Talk:A More Perfect Union (speech)

Book cover image
I don't think we can use the Audacity of Hope book cover that was just added. It obviously has a copyright, and I'm not sure we can justify fair-use here, in which case we would have to remove it. I'm not at all an expert on these matters though so maybe someone else can weigh in on this issue. We do obviously want more images, but for this article those are going to be hard to come by.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I don't think that that use quite passes the fairly high bar established for fair use of images here. I wonder whether we could make an "iconic status or historical importance" claim for this image? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It might be a bit of a stretch, but if we added something (cited, of course) about Obama's appeal to white voters and how the Jeremiah Wright controversy threatened to undermine it, maybe we could use this photo? We'd have to be very careful to avoid OR, of course. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * At least there are no copyright issues, but as you say it is a bit of a stretch to bring in a photo like this (though I am open to creative, non-OR solutions). This article is already well above average in terms of the text/citations, but I think we will have some serious difficulty with images for the foreseeable future.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 10:54, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It's funny, I would have thought these campaigns would be aggressively trying to improve their Wikipedia related content by submitting photos, etc. Apparently their web operations haven't officially reached us yet.  Joshdboz (talk) 16:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It might ultimately be worthwhile to contact the campaign and see if they can provide some images. I assume that would be kosher as far as Wikirules go.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. There are some example letters which people have used in the past to get freely licensed images.  Note that we can't just ask for an image "for use on Wikipedia", though — we have to ask for an image to be released under a free license such as the GFDL or one of the acceptable Creative Commons licenses.  See Requesting copyright permission for details.
 * I'd expect that the Obama campaign would be open to releasing some images under a free license; they're pretty web-savvy. If you want to take the lead on this, it looks like this is the contact page you want.  Good luck!—Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I have proposed a merger, not exactly a direct 2-for-1 in this case. More, a merging out of this new page into the existing pages, including this page, and the Obama campaign page, and the Wright bio page. comments please follow the link. This was on the main "a perfect union" page but I moved it because some people were quite pissed about it. 72.0.180.2 (talk) 06:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The discussion of this proposed merge, which took place on the talk page for Jeremiah Wright sermon controversy, has wrapped up with a consensus of no move. I have removed the merger template from this page. Hilosoph ( Talk ) 20:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikisource Link
Jossi has just moved the link to Wikisource to the bottom of the page per the Manual of Style. Of course this should normally be followed, but considering this article is entirely dedicated to the wikisource document and we don't have a picture at this point, I think leaving it at the top is actually the most useful and sensible thing to do. Joshdboz (talk) 21:22, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand the point you are making, but the current position is entirely consistent with similar examples. (example) -- Scjessey (talk) 21:36, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Absolutely true, though that article is short enough that one can get to the find the full text rather quickly. It's just a suggestion to help the user, who likely came to this article to find the speech itself. Joshdboz (talk) 21:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Boy, there's another speech (Reagan's that is) which deserves a much fuller treatment. But as to the matter at hand I tend to agree with Joshdboz and think we could apply the spirit of ignore all rules if others feel the same way. If we had images for the top of the article I don't think we should go against the MOS, but right now we don't. Gettysburg Address is another example of a speech article that follows the MOS standard, but it has multiple images. Not a huge deal either way, though it would be nice to figure out a way to keep some non-texty stuff toward the top of the page.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:02, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Reappearance of talk about this speech in "cling" kerfuffle
Just a headsup--I don't have time for more now. Discussion of the section of AMPU that talks about the resistance of white folks to affirmate action and welfare has surfaced in the current media stormlet about Obama dissing rural American's understanding of their own problems. The links in Kaus' blog at Salon Slate should point you in the right direction. The favored word is "condescension". This article badly needs some allowance for commentary on the actual content of the speech, section by section, and this is one place to start. Andyvphil (talk) 23:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I assume you meant Slate rather than Salon and are referring specifically to this, or is it something else? Kaus does discuss the speech a bit, but I don't see any further discussion in the links at that article. His discussion of the speech is actually far from the main point of his blog post (which is related generally to Obama's "bitter" comment). I could imagine using something from Kaus's post as part of the reaction section, but you seem to be interested in a whole new section here and I don't think that blog post is worthy of that. We already have a lot of commentary on the speech, including some on specific aspects of it, but not much of that commentary has analyzed the speech "section by section" per say. When you get a chance maybe you can be more specific about what you have in mind and provide links to sources.