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Crazy Like an Uncle
Fox News ran a typically sensationalistic report last night on the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr, retiring pastor of Obama's own Trinity United Church of Christ. The ostensible news hook for the story was a sermon delivered by Wright on January 13, which the network suggested may have violated the church's tax exempt status. Let's get that out of the way up-front. Wright never uttered the magic words "endorse" or "vote," which would have been clear violations. If discussing the candidates were grounds for the revocation of nonprofit status, whatever the rules may technically say, then the IRS would first have to clear a substantial backlog, revoking the 501(c)(3) status of thousands of other churches before it got to Trinity.
But the real news in the report was an incendiary clip of the Reverend Wright in high dudgeon, framing the election in starkly racial terms. "Jesus was a poor black man who lived in a country, and who lived in a culture that was controlled by rich white people," he says. Perhaps enough to raise some eyebrows, but pretty much par for the course at Trinity. What followed was not. "It just came to me within the past few weeks, y'all, why so many folks are hating on Barack Obama." Unlike Hillary and Rudy, he says, Obama doesn't fit the mold of elites. Hillary has never experienced racial discrimination, he argues, and can not know what that's like. "Hillary ain't never been called a Nigger!" he shouts. "Hillary ain't never had her own people say she wasn't white enough." It's not in the clip I link to above, but Fox reports he even took a direct shot at Bill Clinton: "Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us. No he ain’t! Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty."
First, let's be clear about what's being said. Wright is targeting those in the black community who were inclined to support Hillary. The sermon was delivered less than a week after Obama's loss in New Hampshire, but well before the Illinois primary, and his frustration is almost palpable. His argument, such as it is, is that Obama (like Jesus) knows what it is to live in a society that turns its back on him and his kind. That Hillary cannot know that. That there is no reason for blacks to feel indebted to the Clintons. And so, at least by implication, that it is incumbent on black people to support Obama and not Hillary.
I understand the man's point, but the fact remains - this is every bit as divisive and polarizing an argument as that advanced by Geraldine Ferraro. If it is wrong to suggest that gender alone entitles a candidate to votes, that the experience of being a woman in a man's world is uniquely difficult - then it is also wrong to suggest race play a similar role. Wrong, polarizing, and ultimately self-defeating.
Indeed, Obama's campaign was quick to recognize that these remarks were beyond the pale. Campaign spokesman Bill Burton issued this response:
Senator Obama has said repeatedly that personal attacks such as this have no place in this campaign or our politics, whether they’re offered from a platform at a rally or the pulpit of a church. Senator Obama does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms. Like a member of his family, there are things he says with which Senator Obama deeply disagrees.That, I'm afraid, isn't going to cut it this time. Obama may not think of Wright in political terms, but it's quite clear that the converse is not so.
It's worth exploring the relationship between Obama and his pastor in somewhat greater depth. Here's Senator Obama, in perhaps his most affecting explanation of that relationship:
It is true that my Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who will be retiring this month, is somebody who on occasion can say controversial things....It is also true that he comes out of the 60s; he is an older man. That is where he cut his teeth. That he has historically been interested in the African roots of the African American experience...
He is like an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with. And I suspect there are some of the people in this room who have heard relatives say some things that they don't agree with...
And as I said that last point I would make is that you know my Pastor is going to be retiring over the next month. So my general view, and the reason that I raise this, this is always a sensitive point, what you don't want to do is distance yourself or kick somebody away, because you are now running for President and you are worried about perceptions, particularly when someone is basically winding down their life and their career.
I find myself empathizing with Obama, and admiring his instincts. He doesn't want to denounce a man who played a crucial role in his own life, who was a friend and a mentor when he needed one, just because it's now expedient to do so. He understands that Rev. Wright hails from a different generation (what, in another context, he labeled the Moses Generation) and Obama's entire candidacy is premised on the notion that that generation's day has passed, that it is now time for the next generation to take the reins of leadership, to transcend the divisiveness of earlier battles, to move us forward to a better future without neglecting the sacrifices of the past. I'm even sympathetic to the problem of a controversial spiritual leader. Who among us attends religious services with regularity, and hasn't squirmed in the pew from time to time, as the pastor or preacher or reverend or rabbi gives voice to a thought with which we adamantly disagree? Perhaps even a thought that is politicized or prejudiced? Or hasn't had an elderly relative do the same?
That's why I've always moved the scurrilous, conspiratorial e-mails to the trash bin on my computer. I was content to know that Obama was attracted to Reverend Wright and his church for the "cultural community" that they embodied; for their recognition that not just material interests, but also "hopes and dreams and...ideals and...values" motivate actions; and yes, for their Christian faith. If there's a single theme to Obama's intellectual achievements, it's been his ability to sieze upon powerful words and themes, lifting them out of their original context and reframing them to be inclusive and uplifting. Thus, Rev. Wright's fiery sermon on "The Audacity to Hope" in a racialized world becomes the title of Obama's serene meditation on the possibilities of transcending political and racial polarization. That seems to hold true more broadly. It's how Obama is able to credit the honorable motives of his opponents even as he disagrees with them. It's how Obama took the best of what Reverend Wright had to offer - community, inspiration, rebukes for his congregation's shortcomings - and set aside the anger and divisiveness that seemed to him relics of an earlier time.
The problem is that, with just weeks to go before he stepped down and removed himself as an ongoing issue, Reverend Wright crossed the line. Obama was succesful in his efforts to distance himself from Wright's opinions on myriad other subjects; he simply said he disagreed. That won't work for Wright's opinions on Obama. If these sorts of attacks have no place in our political dialogue, then a generic denial by a campaign spokesman isn't going to cut it. Obama himself will need to forcefully and clearly reject the logic of Wright's claims, the tone of his remarks, and the words that he used. Then he has to take the most painful step - he needs to distance himself from Wright.
There's a lot of glee on these boards this morning regarding the Ferraro debacle. I don't share it. Ferraro has left us weaker, as a party and as a nation. "I don’t think identity politics has served the Democratic Party well. I think it’s been an enormous distraction," Obama said in response to her comments. As usual, the man had the right words for the occasion. But now that one of those closest to him has made statements that are at least as divisive and egregious, he needs to find similarly powerful words to express his rejection of those statements.
It's not that the Clinton campaign, or for that matter, conservatives or the media, have gotten in his head, or that Obama's too weak, or that he needs to prove his manhood. Not every incendiary remark made by a supporter is a test of a candidate's ability to withstand attacks, to hit back, to give as good as he gets. Sometimes, those remarks are a test of what the candidate believes, and of the ideas he's prepared to embrace, even implicitly, in his pursuit of power. It's a test Clinton failed with Ferraro. And without denouncing these remarks, Obama fails it twice. He loses on a tactical level, because a campaign that splits along racial and gender lines is a campaign he loses. And he loses on an ideological level, because he has devoted his political life to convincing Americans that those divisions are less important than the things we share in common.
This one's not going away until Obama puts it to rest. So, Senator, what do you have to say?
Comments (347)
Fly - very insightful. I was dismayed to see this clip last night, but when I got to thinking about it, I believe that if Obama handles it swiftly & strongly, he can beat back a lot of the damage that has been done to the D Party in the last week. His response could get us out of this swamp & put him right back on his message of hope and unity. I hope he seizes the opportunity.
March 13, 2008 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's a good post, Fly, however Obama isn't going to be able to put this behind him even if he does come out forcefully.
Why? Because this isn't the first time Wright has been caught being phenomenally divisive and outrageous. Check out part of it here:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=4443788&page=1
The message is that Wright has been spewing this kind of stuff for years, and Obama has stuck with him, and stuck with the church for the last 20 years. It's not a matter of distancing himself from one or two isolated comments. Its a matter of explaining why, for *20 years*, he dutifully went on Sunday and listened to his Pastor expounding such hate-filled diatribe. And we know Obama listens to him - the Audacity of Hope was even one of Wright's lines. Now we're starting to get a clearer picture of just what it is they're hoping for.
The Republican machine will be going giddy over this, and no speech, however good it is, is going to explain away the last 20 years of Obama's faith.
March 14, 2008 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
You make some valuable point, Fly.
You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see civil rights marches. Led by many of our leaders, including Obama. Including Senate and House leaders. Denouncing bigotry of any type, standing up for human rights, the Rule of Law, the Constitution, our basic principles.
I think so many things have gone wrong here. And I fear we are losing our one best chance to pull back from the brink. We need leaders to speak out and people to stand up against torture, sex trafficking, racism, religious bigotry and for the dignity of all persons, regardless of where they live or what they might have been doing, even if picked up for a crime or on a battlefield.
We almost need to take a breather from primaries and instead affirm our ideals by public demonstrations.
Sorry for hijacking your thread. I think you are making an important point, but I just wanted to enlarge your perspective - and make a plea for all of us do things to make our values clear.
I sincerely call upon Barack to follow the Fly's urging - but to go further and call upon his supporters, making use of his campaign organization, to hold rallies and marches - with speeches by our leaders and others, voicing the condemnation of any form of bigotry or physical violence against groups or individuals based on that and standing up forcefully for the Rule of Law and respect for the decency of every. Amen!!!
March 13, 2008 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
sorry for the typos. ... I guess I got carried away with outrage...
March 13, 2008 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why not open your own post instead of hijacking this thread?
March 13, 2008 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
If the Fly has a problem, it's up to him! I did it on purpose!
♪♪♪
March 13, 2008 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Trying to take an important post like this off center is a freeper trick.
The 600 series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy, but these are new. They look human - sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. You have to wait till they move on you before you can zero them.
Gotcha.
March 13, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Off center? I think most readers would see that I put a nice circle around Fly's bulls eye! And your comments only make that crystal clear! Thanks for making it so clear that this post is on target and so are my remarks.... I just made the target clearer, that's all. Thanks for your help in underscoring that!
I note that Fly seems unconcerned. ♪♪♪
March 13, 2008 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate Billy's concern that we remain on-topic, but I don't mind the digression.
I would remind you, though, that Obama is a candidate for office, and that's a fundamentally different thing than being the leader of a broad-based social movement. True, his success has been built, in part, on his efforts to blur that distinction. But his programmatic case is built entirely on this premise: elect me, and together we can change the country.
Should he leave public office, he could choose to launch a moral crusade instead of a political one. But I rather doubt he'd take that approach. Obama spent some of his younger life trying to change things by building a grassroots level movement, and came to the conclusion that he could be far more effective working as a leader within the system than leading marches or protests on its margins. I happen to think he's correct about that.
The other point I'd make is that Barack has steadfastly resisted casting his own campaign in these terms. He doesn't decry racism; he speaks of our essential similarities. He doesn't denounce discrimination; he exhorts us to treat one another with respect. He doesn't channel his anger; he offers his hope.
In my opinion, that's why his message has found a receptive audience. And if you want to build open the foundation he's laid, I'd encourage you to do so in similar terms. To use language that positively defines our American values and calls upon all of us to live up to the standards they set. To focus on how our aspirations can be harnessed to make our lives better, and not on how our shortcomings have made them worse. I think that the Obama campaign has the potential to transform the Democratic Party. Too often, it's been an outlet for the (entirely legitimate) grievances of a rainbow of different groups, each of which pitted a different subset of the population against the whole. Obama suggests that it might instead serve as an outlet for the shared hopes and aspirations of those groups, which united, could work to rectify those grievances and injustices. That's a powerful idea.
March 13, 2008 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, Fly!!
March 13, 2008 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Honestly Fly I think you're getting this all wrong, and no offense, but this is sounding awfully concern-troll-y.
Other than the Lewinsky comment which wasn't in the clip -btw why would FOX omit that? Fox of all sources? If he'd really said that wouldn't it be front and center in the clip? -other than that what is offensive about what Wright said?
That the country is run by rich white people? It is (right now), isn't it? That Hillary has no clue what it's like to be racially discriminated against by both your own race and others? She doesn't does she?
Your comparing this to the comment by Ferraro demonstrates your fundamental misunderstanding of what she said -that Barack Obama would not have risen to the level he has were he not black. I.e. that his success is based on his race and not any other quality or skill or life experience. That is quintessential racism, stark and simple.
Wright's comments on the other hand were not degrading in the least to whites he doesn't even refer to all whites (as Ferraro refers to all blacks by proxy with Obama) but only the "rich" whites. He doesn't criticize the subgroup of whites (as represented by Hillary and Rudy) he refers to -he merely states that they don't understand what it's like to personally experience racism.
