He wrote the speech himself, over two days, showing it only to top advisors.

He addressed the issue of race in our country, his campaign, and in his own life with a level of candor that is not only refreshing, but absolutely essential to addressing these issues. As anyone who has lived in a long term, committed relationship knows, burying our frustrations and resentments does nothing to make them go away, but instead allows them to fester and become malignant. What Obama referred to as our original sin and its slow boring out over these last many years have to be discussed, and seriously, if we're to move forward on these issues.

Political expediency might have argued that simply turning the page would be the better course, but what Barack Obama showed today can only be described as leadership.

Leadership means telling us that we are called to be a better nation, a better people, a more perfect union. It means pointing out that we are to be called account for our past mistakes, to resolve to make better decisions in the future, and to hold ourselves to that resolution. Leadership means pointing these realities out, even when it isn't the easy or expedient thing to do.

Greenwald on Obama's faith in the reasoning abilities of the American public...

Obama's faith in the average American voter lies one of the greatest weaknesses of his campaign. His faith in the ability and willingness of Americans to rise above manipulative political tactics seems drastically to understate both the efficacy of such tactics and the deafening amplification they receive from our establishment press. Even Americans who authentically believe that they want a "new, better politics" may be swayed by the same old Drudgian sewerage because it is powerful and ubiquitous.

I hear what Greenwald's saying here and it's possible, even likely, that the Mighty Wurlitzer will keep grinding this issue and others like it even in the face of a true and honest accounting by Obama. But it's worth meditating on the fact that the core issue here, taking responsibility for ourselves and our actions, is the truest failure of modern conservatism. Just today we saw one of the Abu Ghraib torturers complaining that it's not that they took a bad situation and made it worse by virtue of their own actions, it's that the media did its job and reported on it. This, of course, is how the conservative movement responds to its failures and transgressions. I truly believe that we, collectively, are better than the worst instincts of movement conservatism and that our leaders should call on us to maintain that higher standard.

Atrios neatly encapsulates the conservative and progressive weltanschauungen vis American history. Personally, I'm inclined towards an approach that sees the country taking responsibility for itself. That's what Obama called on us to do today and its his inclination to do this, brilliantly, in his own words, that makes me want him as our President.