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Opinion: In today’s pages: Obama, Obama, Obama ... and Iraq

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In honor of the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, ‘expertologists’ Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky study the surge in punditry while cartoonist Ed Stein watches President Bush navigate the labyrinthine occupation. Novelist Andrew Klavan applauds playwright ‘David Mamet’s public coming-out as a political conservative,’ and Tim Rutten likens Barack Obama’s ‘More Perfect Union’ speech on Tuesday to Abraham Lincoln’s historic ‘House Divided’ address. Contributing editor Erin Aubry Kaplan also has a thing or two to say about Obama’s speech on race:

Obama rebuked Wright, in part, because he knew their association was in mortal danger of morphing him into just another angry black man a la Nat Turner, Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan (whom Obama detractors have already attempted to conflate with Obama). Whatever salient points these men made have been entirely eclipsed by the fact that they were just too mad for comfort. Strange, when you consider that we live in a culture that thrives on vituperation institutionalized by conservative talk radio -- guys such as Rush Limbaugh and Don Imus are paid to be mad. But, of course, white anger is seen as fundamentally reasoned and righteous, and Americans have an almost limitless capacity to forgive it when it isn’t.

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The editorial board condemns China’s manipulation of media coverage as it cracks down on protesters in Tibet, and urges LAPD Chief William J. Bratton to release a private report examining SWAT. The board also finds great value in Obama’s address:

It may have begun as an exercise in political damage control, but Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia on ‘A More Perfect Union’ was that rarity in American political discourse: a serious discussion of racial division, distrust and demonization. Whether or not the speech defuses the controversy about some crackpot comments by Obama’s longtime pastor, it redefines our national conversation about race and politics and lays down a challenge to the cynical use of the ‘race card.’

Readers react to the McCain campaign’s murky plans for Iraq. Harold Tuchel writes:

It is concerning to hear an advisor to John McCain say McCain will not be as robust in military matters as his current campaign speeches indicate.Although I don’t favor any of the presidential candidates because of their policies of amnesty for illegal immigrants, what really concerns me is that they say one thing while fully intending to do another.We have had enough of this type of chicanery with George W. Bush.

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