The only truly offensive part was conveniently left off of the clip and you said "Fox reports he even took a direct shot at Bill Clinton". The first two words in that sentence are an oxymoron.
I submit that the message of the speech was not that blacks should vote for Obama simply because of the color of his skin (which Ferraro bizarrely thinks gives him an unwarranted advantage), but that blacks should vote for him because he comes from their shared experience therefore has a profound understanding of their situation. Apples and oranges.
March 14, 2008 2:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate Billy's concern that we remain on-topic, but I don't mind the digression.
That should shut Billy up for at least a little while.
March 14, 2008 8:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see where you're a "freeper," dunno where Billy Glad has a short trigger finger.
Anyway, I'm piggybacking here to get near the top of the thread list.
Beyond the other racial stuff, what I most loathe is the pseudoscientific "black Jesus" crap from Wright. And that's what it is.
And, Republicans who want to drive a wedge between Obama and Jewish voters have new ammunition to fire.
Jesus was not Caucasian, and was likely swarthy, but he wasn't from sub-Saharan Africa, either, Rev. Wright.
March 14, 2008 1:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
A Hatian-American friend of mine, raised by white holy rollers, told me that the Bible refers to Jesus' "kinky" hair, and he's read the entire Bible several times. Sounds of African descent to me. People weren't necessarily situated racially and ethnically 2000 years ago as they are now in that region of the world.
Besides, why would a black jesus get your goat so much when whitey's been putting up pictures of a blue-eyed jesus forever and you know damned well THAT is just ridiculous.
March 14, 2008 1:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, yeah, and "pseudoscientific" you say?
We are talking about a Biblical character, no? I didn't realize the Bible was a factual and scientific document.
March 14, 2008 1:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fly, as always a fine post that captures the nuance while getting to the heart of the matter.
There has been the occassion that I squirmed in the pew. I have relatives who have made not only an off-color remark, but something I find offensive. How do we deal with this? I do not think distancing ourselves is the answer.
As you suggest, it needs to be talked about. Make it clear to them that you don't agree, why they are wrong, and that it's not acceptable to you. But, I believe modeling / discussing what is right will have more effect and this means remaining close to the person.
With someone we don't know it is easy to just denounce what they said and to reject them. The hope being that political correctness or the people in their circle of influence will make them rethink their prejudice.
I guess what I'm saying is that I agree Obama should address what Wright has said and in strong terms. As you've written Obama has made his feelings on this clear before, but it needs to be repeated. I suspect he may have already had the conversation with him directly, but it is important that the people here it.
But, I do see a difference with Ferraro in that she was an official part of Hillary's campaign. I wouldn't have asked that Hillary never associate with Gerry again. In fact, I would hope that she talked to her about it and tried to open her eyes to what her comments mean and their impact. But, when Ferraro didn't apologize and instead escalated the issue she should have been fired.
Clearly Obama shouldn't be hiring Wright for any faith-based initiatives. But, I don't agree that Obama needs to remove Wright from his life just as I wouldn't expect you to disown your uncle.
March 13, 2008 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your response. As it happens, Wright serves as a member of Obama's African American Religious Leadership Committee, a formal campaign role, albeit a trivial one. But it gives Obama a chance to make a clear statement - he should ask for Wright's resignation from that committee. That would sever the formal link between Wright and the campaign.
March 13, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Obama's public statements that he consults with Wright on political matters is much more problematic than Wright's membership on a council. The only way out of this for Obama is to publicly rebuke Wright. He has to make it clear who is charge here. He's dancing around this one the same way he danced around the Farrakhan endorsement.
March 13, 2008 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
What blather. He didn't "dance around" Frahakkahn at all. To claim otherwise is simply nonsense and the same crapticular drivel that Clinton tried to run up the flag pole at the Austin debate and was resoundingly laughed off the table as one of the major lead balloons in the debate.
March 13, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama has been a loyal member of this preacher's congregation for 20 years, given boat loads of money to the operation and identified this man as his mentor (father figure?), what's he supposed to do, act like he didn't know what the guy stood for?
March 14, 2008 12:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama has been a loyal member of this preacher's congregation for 20 years, given boat loads of money to the operation and identified this man as his mentor (father figure?), what's he supposed to do, act like he didn't know what the guy stood for?
That is, precisely, the problem.
If you think I'm a Hillbot, feel free to check out my posts elsewhere on TPM.
March 14, 2008 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. BHO should not have to 'banish' his old mentor from his life, but a strong disavowal of any misguided notions would help.
Completely cutting off the old man personally doesn't seem appropriate to me, and is probly against BHO's basic philosophy and impulse toward human kindness.
From what I've seen so far, BHO seems to be handling it all very well. If there are more calls for him to do what he is still reluctant to do, perhaps he might explain his position, thereby providing a demonstration and example not only of his natural preference but his leadership skills as well in convincing more of us of the merits of his decision: why it is best for all concerned &/or does least harm to any.
March 14, 2008 3:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
The combination of the Wright speech and Michelle Obama's remarks could be difficult to deal with in the Fall if Obama is the nominee. My understanding was that Wright started his ministry as an alternative to the Nation of Islam. His rhetoric, although couched in Christian instead of Muslim terms, doesn't seem that different. Obama has acknowledged that Wright is more than a "spiritual" adviser. He's said that he consults with Wright on political topics to make sure he is staying true to his moral center. That center will be open to examination now. Obama is vulnerable to attacks on two fronts. On the one hand, his accomplishments can be questioned by characterizing him as an "affirmative action" candidate. On the other hand, he can be characterized as a militant black, concealing his radical background.
I wonder if America is post-racial enough now to just let it all hang out. Maybe we're about to find out.
March 13, 2008 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for posting, Billy.
I have to say, I don't buy your read. Jeremiah Wright may be a polarizing figure, but it's going to be tough to tar Obama with that brush. There are two ways in which these sorts of associations tend to harm candidates irreperably - when the public believes that surrogates are giving voice to sentiments that the candidate harbors but dares not express himself, and when the public believes that the candidate is associating with a figure with whom they disagree purely for political gain. The Ferraro incident fell into the former category; many suspected that Clinton herself was similarly aggrieved. The Hagee affair falls into the latter; no one suspects McCain feels the same way about Catholics, and that's precisely why voters are upset he's swallowing his objections to accept the endorsement.
Wright falls into a third category. It's not expedient for Obama to associate with him; he has no further gains to make among black voters, and the association certainly harms him in other communities. I think it's patently absurd to suggest that Obama is a "militant black" or that he inwardly embraces such ideas, and such attacks will largely fail to hit their mark, because most voters can see that for themselves.
Wright hurts Obama for a third reason: he's loudly and publicly contradicting his campaign's central message. Wright makes it harder for voters to believe that Obama really is different, that he really does seek conciliation and unity, that he really is able to transcend traditional divides. Obama says these things don't need to hold us back - Wright says they always will. Obama asks us to believe in a better future - Wright urges us to remember a divisive past.
That's why Obama can put this story to rest, and in fact, turn a potentially damaging story to his own advantage. He has an opportunity to explain, clearly and forthrightly, where and why he differs with Wright. That's something he's preferred not to do, because the closeness of their relationship has trumped their huge substantive disagreements. But now, I think, he has to. And if he does, he'll actually be a stronger candidate for it.
March 13, 2008 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
"There are two ways in which these sorts of associations tend to harm candidates irreperably - when the public believes that surrogates are giving voice to sentiments that the candidate harbors but dares not express himself."
Oh, I agree. And that is precisely the basis of the idiotic "Obama is a Muslim" meme -- that actually got some traction in Texas and Ohio. I don't thing the Republican 527s are going to have any trouble at all developing the meme that Obama is not the unifying figure he "pretends" -- their word, not mine -- to be.
March 13, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's one of the things that is so exciting about Obama. The idea of a charismatic and brilliant African-American President going around the world representing the United States is a very appealing prospect. It is significantly more appealing than the propect of a brilliant and charismatic white President doing the same thing.
I understand the man's point, but the fact remains - this is every bit as divisive and polarizing an argument as that advanced by Geraldine Ferraro
It is true that my Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who will be retiring this month, is somebody who on occasion can say controversial things....It is also true that he comes out of the 60s; he is an older man. That is where he cut his teeth. That he has historically been interested in the African roots of the African American experience...
He is like an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with. And I suspect there are some of the people in this room who have heard relatives say some things that they don't agree with...
If you would have done your homework on Obama in Chicago you would not be so "shocked" ,"shocked" that he far from son transcendental guru, but just another political opportunist.
You can forgive politicians for being opportunists. It is part of the price you have to pay to play the game. But you can't forgive Obama for leading you latte-drinking yuppies around the nose for months and months, so much so that you became maniacel about Obama only for it to come out that he holds some pretty radical and racist views. Read Michelle's Thesis. She was a separatist then. She quotes Stockley Charmichael as an expert source. Yes that Carmichael who founded the original Black Panthers and advocated separatism. I can go on and on. This was all out in the open from the start. Now all of a sudden you are Shocked Shocked. And you have the FUCKING TEMERITY TO EQUATE THIS SORT OF THING WHITH WHAT FERRARO SAID. Sickening!!!!
March 13, 2008 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Andy, Take a prozac dude. You may want to try a latte, but I'd make it a decaf.
2 Thoughtd:
1. When I went to college, I was a philosphy major with a leaning towards existentialism and its marxist offshoot in Sartre. Now I am a 50 year old managing partner of a law firm that handles large commercial transactions. I have evolved intellectually, and I can assure you that Hillary would not want to be judged by her more radical thoughts and statements from the late 60's nd early 70's. In looking at the past writings of a twenty-something black woman of high intellect, I would be profounbdly disappointed if she did not lean eadically to the left with a strong dose of racial consciousness. I see that as a plus, not a minus, that Michelle Obama ihad radical views at some point in her life. It is a shame to have to give up your idealism and racial consciousness as a youngster in order to live up to the standards of Clintonian political correctness that you are setting, where you summon up righteous indigantion while reminding PA voters over and over that their own uncertainty about the black guy proves that he will have a harder time in the general election -- a self fulfilling porophecy, at least if Mark Penn gets his way.
2. Obama is his own man. He is front and center and we see exactly what we are getting. By every metric I care about, he is a better choice than she is. I think they are both wonderful and would have no problem voting for her. But I think the way these campaigns are being run -- by the candidates and what they allow their senior advisors to so -- I think Obama has proven over and over why is more qualified to lead the nation.
March 13, 2008 11:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow man.
The offense you take to Wright being compared to Ferraro kind plays the rest of your hand. Subtle can be more effective than yelling often. This goes for using the caps in a blog-comment as well as making racial or sexist commentary verbally.
I am not sure why you do not see some sense of equivalence between the two, although I could fathom a guess
Share with me a link (I know you are not fond of links, or passing along material to read) if you would about these supposed racist beliefs. It would greatly help me in understanding your position. If you have more regarding his Chicago time (Other than the Rezko that is already out there) that makes you think he is so bad. Guilt by association an argument does not make.
If you look at his tragectory - I would bet there is not enough of a timeline to say Chicago Politics Ergo Corrupt, but I am willing to be disproved. I have had this argument already, and have only found little evidence and mostly tangential hearsay.
ENLIGHTEN ME
March 13, 2008 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
And if he does, he'll actually be a stronger candidate for it.
I hope you're right, Fly. Maybe I'm cynical, but I don't think he can pull it off. Not in the America of 2001-2008.
March 14, 2008 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
BHO is *not* concealing his radical background or his present radical perspective: on the contrary, he is calling for *change* right out front for all to cheer on and follow enthusiastically ...
I suppose great change would threaten some of the current power bases ... hoho!
March 14, 2008 3:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
EEEW, I don't think you can fairly compare Wright with Ferraro. Here's the thing: Wright spoke his mind to his congregation; Ferraro spoke hers to a reporter.
Now, given the attention Wright has gained for being Obama's pastor, I guess it isn't a surprise that this tape made it into the hands of the MSM. BUT, it took over a month to surface. Clearly, his intent was not to raise a public howl, but to rile his own congregation. It's his right.
And...if we're going to be honest here, when he says that she doesn't know what it's like to be called a N-----...he's not wrong. Ferraro was extremely wrong to say that being an African American in politics is "lucky."
I don't disagree that poking at the gaping wound that is racial politics is painful and will probably lead to a nasty infection, but I don't think that the Wright/Ferraro comparison holds water.
March 13, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for bringing a lucid call to planet earth.
March 13, 2008 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wright *sells* his sermons on the internet!
