Questions About Obama's Audacious Speech

Senator Barack Obama's speech yesterday in Philadelphia may have eloquently addressed the racial divisions in this country, and why he denounced the views of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose controversial snippets of rhetoric have been all over TV and the Internet. Heck, with all those American flags as the backdrop in the room where Obama was speaking, the senator looked oh-so-presidential.

But there are still too many questions that needed to be answered about the speech. Such as:

• Was it necessary for Obama to address the topic of racism at this time because the furor over Wright's comments forced his hand? Or was it because, as a biracial man, he would have had to talk about it anyhow?
• Why did Obama sit through Wright's sermons for two decades without so much as a peep? Now that he's a presidential candidate, did the senator consider the possibility that Wright's words would one day come back to haunt him politically? And why does he still defend the minister, comparing him to a crazy relative?
• Did Obama's maternal (white) grandmother really like being exposed as a woman who feared black men and uttered racial and ethnic epithets?
• What does this speech do to Obama's chances for the White House? Will the delegates who have been supporting him continue to stand by him, or switch to Senator Hillary Clinton? Will the conservatives who damned the speech with faint praise have an even better feeling about Senator John McCain's chances in November?

Oh, and one more question: Since most of the country only heard about the speech through soundbites on the evening news, why wasn't this on in prime time?