I don't really want to discuss the politics of what's been dubbed "Obama's Speech on Race," even though he is a politician. I don't want to talk about polls and statistics and votes as it relates to his speech, because he didn't.  Instead, he spoke about people, not numbers and percentages. It would be silly of me to try to articulate something more to add to what he's already said or to try to analyze something that was so honest and forthright in its substance.  What I do want to admit is that I feel like he didn't do something that seems to have been at the core of politics since its beginning - he didn't dodge, like George W. Bush has for the majority of his two terms in office.

The courage it took for Obama to answer questions about his relationship to his pastor while addressing us Americans as if we mattered - I'm not used to this.  When you've been hearing things like "I am the Decider" from Bush, you kind of get lulled into thinking that the president, the commander-in-chief, is the end-all, be-all, say-all in this nation's affairs.  But Obama put the ball back into our court: he essentially asked us what  we wanted from our country and then told us that we can achieve it together.  Not that he would do it unilaterally, all by his lonesome--but that it will take all of us.  He is asking something of us, which is weird, since Bush has been treating us like children who just don't understand the world we're living in, therefore we weren't capable of processing the truth when it came to the Iraqi war.  He spoke to us like adults which is a point Jon Stewart made on the Daily Show.  His speech was really, really refreshing.

Unfortunately, even though it's the most and only (besides the Colbert Report) hilarious political show out there, I don't and can't limit myself to only watching the Daily Show for my source of news.  I like to be informed as to what all sides are saying.   So, I watch Fox news and I read the opposing candidates supporters websites as well as the republican and conservative blogs.  And I like the actual thought I saw everywhere that went into discussing Obama's speech. There weren't immediate visceral reactions but a thoughtfulness to it that was a little jarring, to be honest.  Of course, there are the provocateurs, the ones that are going to pretend like Obama's speech was the usual rhetoric, those who are going to cherry pick his statements and then quibble over them.  But if it was only for a second, people in this country thought before they reacted along racial or political lines.

Whether you agree with him or don't, and honestly we could debate his speech forever, at least he put it out there for us to chew on.  At least he didn't act like we couldn't handle it or that somehow he couldn't say what he said for our own good.  And whether we ultimately vote Obama in or not, no matter who your favorite candidate is, it's nice to know that we can - that it is possible to have a president who will discuss our world's and this nation's affairs with us and then leave it to us to be "The Deciders".