Watch ABCs report on other sermons Wright has given over the years.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=4443788&page=1
March 14, 2008 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
And this is all good news for Hillary. Her campaign has long sought to marginalize Obama as "the black candidate". Gerry Ferraro's race baiting has finally pivoted the national conversation to race and all the old garbage is pouring out via MSM. As anti-hope messages go this is a pretty effective one. Way to go, Hilla-Rove.
March 13, 2008 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know Obama has a problem when someone other than Idiotic posts "this is all good news for Hillary," and sincerely means it.
March 13, 2008 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ouch. Consider me nailed. I wasn't paying much attention to my choice of words on the lead in there. It was a pretty gross overstatement so let me amend it:
A bitter, protracted debate in the MSM over race is likely to further divide Democrats along racial lines. This clearly hurts Obama more than Clinton. He is already taking 85-90% of the black vote. Hillary on the other hand hasn't hit a ceiling on white voters, especially white male voters. Even if Hillary doesn't steal more white male voters the negativity of a racial squabble may turn them off from voting Obama.
So yes, I believe it is a problem for Obama and a net positive for Clinton.
PS: Just think, Idiotic could have actually been right on this if s/he had only trolled a bit longer.
March 13, 2008 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I ain't touching this.
March 13, 2008 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is EXCELLENT NEWS!! For MartinX!!!
March 13, 2008 10:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was thinking of doing something like that (posting the well-beloved 'idiotic' comment) over at Billy Glad's post, but I couldn't bear to. My irony glands didn't go that far.
idiotic, if I could hug you, I would.
March 14, 2008 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is effective. But if Ferraro can do that much with one assertion about Obama being lucky, think what the swift-boaters and 527s are going to be able to do when they start digging into his accomplishments to turn him into the "affirmative action candidate," on one hand and into his community connections and contacts to turn him into a black muslim. They already have his picture up next to Malcolm's on some sites.
I'm sure Obama is ready for them and has a plan, but here's my take. Imagine if he said, "I saw Rev. Wright's sermon, and I've already rebuked him for it."
March 13, 2008 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Effective at shooting Clinton's campaign in the foot perhaps. If you think that Gerry's racist crap will help Clinton, or hurt Obama, I think you are seriously misreading the lay of the land and the media take-away.
Unless you think getting cold-cocked by Olbermann on national television's a good thing for Clinton that is.
March 13, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have a feeling that most of America is not as enamoured with Obermann as you and Rosenberg are. Just a hunch.
March 13, 2008 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary's oppo research knew all along all the skeletons in Obama's closet. They were too decent to use them against Obama. But Obama had no compunction in using the race card against Hillary albeit with deniability because he has the MSM and all you "little helpers" to do it for him.
The Trashing of Hillary by so--called Progressive Democrats is an eye opener for many of us. The viciousness and unfairness that that woman has suffered under the hands of so-called liberal democrats and the MSM (including TPM)is vile.
March 13, 2008 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have their chickens come home to roost?
March 13, 2008 10:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I doubt very much that the media will pick up the story.
March 13, 2008 11:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
They were too decent to use them against Obama.
You funny. They were too decent to use the really negative stuff, so they just decided to endorse McCain instead. Right.
March 13, 2008 11:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
here's a fantastic new 'dream team' --
McCain/Monster
can't you just feel them crossing that threshold together? chic cic! or is that cic w/chic ? you know! how safe is that?! tsktsk
March 14, 2008 4:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
This argument is the dog you guys should let lie.
Too decent my ass. First of all, timing is everything. Second of all, the last time this argument got trotted out it was shot down.
Mix, Rinse, Repeat: Hillary was too kind to use this before, and it is Obama's behavior that has forcedher to punish him.
Bad Barack.
March 13, 2008 11:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
A somewhat bemused footnote. As I write this, the post is about to be pushed off the bottom of the "Recent Reader Posts" list, without having made the jump up to the recommended column. I believe that's the first time that's happened to me. And while my ommission of my usual plea for recommendations may have played a role, I have to wonder if the fact that this is my first post that's actively critical of Obama also had some impact.
Oh, well. It's not as if I'm routinely ignored in this forum. And who knows? Perhaps having an obscure post will finally qualify me for inclusion in the "Recommended" post that the TPM Cafe staff puts up twice a week - it seems my usual fare hasn't been up to snuff.
March 13, 2008 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
I fear you are correct, Fly. I too regret that your post may not get a wider readership today.
And may I say, since the post is soon slipping off the cliff, that I so appreciate all the effort you put into this and that you are not reluctant to criticize any of us.
I also want to state that my concern about civil rights at the moment is that too many blacks may see and hear what the Hillary folks have done and looking at me in the grocery store or the mall, may think I endorse such things.
I like your idea of calling for "Unity" and voicing concerns in positive ways as a better way to deal with this. But I remain very concerned that the remarks of people associated with the Hillary campaign have seriously undermined a delicate balance so many of us have worked for. For that reason, I think your call for Barack to disassociate himself from his pastor is on target. But even more is needed in my estimation. I truly wish I had the power to make something happen, which you suggested above. I wish you did too!
Thanks again. I was distressed myself to see how few recommends there were when the post was already halfway down the list.
This post was excellent, regardless of of its fate. But, again, I think the primary has caused us to lose sight of large social issues, huge dissension that's been stirred up.
Peace to you... and don't be discouraged. You do a huge service for us all.
March 13, 2008 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fly,
Just remember that most news coverage and analysis is about the horse-race, and your insight on this subject feeds this hunger. The readership for other concerns is somewhat lower.
I've had posts with considerably fewer recommendations and comments disappear and then re-emerge up among the cream. The algorithm is not perfect, but I strongly suspect that this post will re-emerge from blog purgatory after it has scrolled down. I suspect post ranking status on TPM is updated periodically and not continuously in order not to bog down the system.
Likewise, I think most readers will appreciate what you are pointing out. There is a bit of over-exuberance which can cloud judgment, as in the case of many commenters dismissing the importance of Goolsbee-Canadagate, but this discussion will not be ignored by most.
March 13, 2008 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well Fly, I told you so. Cream rises.
March 13, 2008 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Never been more pleased to be corrected.
March 13, 2008 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe this is a good time to re-examine why you do what you do. If you write to inform and to challenge people to think about your perspectives, I would say you have nothing to worry about.
If you write so that people will click a link recommending your posts... then maybe this is a good time to re-examine why you do what you do.
I intend no snark with that remark. If I look at a page of posts, yours is usually the first one I read, and I know I value your perspective even when (especially when?) it doesn't mesh with mine. That should be a mark we all strive for; you hit it more often than most, so cast not thine eyes upon thy navel!
March 13, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fair enough.
Read it, if you will, as a mark of my frustration with the ongoing evolution of TPM Cafe. The reason I request recomendations is that they're the only means I have of gaining an audience for a post. If I put one up in the morning, it has a shelf-life of about two hours before it slides off the bottom of the list. If it makes the jump to the 'Recommended' list, it lasts for twenty-four. My posts rarely make the bi-weekly roundups posted by the cafe staff, and there's no other mechanism for readers to find them.
I count myself fortunate indeed that so many of my posts have found an audience, and that several have spawned interesting discussions like those in this thread. The odds of that happening are vastly increased if the post lingers long enough for people who don't happen to log on during that two-hour window to find it. I post to give form to my own thoughts, to share them with others, and to learn from your responses. So thanks for the feedback that you and other readers offer.
March 13, 2008 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
FYI, I always read your stuff and recommend even if I don't comment. Sometimes I just don't have much to add. That's a compliment, btw. :)
March 13, 2008 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
When Obama withdraws, I'm going to make you immortal. I'm going to post and repost everything you ever said that turned out to be mistaken! LOL. Just kidding, Fly.
March 13, 2008 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
i agree that these remarks from wright are politically troublesome for obama, and don't reflect what I believe is his broader message. I think he should officially remove wright from any leadership positions to avoid the appearance that he is a 'scary black nationalist'.
but I don't feel comfortable asking him to denounce his minister. i feel it's enough to indicate that one disagrees with the view of one's religious leaders. i'd add that i don't think we would be having this conversation if obama was catholic and the pope said something we didn't like or was politically sensitive. the fact that he is african american and goes to a church which focuses on the african american experience is what makes this such a volatile issue. i think we should allow our political leaders to participate in their religion/church of choice. we shoudl only be concerned when that religious belief takes a prominent and destructive role in a candidates policies and political stances. I think obama has made it clear that he is not a monolithic thinker and has made policy and political decisions based on a broad range of opinions and ideas.
March 13, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that we shouldn't renounce our ministers. That's why I choose the word "rebuke." Rebuke implies a superior/subordinate relationship. Americans need to know that no religious leader can influence the actions of an American President. If the Pope, for example, were to threaten to excommunicate Catholics who voted for a pro-choice candidate, I would expect a Catholic candidate for President to rebuke the Pope, to put him in his place. A candidate who is going to unite America going forward, as Senator Obama claims he will do, has to set his own house in order first.
March 13, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
i don't know how i feel about this superior/subordinate relationship you want politicians to set up with their religious leaders. maybe i'm reacting more to the words themselves, but it's seems unfair to ask a member of a congregation to set themselves up as above their religious leaders. i think you're right that we should ask our leadership to preserve the separation of church and state and be willing to make decisions that go against certain religious dogma, but surely they can do that by addressing specific issues? I don't expect politicians to leave their faith outside the door of government offices, simply because i think it's not realistic. i do ask them not to allow their faith to be the sole authority when they make decisions.
also--when has a catholic politician rebuked the pope? and in this post JFK world has something the pope said been cited as a cause for catholic politicians to rebuke him? i'm not saying your stance is wrong (i think catholics in high profile positions should take issue with the pope when they disagree with him) but i don't think most people actually feel the same. different religions/denominations get different treatment
March 13, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
The question is: Who is servant and who is master? The point about the Pope was somewhat rhetorical, although a Catholic bishop did make noises about denying Communion to Kerry supporters.
March 13, 2008 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I ask the question: Why is it a master vs servant relationship?
Most religious leaders only consider their God the Master, and they the servant. As for congregates, I thought the same held true (although perhaps not always so "firmly")
Just wondering. I think I agree with the jist of your point though. Obama needs to make it clear that he is in charge of his own views. I think he has done that in general, but after this particular event he needs to have his "Kennedy Speech".
March 13, 2008 8:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
A fair question. I think I see it that way because I believe in a secular government. I believe that's what the framers of the Constitution intended. Churches have played an important part in the Obama campaign. I think his campaign has worked effectively through churches all over the country. I'm just looking for a sign that Obama knows how to tell Wright to get off it.
March 13, 2008 9:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you.
I just think the Master/Servant frame is the wrong frame, and is a bit to ... Republican. If we are looking for a secular government, ones religion can and should reside alongside rather than above and below.
I think the whole above/below dichotomy is what has helped propel the Republican agenda to its current dominance. Many religious voters feel that the "Liberals" subvert religion in the name of government. The two are separate and can exist side by side.
March 13, 2008 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can certainly live with your view. My own view is that State and Church are not equal. They coexist, but not as equals.
March 13, 2008 11:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you!!! Very well said.
March 14, 2008 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I actually think this is a great opportunity for Obama because he can really take the high road and also address his faith in a public way (he shouldn't have to do this, but that 'as far as I know' door needs to be slammed shut).
I would like to see him give a rousing speech on the subject: early in the campaign, he had such great timing with these things. I know he is trying to get away from the big speeches, but I think this is an occasion for one ala the MLK day speech.
March 13, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
He gave a speech on Faith at the UCC meeting, and in particular his faith, and how he came to become a member of the UCC. This is why the UCC is under investigation by the IRS in tersm of tax exemption.
Look on the barackobama.com site under "faith" I think the video is there - it may also be on Obama's YouTube site.
March 13, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
After the last two weeks rough campaigning, Ferraro, and now this, I feel that...THIS IS HORRIBLE NEWS!! FOR DEMOCRATS!! IN NOVEMBER!!
I would agree with the sentiment that this racial bickering will have been made "mainstream" and I think that the press in particular is going to run with this as the story more and more. It's controversial, it clearly gets people talking, and they can get a lot of people on camera who will say rather stupid things - it's the perfect media story.
I dread what will happen in the next 6-8 weeks, although I'm excited about the campaigns coming to North Carolina.
