Btw, Obama did talk about personal responsibility in his MLK day speech. The great thing is he can do that while still seeing the structural problems as well. In essence its a synthesis of what McWhorter and Loury have been talking and arguing about on Bloggingheads.

http://www.barackobama.com/2008/01/20/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_40.php

I think he’s really good. Here he is talking about whether racism will matter in November, and ”Is it OK for white people to embrace whiteness?”
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/11372?in=00:28:48

http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com

On Oratory — Obama is brilliant but there were quite a few who were equally good if not better. Reagan and Clinton in the US. Blair in the UK definitely.

If you look at oratory, Bill Clinton is actually very very good and was brilliant when he was running for President in 1992. However, the difference between Obama’s oratory and Clinton is that while Obama’s rhetoric has an intellectual appeal I think it lacks the ability to sum public policy in a conversational tone which appeals and touches voters no matter what their education or intellect level are.

For example, look at Bill Clinton’s speech at the Dem Convention this year — the only guy who talked about productivity and the income differential and make it sound like your thoughtful neighbour stopping by and having a chat. To me that is political oratory at its best.

This is not a critique of Obama but I believe that Clinton and Obama are very alike and we said so after his Iowa victory.
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/16557

But policies alone wont solve the problems that Obama highlighted in 1994 — and even with the Clinton presidency it did not help those who did not want to help themselves or were caught up in Baltimore crime areas where the only hope was getting a street rep and being a gangster for many black teenagers. How do you change that? And thats where personal responsibility comes in.

The funny thing is Colin Powell did grow up in a very bad and tough neighbourhood in NY and guess what the first Black national security advisor, the first Chairman of JCS, and the first Black Secretary of State and that too without an IVY league education. So personal responsibility and family made a huge difference. and its not really a race issue.

‘It’s not the result of an intellectual deficit. It’s the result of a moral deficit.’

Dayumn! XD