For a political speech, Obama's address was so free of cliche that it had almost no outright cringers. But it did have one:
I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork.
Obama does this a lot -- remind people he is no ordinary candidate, he refuses to take the easy way, and so forth. He really ought to lose this overt theme. It contributes, however infinitesimally, to the perception Ron Fournier articulated that he's more arrogant than the average pol. Nobody could argue his speech today was "politically safe," and we don't need reminding that it wasn't. Nobody who can see the color of his skin can argue that he's an ordinary candidate. If he does possess these traits on the deepest level -- courage, extraordinariness -- they will speak for themselves, as they sometimes have, in his actions.
--Eve Fairbanks