March 13, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tactically, I wish he had answered you back in February. But people like M.J. Rosenberg were implying that it was racist to even bring it up, the logic was that it would scare away racist Jewish voters or something like that, as if those types might be able to be convinced not to vote GOP. Yup, just shove the Rev. Wright in a closet and hope he stays there where the GOP can't find him, at worst, one has to deal with it later. Like a little kid trying to hide Mom's broken vase. (Which reminds me of the Saturday Night Live "TV Funhouse" cartoon with Obama, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton...just a fable because they aren't involved in his campaign, but very apropos to this topic here.)
I believe that there was cynical reasoning behind many recent Presidents running to Rev. Billy Graham whenever in need of a minister. Graham was Rev. Palatable to the majority populace.
March 13, 2008 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right. It is people like Rosenberg who called down this thunder. It was clear as early as January that Obama was going to have to leave that church.
March 13, 2008 11:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
yeah, he and his son were some practically 'original' islamophobia fascists -- real nasty sick stuff ...
March 14, 2008 5:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
speaking above of the 'rev billy graham' and his islam-loathing son (what's his face?) who preach the evils of islam etc
March 14, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Fly:
I have tried to put together a few thoughts on the issue for a post of my own. I would value any feedback that you or your loyal and appreciative readers might have.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/barack-obama-and-jeremiah-wrig.php
March 13, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Someone please e-mail this post from Fly to the Obama campaign. This can be done decently; he doesn't have to backstab the guy. But he does need to forcefully explain why he disagrees with this way of framing his candidacy.
Seriously, this needs to get sent to the campaign.
March 13, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fly,
Great post. You know, I like the way Obama has handled this. I like that he's not willing to shun somebody just because he's running for president.
As a Hillary supporter I could really jump all over this. I could certainly rant about the hypocrisy of some pundits both here and in the mainstream but...
I don't believe that this campaign needs speech codes and that's really the heart of my defense of Ferraro and I'll extend it to Wright. If this stuff makes you uncomfortable... well... maybe it's supposed to.
March 13, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting, if the Hillary campaign is everything her detractors say it is, why hasn't she jumped all over this?
March 13, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
This "story" is dirty enough that Clinton shouldn't get her finger prints on it. If she pushes it, it would look a bit like she was stoking the racism fires.
Some things are best to be done by un-identified surrogates.
Mind you I am not implicating her or her camp, just stating an opinion about power and war. (And it is not mine - Sun Tzu said it first)
March 13, 2008 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem with Ferraro was the blatant appearance of a nudge-nudge, wink-wink attempt to bring in Southern Strategy politics into a Democratic primary, and the appearance by the Clinton camp to embrace this. It was not isolated. There were also the comments by Gov. Rendell. It would have been irresponsible not to call both Ferraro and the campaign on this. The Democratic party deserves better than to sound like Mark Furman. This stuff is poison for all Democrats.
March 13, 2008 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Workerbee, she hasn't had to. The tar just appears because of the constant filthy mutter about Wright and Islam and whatnot.
Coming on the heels of Ferraro's outbursts and Hillary's tepid rejection and denouncement or whatever of Ferraro's remarks, this is an outstanding opportunity for Barack to make a firm stand against the use of race and gender in the campaign and to say in no uncertain terms that he denounces any statement and will dismiss any campaign member who plays the gender card, and then to invite Clinton to do the same.
For Obama, and for the party, Rev. Wright ought to be sacrificed so that we can start to make a clean break from this crap from both candidate's campaigns and surrogates. Hillary should denounce the sleazy emails still making the rounds on Obama's religion and all the thinly veiled remarks on race. Obama should denounce any statement suggesting that Hillary's support comes from being a woman or a wifey or that that her gender disqualifies her for nomination.
Racism and sexism are a fact of life in America, and the average American can't help but consider them, but it's time to eliminate race- and gender-baiting from campaigns. The kids (anyone under 35 is a kid to me) just won't stand for it, and the kids are our future.
March 13, 2008 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tepid. She rejects Ferraro's comments, Ferraro doesn't represent any of Hillary's positions, Ferraro is off of her campaign finance committee? You call that tepid? I suppose she could issue a statement personally rebuking Ferraro for speaking her mind. I wonder if Obama and his campaign really want to go there. Stop whining, for Chrissakes.
March 13, 2008 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well ... I guess we can eliminate all the wrong-minded ugliness of the struggle if we can only 'sacrifice' enough of the people who seem to epitomize it so well ...
let the great *purges* begin*^!
do we have any volunteers?
[Note: only the powerful and untouchable may volunteer someone else for these justifiable 'sacrifices'.]
March 14, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, my use of the term "sacrifice" was just plain wrong. I meant that he needs to tell the nation that he makes his own decisions and rejects any of Wright's statements on race or religion. He doesn't have to judge Wright as a man or make excuses for Wright's conduct by saying he's like someone's old uncle.
Wright's like Ferraro--an old, failing, stuck-in-the-past loose cannon who doesn't 'get' where modern politics has gone, has no clue what Obama's campaign is about, and insists that just because you belong to a race or gender you're a traitor if you don't blindly follow. This is terribly dangerous for Obama's future as a politician, to say nothing of his presidential bid.
Ferraro was allowed to resigne from a 'symbolic' position on Clinton's finance committee. Anything less in this case will be perceived as a tacit endorsement of Wright and his ilk. It may not be fair, but this is a campaign, folks. Obama doesn't have to fight dirty, but he has to understand the overall symbolism of excusing any of Wright's statement.
March 13, 2008 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. Rebuking Wright would not be much of a sacrifice, especially since most of Obama's supporters are beyond the old politics. This is post-racial America. We keep track of race for the purpose of avoiding discrimination or promoting affirmative action in employment and college admissions, for example, but we don't need to think of it in politics as being any more important than other cultural advantages or disadvantages. Race is about culture, not skin color. In the future we will all be tea-colored. In the future we will all be hanging on to our humanity as best we can.
March 13, 2008 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just gotta say, I think this country is only about 3/5 post racial. At 48 I feel kind of in the middle of a long slow sea change. I well remember the overt racism of the 60's and 70's and the only slightly subtler slurs of the 70's and 80's that pervaded public life. Just like I remember being turned down for jobs that 'belonged' to men, prevented from being allowed to do 4-wheel-drive patrols (long story, but I was way better behind the wheel than my macho coworkers) because of my sex, and getting tossed out of court by judges who wanted me to just sit there and look pretty. Aside from getting out of a couple of parking tickets, I've never gotten anything of value out of being a woman, which is just as it should be. I got the jobs by refusing to go away, got the patrols because I confronted my boss with my experience, and won in court by being smarter and faster than the good old boys.
The whole post-racial, post-gender idea is thrilling, but only so long as it's not an excuse to ignore both now-subtle discrimination and the effect that rhetoric has on your average unconsciously racist low-information American. Like I said, this is a campaign, and the one thing Obama has figured out is that every word he speaks has meanings you can never anticipate.
March 13, 2008 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting. My wife is 50 now, she patrolled southeast Houston when all the guys who were her partners had to do if they didn't like her was be a little slow when she had to fight. I managed some government projects in Seattle, where cultural diversity training is mandatory. The people hardest to get on board were the fire fighters. They had a lot of issues about physical strength. I always saw the issue as technological. Better non-lethal force, lighter equipment. I see the same things going on when I look at this campaign. Women manage differently from men, they're good at building consensus, but if they deviate from the masculine style of management, they're ridiculed. When men get angry, they're perceived as strong. When women get angry at the same things, they're perceived as out of control. Hillary handles herself well.
March 13, 2008 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you. I mostly agree. I don't know what the hoohah with Wright is, aside from what I've read, and I don't want to know, particularly.
I had enough of this nonsense with Ferarro. I agree that she is old and although I don't agree with the characterization of what
she said as racist. I'm sure I wouldn't really care what Wright said either, or attempt to take it out of context. He's allowed to say whatever he wants. I don't think Obama is racist or sexist anymore than Clinton is.
These may be "hot" issues, but I think there's been a darn sight too much parsing and cherry-picking going on in both campaigns. The press fans these inane flames, then everyone flies off the handle. Maybe the kids are the future, but until they actually show up in the general, I'm not going to encourage them to destroy the Democratic party from within. Once they start showing up, and out number the boomers, perhaps then I'll give their wants a bit more consideration. I'm more concerned with the boomers voting themselves more social security and perks. They have enough. I was born in the same year Obama was. We're Jonsers, for good reason. :)
I don't see much of a difference between the two candidates, I'd have rather had Edwards because of his policies, he seemed to be the actual leader in good ideas. I understand the historic significance of this race, but I'm not really excited about that. I was far more excited about Mosley-Braun. She and Ferraro, and Jackson and Sharpton were the real front runners historically, as far as I'm concerned. At this point my attitude is, so what if they are a woman or a black? What are their policies? What are their plans? There I see little actual difference, although I prefer Hillary's health plan and I prefer Obama's plans for transparency in government.
I think the rest of the states should have their say, and I'll vote for the victor. Not particularly enthusiastically, but knowing that McCain will be far worse. Those who'd abandon their country to him aren't worthy supporters of either nominee, IMO.
Both of these candidates are going to have a hard time in the general. The right will bring up--and make up--stuff beyond our wildest imaginings. They'll both need all the help they can get, and I plan on doing my part.
Not getting hysterical over these banal parsings is probably a good start. Or encouraging unrealistic expectations of what either can or can't do. They're both centrist Dems that will need us all to keep after them to get a progressive agenda put forth. I don't see either as being particularly willing to take the lead in anything, so I wouldn't expect more than a lukewarm "denouncement" from Obama. If the right wants to take that up, we'll figure out a way to counter it. Let's keep our eye on the prize.
Boot the Repubs out for at least a generation. They're the ones we should all be angry at. Them, and their enablers.
March 13, 2008 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're absolutely right that Edwards was the last progressive standing in the campaign, and that the current contenders have plans and policies that are so alike that, assuming they stuck to them in office, the results would be almost identical (remembering that the executive doesn't get to legislate and faces brutal realities once in office).
In my view, the differences are in leadership style. I don't buy that either Obama or Hillary is racist or sexist or inherently evil. My judgments are based on their actions, especially their actions during the campaign. They've revealed very distinct temperaments, and which one you support depends on how you see the world. With my particular life experience and beliefs, Obama is the one. With different experience and beliefs, Clinton is the one.
If you don't decide, you can't complain about the result. The first time I could vote I didn't bother to discern between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and stayed home. If I and every kid my age had voted for Carter at least the landslide would have been smaller. That's why I'm excited at increased turnout for under-30's. That's why it matters.
March 13, 2008 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, but I've already voted. I voted for neither...My choice was Edwards.
I'm happy to leave the deciding votes to my fellow citizens.
MY problem, and concern, is allowing these trivial matters to divide the left to the point of losing the election.
I can't endorse THAT. I also can't condone the under 30s high expectations. Obama is a politician, I'd hate for their disillusionment to keep them away 4 years from now.
I hear you about the "man" jobs. What's kind of funny is that the economy has gotten so lousy, my field is starting to attract men. I suppose that's progress, of a sort.
March 13, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you on every point. I was just ranting about those who say they'll just take their ball and stay home in November. It's hard to imagine pulling that lever for Clinton, but if it comes down to that I'll have to. And then go home and sulk.
March 13, 2008 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eliyah Pastor Wright is not a political figure to compare him to a politician is unfair.
March 13, 2008 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe this isn't either/or.
Maybe it's just all horseshit.
Maybe there's a 3rd way. Maybe just start denouncing ALL this stuff. Maybe comparing Wright to a political figure is unfair, but his remarks are pretty out there, so I'd call that a pretty even deal, damagewise.
Just renounce all this parsing and cherry-picking. Have Obama give the standard denial "The opinions expressed in this sermon in no way reflect the views of the candidate." He shouldn't be any more responsible for Wrights comments or Powers comments than Hillary should be held accountable for Ferraros.
Heck, tattoo the disclaimer on every consultant and family memeber and friends forehead.
Just stop buying into it and stop doing it totally. I would think most Americans are sick of it. I think the angst displayed here is BECAUSE of the overreaction of the Ferarro comment. I didn't overreact (aside from expressing my disgust), so as far as I'm concerned Wright's comments belong to Wright and Wright only. Isn't that how it should be?
March 13, 2008 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you, too
March 13, 2008 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Personally, I just find it depressing to think that there is a Democrat alive so bereft of good sense not to realize what a problem this poses for Obama in the general election.
