[link to patterico.com]

The following clips are from 2002. Obama is speaking in a church at a 2002 Martin Luther King Jr. Day memorial service.

The full speech is here, and by and large it is a nice speech by a rising politician. Obama speaks about the need for empathy in society, about taking responsibility for our actions, and the audacity of hope. He levels barbs at the wealthy and unempathetic, but also criticizes those who blame the system for the arrest of O.J. Simpson and the crack epidemic. Although the audio quality is poor because of the echo in the church, one can tell that Obama is well spoken and articulate. Joe Biden would have been proud.

But there are a few times when the mask slips, just a little.

My favorite clip is this one, where he speaks of Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violence, and explains that it works only when there is empathy: