A more perfect union...

I finally read the transcript of Barack Obama's March 18th speech, the "big one" about race in America.

Wow.

I didn't watch the video, I simply read the transcript. And maybe I'm just tired, but I felt my eyes moisten towards the end. Seriously. I'm too old and too burned to be affected by a politician's speechifying--but that was a great one, that was the kind of speech you imagine a politician--no, a president--giving when you're in third grade, before you come to understand that there are politicians, not statesmen; speeches, not oration.

No whiffing in that speech, no whitewashing, no evasion. No sanctimony. Even Obama's references to religion are to those universal principles that an atheist could agree with: to treat others as you would be treated, that you're responsible for your neighbor and he's responsible for you. Honest appraisals of what is good, bad and ugly in American history, not the American mythos we've wrapped ourselves in that takes all the potential of this great country as a given, and therefore robs it in the cradle before it can walk.

This wasn't the speech of an American candidate, it was the speech of an American leader.