1. "God Damn America"
2. "US of KKK A"
3. 9/11 -- "chicken are coming home to roost"
Even Anne Coulter could not have invented a better representative of the "Liberals hate America" meme. And he's Obama's spiritual adviser, the man he goes to for talk about politics, so that he can maintain his moral center, the man who has baptized his daughters.
Once upon a time, liberals were outraged that anyone like Coulter would claim that they "hate America", and in any way question our patriotism. Now, instead, I find people supporting or defending or minimizing these remarks.
What can I say if you don't get that Jeremiah Wright is a problem in the general election?
And one further point. There is absolutely no evidence that the Clinton campaign has had a hand in revealing this. According to ABC News, they simply bought videos of Wright's sermons from his church and viewed them. Why this was not done earlier by our press escapes my understanding. My first guess would be, "Can we get a pillow for you, Senator Obama?"
And, in case you want to grasp just how completely dishonest Josh Marshall has become, note that his own observation about this is to blame it's emergence on the Clinton campaign:
Could you have a more dishonest attribution of blame than this?Josh Marshall is a disgrace.
March 13, 2008 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nah. Josh isn't a disgrace.
I think, frankly, that the whole flap over Ferraro, and the intense nonsense it spawned, reached it's height in Mr. Obermanns comment last night. When I looked at the comments this morning, I found that the majority felt as I did, that this stuff has just gone too far.
Now Josh is human, it doesn't surprise me that he'd feel dismay at Wright, without acknowledging the feeding frenzy over Ferarro. I don't expect anyone to. I'm just happy to see that this has perhaps woken people up.
These are not real issues. So what if Ferarro states her point badly, so what if Obama's old pastor is a bit hysterical?
These are not issues that should be dividing us. They aren't issues at all. They're distractions. They're silly and divisive and likely driven by a very right-wing controlled media for the purpose of dividing us.
The real tragedy would be, if we let them.
March 13, 2008 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. If only it could work that way.
March 13, 2008 10:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pastor Wright is not a political figure. To compare him to Ann Coulter is unfair to both him and Ann Coulter.
March 13, 2008 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I can't say Josh is a disgrace; he seems altogether too decent and honest and smart and savvy for that!
But I sure did disagree with him most strenuously when he attributed Bush's 'win' to Ralph Nader -- 'Bush's chief enabler' was the phrase if I remember correctly. I've never been less in agreement with him on anything.
I am not aware of the exact origins in this case we now address, but I can agree with Josh that Clinton's campaign and she herself as well have been giving all too many signals inviting many of these 'disruptive' issues etc.
I myself believe HRC to be capable of just about anything in her quest for power ... and that really turns me off bigtime and permanently ... also I would reject her absolutely anyway because of her support for Bush's debacles in 'world dominance' etc with so many many innocents being slaughtered on every side ... (Iraq and Iran -- so much for her exalted experience!)
Of course, McCain mustn't succeed, so if I really really *had to* I guess I'd vote against him even if it meant HRC ... dear god!
March 14, 2008 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
She let the statements sit for days before she let Ferraro resign. Up until last night, she just kinda thought it was unfortunate. That's tepid.
March 13, 2008 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops, that was for Billy.
March 13, 2008 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
fly: "Obama himself will need to forcefully and clearly reject the logic of Wright's claims, the tone of his remarks, and the words that he used. Then he has to take the most painful step - he needs to distance himself from Wright."
If "distance himself from Wright" wasn't merely an unhappy choice of concept, I would suggest you've gotten a tad carried away.
Politicians pick up stuff throughout their careers. It's called baggage. Some of it's earned, some of it isn't. Whichever it may be, it can't all be put away. What politicians can't put away, they learn to carry. And they go on. Look at Hillary and John, still going strong.
Samantha Power was distanced recently. I didn't like that one bit. You're suggesting he now distance himself from Wright. Who might he be required to distance himself from next?
How many people who may be family, friends, loyal and devoted supporters, or simply citizens, does a politician get to distance himself from before those who have yet to be distanced begin to wonder if it'll be their turn next?
Would distancing himself from someone like Wright, his long-time pastor, mentor, friend, etc., promote or undermine his message of unity?
Would Obama, who says he's willing to talk with the country's enemies without preconditions — with the obvious purpose of coming to terms with them — be helped or harmed by demonstrating a capacity to distance himself from Wright, an ally, who's merely being used by something like Fox News, an enemy?
March 13, 2008 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good points.
The only problem is that Wright is a bit more than "being used by Fox". He is playing into the Latte-sipping, America Haters catch line that got us through the last 7 years.
Plus he won't wear an lapel pin.
I do not think patriotic dissent can be used as part of a national campaign for the presidency, as much as I would love it to be so.
March 13, 2008 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
excellent! exactly!
btw, we are told by the monsters now in power that certain other regimes--or rather their whole nations--are our national enemies, but consider the source!
every region of the world certainly has its 'fair share' of criminals, but golly, I can't see those 'other nations' as being populated solely by our 'natural enemies'!
actually, they look more like just other people to me, not unlike myself and my own neighbors etc ...
but we need critical thinking to realize something so plainly evident to those of us who do not follow blindly the folly of twisted psychos ...
and we do not cultivate critical thinking in ourselves or others by demanding the silence of those who mention discomforting facts about history and power structures etc ...
or even those who are spouting real nonsense for that matter!
in fact, as I see it, following that course of easy expedience would mean we have actually surrendered our own humanity to those who would oppress us and use us for their own narrow and self-serving ends ...
America is one fine experiment, and I hope we realize our highest potential: actually become what we sometimes imagine we are already ...
but being fearful of someone's free expression because it might mislead others who cannot yet exercise any critical thinking of their own doesn't seem very promising a strategy to me ...
wouldn't it be more beneficial to engage and educate one another, empower one another with our best wisdom? I don't see the wisdom in seeking to silence, stifle and oppress others because we are afraid of being overpowered or something ...
take courage, dearhearts ... we have a long way to go -- or I hope so anyway ...
March 14, 2008 8:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
fly, I find myself for the first time disagreeing with you. Sure, I think it would probably be politically expedient for Obama to renounce Wright more strongly than he has. But this isn't just some campaign employee or political supporter. Obama respects, and is close to, Wright on a personal level. It would be like Hillary denouncing Chelsea for some negative claim made against Obama. To tell you the truth, I would lose respect for Obama if he dealt harshly with his friend and mentor Wright (just as I would lose respect for Hillary if she dealt harshly with a Chelsea faux paux).
After all, what's more important at the end of the day: gaining an edge on your political opponent, or standing up for the people who matter to you?
March 13, 2008 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Allsburg, TooBubba, et al:
I appreciate the perspective you offer - to wit, that loyalty, too, is a virtue. That a relationship spanning decades ought not be cast aside lightly. That giving in to the attacks of his opponents is a sure means for Obama to guarantee further attacks.
I chose the term 'distance' advisedly. Obama has doggedly stood by Rev. Wright, although that support has certainly cost him. In many ways that's admirable. And if it were simply a matter of media organizations having dredged up further controversial statements from Wright's past, I'd agree that Obama would do well to stand by his present position - disavowing the comments, and seeking to explain his relationship.
The problem, as some other posters have noted, is that Jeremiah Wright chose to offer his views on the present contest. By inserting himself into the race for the nomination, and attempting to define that race in strictly racial terms, Wright changed the dynamic.
In effect, he backed Obama into a corner, leaving the senator with an unenviable set of choices. I happen to think that Wright's views on the role of race in America, and in this present election, are diametrically opposed to those of Obama. And that's why it seems so clear to me that Obama needs to forcefully disavow these latest statements, and not just have a spokesman reiterate his earlier positions. But more than that, he has to redefine his relationship with Wright. The man already is no longer his pastor, having retired. Obama should also sever the formal tie Wright shares with the campaign, encouraging him to step down from his purely symbolic advisory post on the Religious Leadership Committee. That would serve to send a clear signal that this sort of rhetoric won't be acceptable from anyone affiliated with the campaign.
I expect that, no matter what, they'll retain a close personal relationship, and I don't think most Americans would begrudge them that. The 'crazy uncle' explanation rings true - we all have friends we value with whom we also disagree. But if Obama is going to insist that his rival sever ties with surrogates who cross the line, he's got to hold himself to the same standard, as painful as it may be.
March 13, 2008 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fly
How can you assert that Wright chose to insert himself in this race when the man was speaking to his own congregation?
Wright has been inserted into this race by FOX news airing his remarks, NOT by Wright making statements to the press or going on Good Morning America or even Fox news as Ferraro has. Ferraro is a public figure and politician who not only made these same kind of remarks 20 years ago about Jesse but she also indignantly claimed to be the victim when her remarks were called out for being the racial demeaningy statments that they were.
No such parallel exists with Wright. None. The two situations are not at all analogous.
It is outrageous that anyone in America would call for a politician to denounce his minister. What people are doing is attacking Obama for what the minister chose to say to his congregation and that is flat out wrong. No person of faith controls what a man of the cloth says in his sermons. Bush never has denounced Falwell or Roberts for their remarks about Israel or terrorism, either. Why is Obama being singled out? Wright said nothing to exhort his congregation to act against the interest of America or against whites either.
Even the characteriZation of Wrights remarks as racial is distorted as his core message was about the power structure of America and how those who are outside of that structure are treated markedly different. Hillary is part of the structure and she is part of it economically, socially and politically BECAUSE she is not a person of color. People of color in AMERICA have historically not been allowed to participate in the power structure of America just as Jesus was not allowed to participate in Rome. Even so, Wright tells his congregation, Jesus taught us to love our enemy and that was Wright's message of empowerment. No matter how inhumane or unjust the power structure is the congregates were urged not to give in or give up but to love the enemy...because to love the enemy is to know the enemy and that is the only way to prevail. His message was one of empowerment of the powerless. It was not a divisive message of racial polarization, whatsoever.
I suspect that many found the language inflammatory but that was for the congregation, it was attention grabbing drama to reinforce the message with true life examples of how the powerless are made to feel less than. Which Wright contrasted with Hillary having not once had to deal with her people being treated as if they do not exist. This is a message of hope, not despair as it drives home how individuals can prevail and achieve in spite of the odds.
Most importantly it was not a speech to the public nor stated to a reporter to make news and inject race into the presidential campaign. Whereas Ferraro's comments are clearly for the Archie Bunker mentality. Something she is undoubtedly quite familiar with as that was the demographics of the district she represented as a US Congressperson.
Perhaps, we should her and Wright do lunch.
March 13, 2008 11:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another perspective that nicely shakes things up. I have to agree with the setting and difference of the two comments. I also agree that I have never seen a republican getting called to the mat over some equally if not more inflammatory comments by religious figures.
I think the reason why Fly's position is still not far off, is the power struggle that is the election.
Obama has to take some kind of step to use this as a move forward. The republicans are going to trumpet this, and if it is not put to rest properly, it will haunt until November.
I also think it is tied to his stance on on talking directly with our enemies. You cannot change or influence someone when you are busy playing the silent treatment game. I think that the high ground is that Obama can clearly state how he is trying to bridge the gap for those who have developed a sense of powerlessness. An example would be the empowerment campaigns that corporations like McDonalds do to get low level employees feel like it their responsibility to take power into their own hands. Do it right.
Ye We Can.
March 14, 2008 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree elliotness (instead of mess, snicker)
I do not think that Wright's message is one of separateness as Fly asserts. Rather it is one of survival and perserverance against the odds, while starkly depicting what those odds are.
I think that Obama's message is not different from Wrights, at the core. They are delivering the same message of unity, hope and empowerment. Obama is using the language of the new millenium is all. Wright is stuck in the Jackson/sharpton language paradigm which was highly effective during that generation.
It is like Obama said we are the Joshua generation.
Afterall, it was Wrights sermon the Audacity of Hope that Obama entitled his book after.
What is happening here is that Wrights language is inflammatory to whites and mainstream America..it is not inflammatory to most African Americans or any ethnic group that has been systematically disenfranchised like Latinos or even the Irish at the turn of the 19th century, which was portrayed in Gangs of New York.
Fly is seeing racism and polarization where there is none. Wrights message is about unity and hope.
Barack would not ever have been able to be a member of the church had the substance of Wright's messages been about divisiveness it would be antitheical to his very being as he embodies a melding of both races as well as the immigrants story that makes good based on the ideals of America. Obama works with the community to reach and empower them with knowledge of the laws of this country. It is what he says in his speechs. That people who love their country can take back their government in the face of impossible odds.
