Obama stepped before the cameras and declared that “the Cambridge police acted stupidly” and “there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”
• When Trayvon Martin was killed, before any investigation, Obama again jumped in front of the cameras, saying, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” After the jury trial in which George Zimmerman was found not guilty, Obama paid lip service to jury and judge doing their job, then spent most of the remainder of his remarks discussing how African-American boys are painted with a broad brush and declaring: "If a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.”
• When Freddie Gray died in police custody, again before any investigation, Obama declared, “This has been going on for a long time…This is not new, and we shouldn’t pretend that it’s new.”
• After the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, yet again before investigation or trial, Obama said the shooting “stains the heart of black children.” When the Grand Jury refused to indict Darren Wilson after the evidence had shown the shooting was justified, Ferguson erupted in protests that morphed into riots. Despite widespread looting and violence, with no evidence that the police mishandled anything, Obama still couldn’t help himself, pronouncing: “There’s no excuse for police to use excessive force against peaceful protests or to throw protesters in jail for lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights.”
• At the 2016 Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas, five policemen were killed by a sniper. Obama used the police memorial to condemn both sides: “We have all seen this bigotry in our lives at some point…None of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune. And that includes our police departments. We know this.”

​On every single occasion, Obama automatically characterized the incidents in racial terms and either suggested racism was at work or, as in the Dallas shootings where the police were the victims, treated both sides as equally blameworthy. Meanwhile, Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, repeatedly called us a “nation of cowards” on race, and Obama’s surrogates, like Jay Rockefeller, characterized all opposition to Obama’s policies as racist. Obama did nothing to stop this, instead constantly echoing it by claiming Republicans were partisans who were “willing to tank the economy” and “willing to hurt people just to score political points,” arguing “I won,” and claiming Republicans had to sit in the back of the car if they wanted to come for the ride. On the one issue where Obama’s words alone would have helped - race relations - he either took a pass or actively made things worse.

Obama believes in the power of his words. The country once did as well. Imagine what he could have said. Imagine what he could have done. Obama’s words failed him. Obama’s words failed us all.