In Britain, there’s a great phrase that describes how a complicated issue is boiled down and discussed in public life: people in the pub. When politicians make long speeches or detailed arguments, political commentators wonder, “But how will this be discussed or understood by people in the pub?” In the pub, you see, heart wins out over head, alcohol limits conversation, and old prejudices win out.

I don’t know how Obama’s speech will go over by “people in the pub.” The transcript is the most emailed article from today’s NY Times, but on CNN.com the speech article was viewed less than the Spitzer call-girl Girls Gone Wild revelation. As John Stewart suggested last night, Obama’s speech spoke to Americans as if they were adults. But are we a nation that’s ready to reason as adults? I’d wager more adults watched Stewart’s show than saw Obama’s full 37-minute speech or read the transcript.

Around the blogosphere, talk is rampant, but I’m not sure–even in the web 2.0 world–if the number of Americans who read blogs is really that high. Sure, folks will see clips on the evening news, or read portions in newspapers, but Obama’s speech deals with issues that cannot be compressed into sound-bytes. America’s problematic approach to race and religion is lived out every day, and won’t be solved in my lifetime, but dumbing the questions down to exit poll demographics and You Tube clips does not serve the public good.  I wish I could be as optimistic as Jim Wallis in his take here, and believe families would actually sit down to watch and discuss the speech together, but when it comes to politics I’m a cynic.

Maureen Dowd, whose column I don’t generally enjoy, describes Obama’s speech as embracing the gray. Dowd writes, “But then, the most intriguing thing about the speech in the National Constitution Center here, near the statues of the founding fathers who signed the document declaring that “all men are created equal,” was not even the part about black and white. It was the new color that Obama unexpectedly wore: gray.”

It’s a gray area–when your white grandmother reveals her prejudices against black people. It’s a gray area–when you respect your pastor but deeply disagree with him. It’s a gray area–when sermons are given in a particular congregation for a particular time. It’s a gray area–when we are all racist in some ways but to admit our condition would be the height of silliness. It’s a gray area.

So the questions remain: Is America open to a politician willing to embrace the gray? If we don’t, it’s not that our world will suddenly change back to easy black and white dichotomies. Rather, the world will continue to pass us by, and we’ll deserve every black mark we get.

image by woodsy