Unlike Fly, I sense it is far more likely that Wright's use of sermons for empowerment for those who have been marginalized in our society are what helped Obama crystallize his own beliefs and develop his own faith, all of which he addresses in his book Dreams of My Father.
I strongly disagree with how Fly mischaracterizes Wrights core messages as racial. It is racial only in the sense of identifying the differentness that is used to separate us but the message is to strength the spirit so that it does not despair, it is not to provoke hate or acts of intolerance. I understand Wrights language is not in the terms that mainstream America is use to listening to. It is as though Wright is to MLK what Jesse was to Obama. Those are the differences of how language is being used to inspire and set forth a vision for America. Each man is captive to the breadth of their language skills.
Only two of those men had the oratorical gifts to imbue the language with a universality of spirit to speak to the masses. All of the men are speaking to empower us as citizens and Americans who can change their country. MLK and Obama are simply extraordinary in their oratory.
It is what makes them exceptional...they can speak the universal language of the heart and thus move diverse groups of people to act as one with a common purpose.
It is a rare combination of leadership, intellect and vision.
March 14, 2008 1:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I happen to agree with the various statements Wright made, as I understand them. They are reminiscent of Michele Obama's comment about being proud of America for the first time since whenever, with which I also agree, as I understand it. And I believe Obama agrees with Wright's remarks despite his obligatory denunciations. If he doesn't, I would be obliged to consider him a fool.
When Wright was "exposed" for the purpose of attacking him, he should have made all the appropriate noises to acknowledge any appropriate criticism of Wright. Even as slowly as he often speaks when he's off the cuff, this shouldn't have taken him more than a few minutes. Then he should have grabbed whomever brought up the subject, bitten into his skull, and a few moments later, while spitting out the last bits of bone and brain, he should have taken another moment to explain why he should not be obliged to defend either Wright or himself at all.
Defending against political attacks is not done by going on the defensive. It's accomplished by invalidating the substance of the attack and by attacking and defeating the attacker with valid substance of one's own. Do it as nicely as possible so as few as possible of the more fragile aren't frightened, and as few as possible of the more arrogant are not offended, but do it until your opponent cries "uncle!" Crying "crazy uncle!" will not do.
These are times for old, careful politics. I think Obama's open, embracive, even humble approach is timely, especially with regard to foreign affairs, but if and when it falls short, as it will on occasion, I want to see him ram some changes down some people's throats. Like FDR did.
March 14, 2008 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I happen to agree with the various statements Wright made, as I understand them. They are reminiscent of Michele Obama's comment about being proud of America for the first time since whenever, with which I also agree, as I understand it. And I believe Obama agrees with Wright's remarks despite his obligatory denunciations. If he doesn't, I would be obliged to consider him a fool.
When Wright was "exposed" for the purpose of attacking him, he should have made all the appropriate noises to acknowledge any appropriate criticism of Wright. Even as slowly as he often speaks when he's off the cuff, this shouldn't have taken him more than a few minutes. Then he should have grabbed whomever brought up the subject, bitten into his skull, and a few moments later, while spitting out the last bits of bone and brain, he should have taken another moment to explain why he should not be obliged to defend either Wright or himself at all.
Defending against political attacks is not done by going on the defensive. It's accomplished by invalidating the substance of the attack and by attacking and defeating the attacker with valid substance of one's own. Do it as nicely as possible so as few as possible of the more fragile aren't frightened, and as few as possible of the more arrogant are not offended, but do it until your opponent cries "uncle!" Crying "crazy uncle!" will not do.
These are times for old, careful politics. I think Obama's open, embracive, even humble approach is timely, especially with regard to foreign affairs, but if and when it falls short, as it will on occasion, I want to see him ram some changes down some people's throats. Like FDR did.
March 14, 2008 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Glen Beck is kicking ass right now. Obama must renounce this Reverend Wright and the Rev's racist views plus, find another Church.
This Reverend has been spewing this type of hate speech for years, and Obama remained/remains in the Church. Obama does not transcend race. Gerry was correct!
Faith and Hope, sure.
March 13, 2008 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Glen Beck??
The hatemonger? The imitation Micheal Weiner?
How could any thinking person listen to that drivel for more than 30 seconds or so?
March 13, 2008 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now I realize this is going to be heresy, for Democrats and Republicans alike, but after living in Oakland, CA for the better part of the last 20 years -- working with and living around some of the most multi-generationally marginalized people in our society, that is lower income African Americans -- I have come to internalize some concepts that are completely alien to most of "white" America:
1) While you may not find it in the dictionary, racism isn't necessarily a fair way to describe racial prejudice amongst all races of people in this country. I will posit here to the objections of many/most that racism can only truly be applied as a fair descriptor for those in the racial group with disproportionate power, racially-speaking -- i.e. those of European descent in America. People in America not born into the right race to be granted the most privileges, when they speak in stereotypical terms regarding other races, I believe are more fairly called racially prejudiced, not racist, be those stereotypes accurate or not.
2) As long as racism exists, or better yet as long as it still plays a role in keeping millions of people down/oppressed/whatever in our society, a double-standard on "racism" is acceptable, hence affirmative action. As things are not racially fair yet in this country, this nation should continue to take *affirmative* action to right historic wrongs for those not given a fair deal. This whole thing about pretending we are already in a color-blind society, affirmative action having outlived its usefulness, is a ruse that merely serves to perpetuate historical injustices. This country has perpetrated some of the greatest racial injustices by any country ever (not THE worst ever, but the US is up there in crimes committed against minorities, from Native Americans to African Americans and so on) and we're still a long, long way from righting those wrongs, economically, politically, socially and otherwise. If you don't see it, you're not looking.
3) Inevitably, these continued injustices lead people to be angry, and just because someone in a minority is angry and says things contrary to your preconceptions does not make them "wrong" or their viewpoint less valid.
As for how these views play politically is another story, but I felt I had to bring this up when I see rants about the "hate talk" of minority reverends.
March 13, 2008 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to say I was moved by your post.
I have been quietly struggling with the concept of Affirmative Action and what it means, and you helped shed some light on that struggle. I think I agree with you, but I wonder about the long term (relationship wise) implications of accepting that mindset.
And for anyone who likes to drum up white guilt - I hear few people lament the very first group of people the "pilgrims" fucked over... Native Americans. So white guilt must not run too too deep.
March 13, 2008 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why should any person be guilty of the sins of our forefathers, and this angry-hateful-and racist AA community theme is just wrongheaded & divisive. And if AA want a fight, we will burn their churches down. White people don't pick fights - but we sure will finish one.
March 13, 2008 11:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Breed,
You ask why should anyone continue to be guilty for tbe acts of their forefathers? Do you ask why folks should inherit the benefits of their forefathers discrimination in terms of property, status and economic well being?
Why are the descendants of those who enslaved allowed to enjoy the fruits of it?
Yet the descendants of those enslaved continue to suffer for generations.
Do you ever ask that?
You do not bemoan the blessings being white in America. Those blessings are taken for granted and there is a sense of entitlement right?
Just like Ferraro and Hillary who feel Hillary is entitled to be President that it is her turn and how dare Obama challenge her rightful place in history.
The Presidency is Hillary's due, she should not have to compete or campaign on equal terms with such a young upstart who happens to not even belong to the right race that would allow him the privilege of doing so?
That's right, Edwards had that privilege but Hillary dispatched him quickly...he too lacked her superior experience of time in the WH as Mrs. Bill Clinton...and Dodd and Biden didn't measure up either because despite being so much more experience they were white MALES. It is Hillary's turn, she is inevitable because she is a white FEMALE.
Do you ever ask why should anyone continue to be guilty for the centuries of chauvinism and sexism as a patriarchial society...or is it only institutionalized racicm that does not warrant guilt?
Hillary sure seems to benefit from centuries of gender bias without folks believeing it is unjust for her to speak of how UNFAIR it is...but now Obama....well that is just a cloth of a whole other color.
March 13, 2008 11:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did I seriously just read this?
March 14, 2008 3:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
The biggest ruse of all about affirmative action is that white women like Ferraro scream about 'reverse discrimination' while being the primary beneficiary of affirmative action.
The facts are that the Civil Rights Act defined women as a minority due to them being unable to get jobs, like Sandra DayO'Connor said. O'Connor could not find a job as a Stanford Law grad in the 50s when she came out, so she went home and raised a family as society permitted her to that.
The largest beneficiary group for affirmative action is white females.
not blacks, asians or hispanics but WHITE females.
Ferraro and Hillary are priviledged not only by race as Americans but by gender as well due to affirmative action.
For either of them to infer, imply, or suggest that a person of color achieved anything based on 'reverse discrimination' is absolutely complete hypocrisy.
It is Hillary Rodham Clinton who is THE affirmative action candidate in this Presidential race..not Obama.
That is the real ruse here.
March 13, 2008 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Double Bam. I keep meaning to bring that up.
March 14, 2008 12:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Obama himself will need to forcefully and clearly reject the logic of Wright's claims."
In my opinion, Wright's claims are true and Barack knows they are true. Should Barack reject truth?
March 13, 2008 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
What does he have to say? What he should say is that you're proving that some White Americans hold racist double standards. Hagee et al. never get this much play when what they're saying is insane. Wright's right in much of what he's saying but since it's directed at the majority it's UNACCEPTABLE AND MUST BE REJECTED AND DENOUNCED!!!
More Russertian racism.
March 13, 2008 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't believe there are people here defending Rev. Wright. Fly did not even mention the most incindary comment by the good pastor: "God damn the USA."
Now there are some people here who might want to say that the US has done bad things and I would not disagree, but if you think that swing voters and Reagan Republicans are going to vote for a guy who sits in a pew and listens to "God damn the USA" on Sunday.... well, I want some of what you are smoking.
March 13, 2008 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
You should probably listen through the entire passage.
March 13, 2008 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was God damn the USA when...noone reads to the end of the damn sentence, dammmit! Since NOONE reads to the end of the damn sentence, it's worth quoting again:
"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people."
Slaves didn't immigrate to America. America was forced on them while they were still in chains. And While younger ambitious people like Obama have made it into the mainstream, most are living in the world Wright describes.
Everyone's going to make it a three-word soundbite, but please, have some integrity here and talk about both what it was and what it'll look like to the people you're worried about.
March 14, 2008 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why was this guy on video tape? Is that common in churches these days?
March 13, 2008 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
yes, very. Check out your local public access channel.
March 14, 2008 1:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't it possible, if not probable, that by reacting to the Fox News story he gives it credence? Isn't that, in fact, the point of these stories - to infect the news cycle with distractions that frame the debate in ways that ultimately divide the electorate? He didn't prompt Wright to deliver this sermon (unlike the Clinton/Ferraro tactic), nor did he suggest in any way that he agreed with this sermon. I'm not sure there's any evidence Obama was present in the congregation or even heard this sermon when it was delivered. I see it as another attempt to connect dots that don't exist, and should be ignored and dismissed as the sham that it is. Whenever Obama is forced to address these non-issues, it depresses the central narrative of his campaign - moving beyond the politics of race, division, and fear.
March 13, 2008 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree about Josh's take on this. The good Rev gave this disgraceful sermon long before the SC primary so it is a big stretch of imagination to blame it on Hillary.
Stuff about Wright has been circulating on conservative blogs since the fall -- even before Obama was a contender. Now that he is the front runner, Sean Hannity and FOX are trying to take him down. It has ZERO to do with Hillary.
THe thought of Obama and his family sitting in the pew listening to this kind of hateful talk is going to destroy Obama and the Dems unless he does something dramatic to repudiate it.
March 13, 2008 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Teresa,
This speech was given right after Obama lost New Hampshire.
In short, right after the race baiting by Bill Clinton, Sheehan and Kerrey, as well as the muslim e mails from the Hillary camp.
Those were the recent events when this speech was made.
So, while mainstream was debating if The Clintons were racemongering...the black community was NOT. The black community understood the message when bill claimed that Baracks entire campaign was a fairy tale. Donna Brazile got it too. She said on CNN she did not like Bill's tone.
Let's not forget that other Hillary supporter who said that the folks who voted for Obama wanted a 'hip imaginary black friend'
It was and remains the Clinton strategy to divide and conquer on the basis of racial polarization.
Wright's message was timely.
March 14, 2008 1:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
distraction.
and a double standard.
Obama has been the ONLY candidate that has stood up when it was needed.
let hillary and mccain catch up before he has to prove something over and over and over.
March 13, 2008 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes... esp. for large churches. The tapes are sold to parishoners.
