Comments on: The Audacity of Hope: Obama’s Address to the UCC http://www.thebigdaddyweave.com/2007/06/the-audacity-of-hope-obamas-address-to-the-ucc.html News & Commentary About All Things Baptist Fri, 10 Sep 2010 19:54:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 By: Michael Westmoreland-White http://www.thebigdaddyweave.com/2007/06/the-audacity-of-hope-obamas-address-to-the-ucc.html#comment-1073 Michael Westmoreland-White Sun, 24 Jun 2007 16:42:00 +0000 http://www.thebigdaddyweave.com/?p=228#comment-1073 Amen! Obama definitely has "the Vision Thing" downpat. He knows how the personal and political intersect. He speaks out of his own particularity and yet invites in other particularities for common work toward the common good.<br/><br/>And for a church service, like the UCC gathering, this is well and good. Also for some political gatherings.<br/><br/>But although these problems require MORE than "a perfect 10 point plan," they also require planning. What I keep waiting for with Obama on the campaign trail is the detail work. He opposes the war, but is light on details for how to get us out. He wants to reform healthcare, but John Edwards has the more detailed plan. Etc.<br/> Unveiling such plans would be wrong at an address to a denominational gathering, so this is NOT a critique of his speech before the UCC. We NEED this kind of vision. Too often in recent years Democrats have lacked this ability to give moral hope--and left me hungering for a return to the speeches of John and Robert Kennedy or of FDR. But I wish Obama would fill in the details in other, more appropriate venues. Because we need someone to lead us who has both vision and pragmatic planning--both. Amen! Obama definitely has “the Vision Thing” downpat. He knows how the personal and political intersect. He speaks out of his own particularity and yet invites in other particularities for common work toward the common good.

And for a church service, like the UCC gathering, this is well and good. Also for some political gatherings.

But although these problems require MORE than “a perfect 10 point plan,” they also require planning. What I keep waiting for with Obama on the campaign trail is the detail work. He opposes the war, but is light on details for how to get us out. He wants to reform healthcare, but John Edwards has the more detailed plan. Etc.
Unveiling such plans would be wrong at an address to a denominational gathering, so this is NOT a critique of his speech before the UCC. We NEED this kind of vision. Too often in recent years Democrats have lacked this ability to give moral hope–and left me hungering for a return to the speeches of John and Robert Kennedy or of FDR. But I wish Obama would fill in the details in other, more appropriate venues. Because we need someone to lead us who has both vision and pragmatic planning–both.

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