The Trouble With Non-Partisan Goodwill

 ...is that it's become partisan. Obama's speech was, I think brilliant, and moving, and spectacular, etc. You could also see him making damn sure to make it clear that he was not not not pointing fingers at Republicans or trying to take this opportunity to criticize his political opponents, or whatever. Instead, he confined his "meta," vaguely political section of the speech to expressions of perfectly non-partisan human goodwill and kindness. But the problem with that kind of stuff is that kindness itself is becoming increasingly partisan, so something as simple as hoping for "a more civil and honest debate," or for expanding the reach of our concern, that is a political thing to say. That constitutes an attack on his opponents' ideologies. It makes it hard to do the kind of simple goodwill type of rhetoric that he was going for. Now, I think he was spectacularly successful at it, and that very few people, and virtually none who are not hard-core opponents of his anyway, will argue that these lines were anything other than wonderful. But still, it's worth observing, I think...