March 13, 2008 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even more damaging than these race-related remarks, in my opinion, are the Rev. Wright gems unsurfaced by ABC News today - saying that 9/11 represented America's "chickens coming home to roost", and that instead of singing "God Bless America" we should sing "God Damn America".
Unless you live in an alternative universe such as Berkeley (and I have so I know!), you understand that nobody will get the votes of average Americans if he is closely tied to someone who has made so many statements like this. I'm a strong Obama supporter, but he needs to quickly and forcefully disassociate himself from Wright.
March 13, 2008 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or unless you're a right-wing Christian or Ron Paul supporter.
March 13, 2008 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I DO live in the "Alternative Universe" of Berkeley.
I've been an Obama supporter (though as a runner-up to Edwards, but that ship sailed looooong ago.) I've contributed money, made phone calls, and defended Obama on this board. (Look up my posts.)
I think his campaign is dead.
I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.
If he manages to wiggle out of this, he's a political genius and I don't think anything will be able to touch him.
But I'm not betting on it. Not in the atmosphere of America of 2001-2008.
I don't think Clinton can win the general.
So we're now looking at President McCain.
If someone wants to try to talk me out if it, I'm willing to listen.
The ABSOLUTE BEST spin I can put on this is: Obama has about 48 hours to deal with this decisively. 24, more likely. And I don't know what he's going to say. I don't know how he can repudiate his pastor of 20 years (sorry, the "crazy uncle" line is a bit much for me to swallow, at least for now), who married him and baptized his children. I will say that if I were in a congregation where a rabbi said something so completely at odds with what I believed, I'd find a different congregation, or a different rabbi.
So I don't think he can wiggle out of it. And if he can't, he should bow out now, throw wholehearted support to Clinton, quietly retire to the shadows, and hope she can squeak out a November win, if only to keep the Supreme Court from becoming something out of 14th-century Spain. That's about all I can hope for out of a(nother) Clinton presidency. And she'll need all of the Obama supporters behind her, plus (I hate to say it) an American economy in an even worse tailspin than it's in now, to pull it off.
The thing is, Obama knew how to organize. That was his great strength. Clinton doesn't. And Obama energized a generation of voters. I don't think Clinton can. Obama attracted independents. I don't think Clinton can. Obama didn't set fire under the Republican base. Clinton does. So tell me, please, how Clinton wins in November. (We'll deal with how she governs if we manage to get past November.)
To the extent that I'm in the first stage of grief, the miracle some part of me hopes for would be some resurrection of John Edwards from the political dead. In my tradition, that's "t'chiyat hameitim" (Hebrew, for those unfamiliar, and it means exactly what I said: the resurrection of the dead).
Although I'm religious, I remain reality-based. I'm not looking for any resurrections unless someone can show me in terms of political science how it's gonna happen.
I've been mightily pissed at the things the US has done, for decade upon decade -- slavery, Native genocide, overthrow of democratically elected governments in Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Indonesia, Congo, and on and on and on. I'd even entertain notions of some chickens coming home to roost.
Say all you want about this country's record, and I'm probably with you at least most of the way. It's pretty grim. To put it mildly.
But "God damn America"????
This is a spiritual leader?
No one I'd ever get behind.
First Spitzer, and now this.
"God damn America"????????
March 14, 2008 8:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Josh isn't a disgrace. He's a joke. Too bad he's so blinded by his regard for Obama that anything that now comes along is the fault of the Clintons. That kind of puerile political thinking is just depressing. I just wish this was limited to him and not a shared feeling among so many Obama supporters here.
March 13, 2008 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe everyone here is Black like me and they don't like the racism of the Clinton campaign. That'd be crazy wouldn't it! But alas I fear I am alone.
March 13, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
This guy is not an Obama supporter. It's much worse than that. He's Obama's "moral compass". He's been performing that role for twenty years. How do you distance yourself from your moral compass? Do you fire it and get a new one? Somehow I don't think the Republicans will give you a pass on that. This is very, very bad. And it's all on video.
March 13, 2008 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. It's one thing to say you belong to an "Afro-centric church," or that you are proudly "Afro-centric." But if you want to be President of the United States, you can't expect the voters to ignore the fact that you have been sitting and listening to anti-American rants for 30 years and consider the man who delivered them your moral compass. Personally, I believe Malcolm X was a great man. Louis X, who Rev. Wright calls a great man, said Malcolm deserved to die, effectively sentencing Malcolm to death. That sentence was quickly carried out by Nation of Islam assassins. From my point of view, Obama's moral compass is a man who rants against the injustice of white America and befriends the man who sentenced Malcolm to death. I don't understand why Obama can't rebuke him.
March 13, 2008 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
re: "This is very, very bad."
Depends on your perspective (i.e. see my comment above).
There's a whole lot of racial discussion this country has yet to do before it will ever resolve century's old injustices. That includes allowing and accepting that some African Americans are angry, and rightfully so I would add. Majority (er, "white") American may not want to hear what they have to say, but it will have to be a part of any discussion that truly moves things forward in this country. How long have angry white men had a real voice in this country?
March 13, 2008 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
and it won't be very long at all now before 'white' Americans are not even the majority! this probly scares a lot of us/them .... tsktsk
btw, it seems to me that America damns itself when it commits crimes against humanity ... but people can look around and gather their own evidence for that, so I needn't be blamed for mentioning the obvious -- I hope! hahahaha!
lots of monsters do not begin to realize how monstrous they are, in fact the sicker they are the less aware they tend to be of the reality ...
bumping up against any expression of the actual reality can be a real shocker for the hardcore clueless ... and some monsters are even dangerous in what they are willing to do to others ...
but at least Gerry Ferraro had the grace to warn us not to 'antagonize' her! hoho! ugly dangerous clueless monstrous ... and willfully ignorant besides ...
March 14, 2008 10:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fly, I've agreed with you on many things, this isn't one of them.
Your massive leap of logic to compare Ferraro's remarks to Wright's sermon requires a huge disconnect of reality. On top of that, to compare someone who is actively involved with the Clinton campaign and who is clearly a political figure with Obama's pastor is an even bigger stretch.
My issue with your conclusions are two-fold:
1. To hold the candidate responsible for every word uttered on his behalf by someone not even connected to his campaign is patently ridiculous.
2. As I read the comments you quote above, I don't see a personal attack on Hillary Clinton. It's infamatory and borderline racist, but it's not attacking Hillary's qualifications or character.
I think this is a non issue if for no other reason that it is old news. As you note, this was 2 months ago and in political terms, that's a lifetime.
March 13, 2008 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Crap like this is why I am voting for Clinton. You think this is bad? I will bet that there is far, far worse to come about Obama's past.
March 13, 2008 8:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
A man is known by the company he keeps.. we know whom "Minister"Farrakhan" and Pastor Jeremiah Wright support,don't we ?
March 13, 2008 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
We know who Ann Coulter & Geraldine Ferraro support don't we? Oh wait. That one is fair. We know who (INSERT INSANE BIGOTED RIGHT-WING EVANGELICAL PREACHER) supports don't we. Oh wait. That one is fair.
March 13, 2008 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Presidential candidates' idiot supporters:
Obama's idiots - Pastor Wright, Louis Farrahkan
McCain's idiots - Rev. John Hagee, Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
Clinton's idiots - Geraldine Ferraro, Mario Cuomo, Bill Clinton, Ed Rendell, Shaheen
I'm sure there are more candidates' idiots than I have posted here. Let's keep all the idiots on the same page.
March 13, 2008 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess I'm like someone's great-auntie from the 60s. The white one who read "Autobiography of Malcolm X," and voted for Shirley Chisholm. Who thought it was appropriate satire to spell Amerikka just like that.
I find the pastor's remarks "old schoolm" but hardly controversial or offensive! I've felt welcome at churches like his many, many times. You think he's exaggerating the legacy of American racism? Please! He is speaking out here because he is so excited about someone from Barack's background having a shot here, and telling his black parishoners to stop fooling around with Miss Anne and all her promises. Big deal!
Gerry Ferarro has sounded like Archie Bunker on a bad day lately, but this fellow is simply passionate about the underclass of America, about racism and inequality, about the underdog.
I guess you had to be there...
March 13, 2008 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
amen
Obama's candidacy is sure as hell freaking a lot of people out. Gerry's flip-out is just a drop in the bucket. Many commenters here, supposedly "liberal" Democrats, can't deal either.
They forgot African Americans have some things to be angry about (if they ever really thought about it at all).
March 13, 2008 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for bringing up Macolm X. I'm a 46-y.o. guy, white as they come. Yet reading X's autobiography and several books by James Baldwin opened my eyes to the rage blacks felt as a result of their treatment in this country, and also the ability to transcend that rage.
I really can't believe how conservative the commenters on progressive blogs are when it comes to matters of race. To equate the anger expressed by a member of a social group that has been abused, huniliated and/or marginalized thoughout their history to some overprivileged rich white bigot shows how far we have to come before we have any honest perspective on matters of race in America.
I am amazed and saddened how unenlightened the vast majority of the commenters on the blogs I frequent are.
March 13, 2008 11:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why can't white people see this as what it is. Black people in American have been treated badly for a very long time.
Most of the time we just deal with it. We understand we are held to a higher standard than white people. We understand that if we commit a crime a judge will sentence us harsher than a white man who committed the same crime. We understand that life isn't fair for a lot of Americans in this country and we accept it. We deal with it. Sometimes we get fustrated when we are called a "N***er?!" Not because of the word but because of the hostility that is being use with that word.
Church is a place where peopel clense their soul. They let out what has been troubling them. It is an emotional place and it is unfortunate that Fox News and other people of the MSM has taken a private moment and broadcast it to the world.
Pastor Wright isn't a politician. He isn't running for elected office. If Obama wasn't running for president you wouldn't know or care to know his name. You took a very private moment and broadcast it to the world.
March 13, 2008 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find it telling that a few years after the big push to encourage all the candidates to be "comfortable talking about religion", they now have to apologize for their religion, explain their pastors' remarks, and basically turn the campaign into a religious war. I think it's now incumbent on everyone to start questioning why some people go into church and drink somebody's blood (or pretend to drink somebody's blood, or say they believe it's really somebody's blood when it's wine). We should also start questioning what's up with some Jewish people who are so hypocritical as not to eat kosher when they say they're Jews. And we should really start scrutinizing why people go to a Lutheran church when Martin Luther was such an anti-Semite. Let's just stop.... Let's judge candidates on what they and their campaigns stand for. I definitely have strong important people in my life whose views I don't embrace - lots of old people who don't like the gay rights movement, for example, when almost all my own friends are gay. How much guilt by association is really necessary? This pastor shouldn't be on Obama's campaign staff but other than that, let's leave it alone.
March 13, 2008 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I count among my mentors a conservative, evangelical one-time employee of Jerry Fallwell. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody talking to him found that he had some controversial views.
I'm not a clone of this man, though. I don't have to be to have learned from him, nor do I have to have learned everything directly from him. I can react to his guidance and against it.
At the end of the day, Obama is not a xerox of this man. Anybody who suggests that Obama is a carbon copy of him would be wrong on the merits.
If Wright were to start making a bunch of new statements to the media, Obama might have to gently but firmly distance himself from his mentor, but as long as he keeps quiet, Obama's best strategy is to let sleeping dogs lie, and affirm that he has his differences. If he gets too insistent and Wright stays too quiet at the same time, he might get people thinking he doth protest too much.
March 13, 2008 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Presidential candidates' idiot supporters:
Obama's idiots - Pastor Wright, Louis Farrahkan
McCain's idiots - Rev. John Hagee, Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
Clinton's idiots - Geraldine Ferraro, Mario Cuomo, Bill Clinton, Ed Rendell, Bill Shaheen
I'm sure there are more candidates' idiots than I have posted here. Let's keep all the idiots on the same page.
March 13, 2008 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jeremiah Wright is simply telling the truth by his lights and within his social context. There is nothing in Wright's sermon that isn't justifiable - and in my opinion laudable - given his mission and audience. His analysis is historically verifiable and his rhetoric is an astute application of his foundational text. Obama has made the differences between him and Wright in clear. They are operating in different contexts and Obama has gone far beyond Wright's generational perspective. End of that issue. But when John McCain has a guy like Hagee - who is about as insane and ugly in his message as "Christianity" can get - the notion that a righteous black preacher like Wright is somehow "beyond the pale" in his discourse is absurd. Also I find it offensive to compare Reverend Wright to a toxic old has-been pol like Ferraro spewing contemptuous nonsense in media interviews. This attack on Wright is white people's bullshit - Obama can't say that, but it's what I'm reading in much of this brouhaha. Obama can handle this in the general election as he's handled it when asked about it to date. Kicking Wright under the bus, rather than simply putting their relationship in proper context and getting on with his own inclusive message, is the worst thing Obama can do. The specter of having Bill Clinton running around loose - in the mode of their current campaign - with Hillary as President will turn off ten times more voters than old quotes from Obama's pastor. Get a grip.
