Posted by
Crispian on Thursday, February 21, 2008 4:26:30 PM
Barack Obama is being wrongly accused. The entire uproar about his supposed plagiarism is entirely academic.
He merely adopted a speech once given by his supporter
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. He cited passages such as "I have a
dream," "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal," and "We have nothing to fear but fear itself,"
thereafter asking rhetorically whether they were "just words?"
This whole affair comes after repeated accusations that Obama is
all talk and very little substance or experience. To counter these
claims, he offered the above-mentioned speech to show the putative
power of words.
The real issue here, ignored by most, is that Obama's defense to a
lack of substance is to give us the words of others as if those
speakers' accomplishments can be imputed to him.
After Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke "I have a dream," the world was not suddenly transformed by the vision he offered.
After the Declaration of Independence announced self-evident truths, the British didn't think they were so self-evident.
After President Roosevelt assured us that fear was the only thing to fear, I doubt there was a collective sigh of relief.
The blasphemous truth is that those words are "just words."
Racial disparities still exist, our own courts still grapple with
the nature of equality, and we still reasonably fear things other than
fear.
Obama fails to present how he will put his words into action. We
may remember the legacy of King, the Revolutionaries, and Roosevelt
based largely on their words, but their significance is based on what
they did.
Obama is building a legacy before he has done anything. Will
Obama's words soothe away racial tensions, ultimately define equality
so the Supreme Court can close up shop, and convince us that Islamic
extremism is not something to be feared? What will he do on those fronts? Speeches may win one the Presidency, but they do not solve problems.