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No time now either, but I remember pointing to an article with a section-by-section analysis before. It stepped through each section to show which interest group was being addressed.. Whether on not the RS tend to do it, I think this article needs to do it, if you are going to pretend to take the text seriously. And the "cling to guns and religion" stumble has brought my attention to commentary that agrees with my impression that the credit he was being given for acknowledging white resentment was more than offset by his condescending dismissal of the idea that that whites had correctly identified anything they ought to be resentful about. E.g., Kaus links to his own "we're about to nominate a Democrat who doesn't acknowledge the lesson of the 1990s--that voters are worried about issues like welfare because they are worried about welfare, not because 'welfare' is a surrogate for 'lack of national health insurance.'", dated 3/24 (pre-"cling").. This was my reaction from day one, but I didn't see it in this article. Which I couldn't complain about if it was just me. But it seems it's not just me. So I'm looking for it in MSM, and then I'll be looking to put it in. Heads-up, as I said. Andyvphil (talk) 16:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I renamed article
This had to be renamed because there are books - including one by Jesse Jackson - and films entitled "A More Perfect Union". Ewenss (talk) 17:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't support this move, and I think it was a rather bad idea to move an article without any prior discussion. We don't have an article on the Jesse Jackson book, but if we did it would be easy to call it "A More Perfect Union (book)." Per a quick glance on IMDB, neither of the films you mention seem at all notable so I don't think we'll ever have articles about them. Thus I see no reason to put the parenthetical (speech) at the end of this title. Even if we did have articles about those other "Perfect unions", it's still fine to have one article that does not use a parenthetical label at the end. For example there are a lot of Michael Jacksons on Wikipedia, but we have the article Michael Jackson rather than "Michael Jackson (singer)." I strongly feel this should be moved back to the original title, though it would have to be done by an admin since the original article is now a redirect. There was no consensus for (indeed no discussion about) this move so if a couple of people feel it should be moved back I think we should just do it.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 17:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * A really bad move. Moves should only be made without discussion if they won't be controversial. It's hard to imagine how you thought this wouldn't be a big deal.  Grsz  talk  18:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Guess we didn't need an admin.  Grsz  talk  19:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Right, that was dumb of me to think that we did since anyone can move a page over redirect (it's only when a page has a history beyond being a redirect that an admin is needed). Anyhow obviously I support the move back to the original title. If Ewenss or others are still interested in moving this it should obviously be discussed first.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Few of the well-known speeches (list) add things like "(speech)" to the title. A comparable example would be Dr. King's I Have a Dream speech. The existing title is just fine. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Disambiguation indicates that a disambiguating suffix should be added only when there is another article which might share the article name, and not even then if one of the usages is the primary topic under that title. If someone creates an article on the Jackson book (note that it's by Jesse Jackson, Jr., not his father) or the films, we can discuss whether this page needs to be moved to a disambiguating title, but until then it should remain at A More Perfect Union. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree with keeping name. This is clearly the most notable thing with this title (and only Wikipedia article), so if someone was ever to write an article on the Jackson book or various other things that share this title, they would take the title as Bigtimepeace and Josiah Rowe described above.  Or of course, if historians end up referring to this speech differently, it can always be adjusted. Joshdboz (talk) 19:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you saying this is more notable than the constitution?--Conor Fallon (talk) 02:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No one is saying that, as you can obviously see. "A More Perfect Union" is merely a phrase in the Preamble to the United States Constitution and as such does not have its own article (though the Preamble itself does, as of course does the Constitution as a whole). I'm not really sure what your point is here quite frankly - the title of this article already has "speech" at the end (see other discussion on this page) so it's not identical to the constitutional phrase anyway. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Subsequent reappraisal?
