Barack Obama anulls his candidacy for president after demonstrating too profound a knowledge of his country’s history.

Barry Obama just gave his “major speech on race,” which turned out to be a richly nuanced social history of the United States. He charted the development of American attitudes toward race since the end of slavery, including attempts to repair the damage done (affirmative action, welfare) and the backlash created by those feeble attempts. His speech put whites, blacks, Latinos, everybody, all on an even keel. It was thoroughly moving and inspirational.

It was like at the end of the second season of the West Wing when President Bartlett has to admit to the press he’s been hiding his MS. Under fire, Bartlett uses the truth, he uses candor, to turn the situation on its head and launch his re-election bid and everything ends gloriously. That hopeful narrative suggests that it’s our politicians who are the vacuous ones and if one came along with some integrity, well, that would be a different world.

Today, more than ever, it’s clear that Barry is the real deal. He’s the candidate those of us with a bit of progressive fire in our guts hope for. And now he’s almost certainly going to lose.

We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

Fox News’ headline is unsurprising. It says “Obama Condemns Pastor but Won’t ‘Disown Him’”. CNN’s gut reation produced the headline “Obama: Constitution Stained by ‘Sin of Slavey’” before changing it to the more sachrine (but encouraging) “Obama: We Can Move Beyond Racial Wounds”. MSNBC says “Obama: Racial Anger is ‘Real’”. The New York Times got misty eyed, but they always do. If only that paper (and medium) still mattered.

The fact that CNN changed their headline might mean that Barry managed to break the Rev. Wright narrative that dominated the press most of the weekend. That hadn’t happened when I started working on this post. But more likely the press will pull the the most racially and politically divisive quotes from the speech.

The problem isn’t vacuous politicians without integrity, though we certainly have them. The problem also isn’t a sensationalist media, though they certainly are. The real problem is that our society is run from the top down, and that the values affirmed and reaffirmed in the political dialog in the country and in the media are the values of the elite; the people who own things and fund the political process. That’s why populism fails in American politics and why a speech like the one Obama just gave in Philadelphia could sink him. The press, wholly owned by the same ruling elite who pay for politicians, both Democrat and Republican to win election cycle after cycle, will tear this thing to pieces.

Just one time it would be fantastic if the cynics were wrong. Bonus points if this can be that time.

Obama Speech in Full [Drudge Report]
Obama’s Speech [Balloon Juice]
Obama’s Race Speech [Ankle Biting Pundits]