Whitewashing the Fence: Obama Style

I am sure that many of you have read the "Adventures of Tom Sawyer". In that novel, Tom Sawyer is the orphan who uses his persuasive skills to avoid whitewashing a nine foot high and 30 yard long fence. He uses his skillful tongue to convince his friends to do all the work for him as he completely backs out of the picture.

In many ways, Senator Barack Obama did this same thing, yesterday. In his speech on race, he basically threw the ball in our laps. He left it up to us to discuss the issue of race as he backed out of the picture. He did nothing to address the problem of Jeremiah Wright - the controversial pastor who actually sparked the speech. The fact is, he never "truly" admonished Wright during his speech. Instead he, as he has done before, he just explained him away. He equated Wright to his White Grandmother. He justified Pastor Wright through historical reference. Not once did he actually say that he ever confronted Wright on his views. Not once did he actually try to convince anyone that he found Pastor Wright's words to be false and/or extremely offensive. That was Obama's whitewash.

In football, this tactic is called mis-direction. In magic, it is slight-of-hand or the illusion. On the other side of the law, it would be called the "con". Take your pick!