I was going to add a mention of this column by Charles Krauthammer, as an example of conservative commentators calling for reappraisal of the speech in light of Obama's more recent rejection of Wright. But the "News media and pundits" section is under the heading "Initial response", and this isn't initial. Should we change the "initial response" header, or start a new section on later responses? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * A good question. When I titled that section "Initial response" I was thinking more in terms of having a section (at some point down the road) where the speech would be evaluated from a more historical perspective&mdash;i.e. still a "response" but not one in the immediate weeks after the speech. Thinking about it now though I think it probably makes the most sense to simply re-title that section to "response" and use it to encompass any reactions to it including the latest one from Krauthammer. We can tweak the section titles as we go along but I think taking out the "initial" is the best route for now (I doubt anyone else will much care since I'm the one who titled it that way). The Krauthammer quote would thus fit well in the "News media and pundits" section. In adding that, which you should definitely do, you might also reference this earlier column by Krauthammer soon after the speech (which I've been meaning to add in but just haven't). His more recent column seems basically like an extension of points he made in that earlier piece, so it's probably best to cite and quote from both of them.--Bigtimepeace | talk |  contribs 05:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Page move
This article has recently been moved from A More Perfect Union to A More Perfect Union (Barack Obama speech). Why not A More Perfect Union (speech)? Northwesterner1 (talk) 00:55, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I did not even notice the move (which makes sense given the new article on the J. Jackson book) but agree that it's better to keep article titles shorter and leave out too much specificity when it's unnecessary. Thus A More Perfect Union (speech) makes more sense. That title currently redirects to the A More Perfect Union dab page so that needs to be fixed even if we don't move this article there. But my vote is for doing that and if a couple of other folks agree I think we should just do it since I doubt it would be all that controversial.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)


 * There probably have been many speeches with this obvious title so the more specific Obama name is better. This speech is cluttering up the search engine results of speeches since the Web appeared, but I note a 2004 speech which might belong on the disambiguation page: Clinton: Time again to choose a more perfect union. -- SEWilco (talk) 20:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * There's no indication that that was actually the title of the speech and I doubt that we will ever have an article on Bill Clinton's speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention (I'm sure it was covered in a thousand sources, but only in a trivial fashion for a couple of days, there was nothing really notable about it). Anyhow until we know of a notable speech called "A More Perfect Union" I see no reason to not title this A More Perfect Union (speech). It's not a huge deal either way, but simpler is better in my view.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:29, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with Bigtimepeace. Blackbird (song) goes to the Beatles song. There are plenty of other songs out there about blackbirds, but that's the one the title sticks to. Likewise, "A More Perfect Union" is the widely recognized title of the speech, and until another notable speech materializes with the same title or a very similar title, A More Perfect Union (speech) is the simplest unambiguous solution. That said, I also agree with Bigtimepeace that it's not a big deal. Northwesterner1 (talk) 11:10, 31 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think this should be moved to be titled "A More Perfect Union (speech)" instead of having Obama's name mentioned. At least that I know of, there's no other speech with the same title so it doesn't need to be differentiated from anything.'' conman33 (. . .talk)  01:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It looks like an emerging consensus to move this to A More Perfect Union (speech) -- especially in light of this section above--however, we can't do it without an admin, since there is already a redirect in place at that title. Any objections before I ask an admin for help? Northwesterner1 (talk) 02:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that both local consensus and Wikipedia guidelines support A More Perfect Union (speech) over the current over-wordy name. I'll take care of the move. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Four years on
The Washington Post recently published this column by Reniqua Allen, in which she laments that Obama's presidency has not followed up on this speech's promise of national dialogue on race in America. There have been other mentions of the speech in the media as Obama's re-election campaign gears up. What's the best way to incorporate things like this? Do we want another section for retrospective analyses, or should responses like Allen's go in the "Pundits" section?

I probably won't be able to take a very active role in this discussion, as I'm very busy with real life stuff. So I'll just throw this out there and see if anyone else is interested in picking it up. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:52, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

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