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Given the sheer volume of hysteria from right-wing schlock radio to hosannahs from pundits of every stripe, Barack Obama's speech yesterday has proven to be an immediate and remarkable study in perception amid the inane ebb and flow of a presidential election campaign. Never int he field of rhetoric have so many offered so many interpretations. There are those who condemn Obama for not knowing or not having his former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright exiled off the planet for being a virulant carrier of anti-American viruses -- and there are those who feel that Obama didn't pander enough to that vital, mysterious tribe (so depicted by the pundit class) called the working class white voters who may have been spooked beyond reach by Wright's incendiary diagnosis of America's ills.

Like much about this election, we don't know how this will play out or whether his campaign willc rash on the rocks of what Obama correctly called a "distraction" from the important stuff. Like it or not, Obama had the guts to wade into the spectacle and speak intelligently, frankly and comprehensively to all of America. He may not have wanted to give this speech and been forced to do it but he didn't wast the opportunity with a bland laundry list of solutions. In fact, what made the speech remarkable and open-ended is that he offered hardly any solutions -- an approach very few career-obsessed politicians would attempt.

I've read many of the commentaries and here are links to a few worth reading:
Glenn Greenwald in Salon offers a feast of links, commentary and analysis. This is the most comprehensive look at a wide range of opinion.
John Dickerson in Slate offers a critical analysis of Obama's high low and high points.
Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe questions Obama's judgment and leadership choices in sticking with Wright.
And
Julie Bergman Sender in Huffington Post offered a non-professional pundit's appreciation for what Obama accomplished.

Reader feedback: Thumbs down for Obama
From yesterday's post on the speech:
It's over for Barack Obama; his electability ship is sunk. Hillary now has all the argument she needs for the superdelegates.
Here, Obama is talking above the heads of Americans. We're a lot less noble bunch than one would hope for.
Too bad, isn't it?
God, I hate it when I'm right!

UPDATE: McCain's version of they all look alike
While Obama was hogging the headlines yesterday, GOP presump nominee John McCain made an incredible gaffe -- one that would have damaged Hillary Clinton or Obama if they had done it. McCain said not once, not twice but thrice (and perhaps more) that al-Qaeda terrorists who are Sunni muslims was receiving support from from Iran, a mostly Shiite country. That don't jive with reality.

According to the Washington Post (and numerous other print, web and television reports), McCain "said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

It's understandable that most Americans get lost in the Middle East quagmire of players when they don't have a scorecard at hand but for McCain, who's running as the foreign policy maestro, to fail such as obvious test again and again is a revealing trend -- especially because we are entering the sixth year of war in Iraq. Worse, he sounded like George Bush who never hesitated to make things up when it suited him.