The Cultural Gab Fest, Chardonfreude edition.

This is the daily podcast from Slate.com for Wednesday, March 26, 2008.

I'm Amanda Aroncic.

On today's program, our critics discuss Barack Obama's big speech,

Bear Stearn's Big Meltdown, and whether

the rest of us should gloat about it, plus the deconstruction of the University English Department.

And now here's your host, Stephen Metcalf. Hello and welcome to the cultural gab fest. I'm Stephen

Metcalf, Slate's Critic at Large, and joining me today are Megan O'Rourke. Hello,

Megan. Hello. Slate's literary editor and John Swansberg, one of Slate's culture editors. Good

morning. Good morning, Steve. Welcome, everyone. We're talking about the reimagination of three

stock characters, the politician, the banker, and the English professor. Barack Obama gave

what some people regard as a game-changing speech about race in the face of repeated public

exposure of some very controversial remarks made by his pastor of his church in Chicago. Why don't

we listen to a little clip from the speech?

I'm the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a depression to serve in Patton's army during World War II

and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas.

I've gone to some of the best schools in America, and I've lived in one of the world's poorest nations.

I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners.

An inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters.

I have brothers, sisters, niehews uncles and cousins of every race and every hue scattered across three continents

and for as long as I live I will never forget

that in no other country on earth, is my story even possible?

...