An Afternoon In Charleston

President Obama's eulogy in Charleston for slain Rev. Clementa Pinckney at Charleston's historic Emanuel AME Church is one for the history books.

Whatever solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete. But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allow ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again. 

Once the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go back to business as usual. That’s what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prejudice that still infects our society.

To settle for symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of more lasting change, that’s how we lose our way again. It would be a refutation of the forgiveness expressed by those families if we merely slipped into old habits whereby those who disagree with us are not merely wrong, but bad; where we shout instead of listen; where we barricade ourselves behind preconceived notions or well-practiced cynicism.

It was actually a beautiful eulogy and an impassioned speech, but the delivery...ladies and gentlemen we got to see the Reverend Bishop Dr. Barack H. Obama of the Church of Hope and Change, and it was legendary. I'm hoping that this speech will be the one that goes down in history for him.  There are several that could be defined as "the" Obama speech, but this is by far my favorite.

This is the man I was proud of voting for twice even in Kentucky, a state he lost by double digits both times.

We witnessed history yesterday in every sense of the word.  It was President Obama at his best and most genuine, and for a politician of any level, to let his guard down as he did to let the world see, that took some fortitude.  He is a master orator and oh, by the way, a pretty damned good President too.

Enjoy it.  June 26 was a hell of a day.