March 13, 2008 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I personally like Obamas response that his pastor is from the "60's" well isn't that the same as Ms. Ferraro? Whats good for the goose is good for the gander. There are numerous morons to go around for all concerned. Maybe just maybe we should let go of this constant meme that Clintons campaign is "playing divisive racist games".
March 13, 2008 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bill-O is giving the Rev. Wright the first twenty minutes and more later. I'm sure I'm one of the few here that watch Bill-O but Olbermann has flown too close to the sun and did not return in normal orbit.
Rev. Wright's comments gets worse in anti-US, anti Jewish, anti-white language and this is prime material for Section 527 groups. Obama besides being an empty suit is a fraud. Failure to remove himself from the Church is McGovern version 2008. Beat up poor old Gerry on an arguable and true statement yet only ABC and FOX have really covered this. Bill-O, Glenn Beck, and talk radio will make this visible unlike the left wing media such as sicko Olbermann.
March 13, 2008 8:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
How do you remobve yourself from a Church. Pastor Wright is not a politician he is a preacher. Why can't people like you make that distinction?
March 13, 2008 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
How do you remove yourself from a church? Well, you get your ass up and walk out the door. If you want to be President of the United States some day, you don't sit there for 30 years listening to your colorful old pastor preaching God Damn America! You find another church. What is so hard about that? Doesn't matter now. It's too late for him to do anything about this. Back in January, when this first started to break he might have rebuked Wright and left the church. Now he has to brazen it out. Maybe he can still get control of the Democratic Party anyway. Question is: What can he do with it now? What do you think is going through the minds of those super delegates right now?
March 13, 2008 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
well written, fly.
March 13, 2008 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
The fallacy of this argument is that it is based on one video clip that appeared on FNC and GMA, What is most troubling is that Senator Obama has belonged to Pastor Wright's church for 20 years. Having been exposed to such hate-filled, rabble-rousing histrionics for half of his life, the Senator certainly understood his option to seek out a different spiritual leader in a different congregation. Merely "distancing" himself now from Wright as a political expedient would seem inadequate to assure decent, self-possessed people of his true beliefs and philosophy.
March 13, 2008 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
re: "Merely "distancing" himself now from Wright ... would seem inadequate..."
Perhaps he should murder Wright on national TV to prove himself to massa
March 13, 2008 9:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
hah
March 13, 2008 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
haha. I think I just peed a little in my pants.
March 14, 2008 2:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama should firmly reject and denounce the statements, and have Wright leave the advisory African-American Leadership Council Committee.
March 13, 2008 9:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama should point out the truth of various of Wright's statements and the hypocrisy of Americans who don't give a shit if White politicians suckle at the teat of bigoted White evangelicals.
March 13, 2008 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Major players on the "religious right" can say any damned thing they please - no matter how venomous and crazy - and they still have a seat at the RNC's table. But a great black preacher - rooted firmly in the prophetic Biblical traditioins - speaking honestly and passionately about the soul of this nation needs to STFU ? Give me a break...
March 13, 2008 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well.. either anything goes (as I believe) or:
All religion is stupid. Doesn't matter if it's black or white or liberal or convservative. It's just stupid.
March 14, 2008 1:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gotta tell you guys.......I watched the video clip and speaking as a 56 year old white guy........I didn't see too much there that I didn't at least understand if not believe in. I would like to see Obama stop caving to every little whine from the Hillary camp......suck it up.....move on......talk about real issues not old mens bias.
March 13, 2008 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
'Scuse me, but I don't really see what all the brouhaha is about here. Hillary has never been called "nigger." And Hillary has never been accused of being "not white enough." I think we can all stipulate to that.
The question of whether Clinton "did" black people like he did Monica is purely a question of political opinion. Where, exactly, is the "hate" here? What, exactly, is "beyond the pale"?
I think there's a knee-jerk reaction here to some incendiary language ("nigger"), but what Wright is saying about Hillary is in no way comparable to what the Clintons have said about Obama. In fact, he's not really saying anything at all about her, as least as far as what's been quoted. All he's saying is that Obama is uniquely qualified to be president. He's putting it in terms of an angry black nationalist, but there's not a word here that is in any way derogatory towards Hillary Clinton.
Clinton already threw what-her-name under the bus, and I think for good reason. But in this case, even though the language Wright used was even more emotionally-charged, it was not directed at Hillary. Obama should not apologize for this one. At most, he should quietly talk to Wright and tell him that this kind of thing does not help the cause and that he should go away and keep quiet.
March 13, 2008 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why has the world suddenly become so opposed to the right of others to say what they will? People have opinions and we are getting to the point where we censor them first, and forget the right to free speech. No one needs apologize for someone else, that is the decision of the person having made the statement and no one else.
We are losing touch with the right to our opinions if we tell someone they can't have theirs. We must try to retain our right to disagree or we will lose it outright. That is what is happening today. I would prefer having a whole new group of opinions next year. No one has been correct this year, or acted in a lawful manner. Perhaps people with opinions and not afraid to express them is actually the solution to our problems? It will certainly become the most important thing in the world once there is a nominee. If you believe the GOP can afford to relinquish control.
March 13, 2008 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCain's idiot - Rev. Rod Parsley (McCain's personal pastor.)
Sample of his work:
Mr. Parsley has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it. He urges his readers to realize that a confrontation between Christianity and Islam is unavoidable: "We find now we have no choice. The time has come."
Source: motherjones.com
March 13, 2008 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
No no. That's OK don't ya see? Talking about how oppressive America is, something Democrats used to believe, is NOT OK. Ya dig?
March 13, 2008 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Writer,
Very convincing writing, a perfect balance between logos, pathos, and ethos.
You should write to David Axelrod or David Plouffe. I think Josh should initiate this. He has access to them.
I wrote a small piece in Obama's site, but not as powerful as this, expressing the same concern. I hope some campaign people will bump into it, but very unlikely.
March 13, 2008 9:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would like to see this whole hyper-inflated balloon deflated somewhat. And Senator Obama has a chance to do this, in choosing the manner in which he handles this matter publicly.
Let me first say that I strongly oppose the candidacy of John McCain, despite my military background. As a progressive, am I excited that a black American and a women are engaged in a contested race for the presidency? You bet. That said, he is the wrong black American, and she is the wrong woman.
I'll default once again to choosing the 'least worst' of the contestants in the general election, be that Senator Obama or Senator Clinton. Were I to make a meaningful choice in the primary, it would default to Senator Clinton, who I believe is the 'least worst' choice of the two. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it?
With that background and as a 56 year old white male, let me say this: however poorly phrased the claims of Reverend Wright might appear, however offensive they are to some, there is a great deal of truth in what he denounces. Let's take a couple of simple examples of clearly institutionalized, legislated racism:
• the disparity of Federal sentencing guidelines for the possession of 'crack' or 'rock' cocaine, versus the possession of a similar amount of powdered cocaine
• the disproportionate number of black male prisoners serving time, and the disproportionate length of their incarceration
• the disproportionate application of death penalty verdicts and executions involving black males
I say, as a former police officer, that Reverend Wright is pretty much right on target. His claims have been apparent and widely discussed by criminal justice practitioners for decades, yet the state of these three issues today is more like that of the 1960s than it is different.
His words are searing, the effect of them makes others uncomfortable, as well those words should. But, it does not make them false, nor inappropriate.
Senator Obama should note that while he would not have chosen to make the claims of Reverend Wright to any audience, that it is most important to understand those words, and the anger of a man who sees injustice, and an American public that seems largely indifferent to it. He should deflate the the situation by diverting the argument to the real issues raised by Reverend Wright, and not focus on the conduct of one individual.
Don't tell me that you haven't thought or said something to the effect of "…God damn those bastards in the White House, who's lies and total disregard for decency have led to the deaths of nearly 4,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. To the death of quite likely more than one million Iraqis…"
How different, really, are the words of Reverend Wright?
March 13, 2008 9:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Beyond your choice and analysis of the candidates, I think you are spot on.
Wright, many folks just don't get, has been on the wrong end of one of the greatest historical injustices of all time.
They forget, that African Americans really couldn't even vote in America until as recently as 40 years ago, and that was after about 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow. People alive today couldn't vote when they were younger. People alive today had grandparents who were slaves.
Things are far, far from racially equitable today.
When Wright speaks, that is where he is coming from.
All of these folks who get squeamish at the thought of an angry black man need to get around a little more (visit my neighborhood for instance), and see that their being uncomfortable is nothing compared to the real blight millions of people are living in today, as ML rightly noted the institutionalized racism still persisting today.
March 13, 2008 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a white man growing up in Mississippi, I was chastised by my family for just associating with black friends. I share Reverend Wright's rage. It is justifiable rage that should require no apology.
And this only deepens my admiration for Obama who has managed to rise above the rage and embrace a spirit of unity.
March 14, 2008 12:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bingo!!!
March 13, 2008 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes - very coherent and lucid on the analysis of the situation.
Your opinion on candidates is your own, but otherwise thank you for your perspective and clam analysis.
March 14, 2008 12:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fly,
I got here by way of the main TPM page.
apparently Josh liked your post too.
Good job!
March 13, 2008 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fly,
I am sure you are as well intentioned as your podt was real said but I must disagree.
1. Gerry Ferraro and Pastor Wright are on 2 different levels...your comparison is apples to oranges...
2. GF dismissed someone's lifes accomplishments based on their race...what did wright say exactly....
3. This clinton strategy is a 21st century southern strategy....the clintons have perfected it after denouncing it for the last 30 years...your post seems to be bark of the same tree...corraborating in condemning the person who was originally attacked.....
4. The southern strategy was used to stitch together coalitions throughtout our country, though it originated in electoral politics in southern states...it takes claims of racial attacks and turns them back on the person that was attacked, subtly separating coaslitions along racial lines, even people of color have changed affiliations when used in it's most profound fashion....
5. Billy and penn used anti gay radio ads in the southern states in 1996.....
--As a 20 year student /teacher of electoral politics I strongly object to your conclusions.
--As a student/teacher of the impact the media and mediums have on electoral politcs I strongly object to your conclusions...
--As a student/teacher of the impact of fear/smear/electoral politics I strongly object to your conclusions.
As a middle aged white man I strongly object to your conclusions...
March 13, 2008 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thomas Hussein Jefferson
You are so on target with the southern strategy being used by the Clintons.
Especially, the turning around of racism to impugn the VICTIM.
I knew it was bad when I learned that BillClinton had gone on the Rush Limbaugh show. He needs a coalition of the blue collar archie bunker mentality white male for Hillary to win. Going on Rush Limbaugh is nothing but the southern strategy.
The mainstream media covers Rev Wright with old videos of his sermon while turning their head about BillClinton teaming up with Rush to race bait.
Bill Clinton is trying to go back to the WH and lead this country with Hillary at his side while Rev wright is a RETIRED minister without a national platform.
It gives new meaning to what Wright said:
God DAMN America ...the Clintons back in the WH?
March 14, 2008 1:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Despite having a longstanding conservative political background, I love Obama. His words are soaring. I love his call to bring all of America together. Smart, inspiring, he seems to represent a post-racial future for America... which appeals to me. He appears in so many ways to be a "left-wing gipper." A transcendent figure.
I think he needs to distance himself from his ex-Preacher. This "pastor" seems to represent the polar opposite of Obama.
March 13, 2008 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
9/11=chickens coming home to roost? This is not good for Obama. Don't any of Obama's supporters posting here remember the same kind of stupid, reprehensible remarks made by the likes of Falwell and Robertson after 9/11? Don't they remember how liberals pounced all over such hate speech, tarring all Republicans with the thoughts and words of their evangelical supporters? Can't they imagine what would have happened if a Republican presidential candidate had been sitting a congregation listening to such bs for twenty years? Liberal democrats wouldn't have let a Republican get away with it. Neither should Obama be allowed a pass on it. He has to come up with a better explanation than just Wright's just an old man who doesn't represent my thinking.
And on a personal note: with all due respect of Obama, I wouldn't remain in a church where that kind of hatred is being spewed. Nor would I have wanted my kids to grow up listening to it.
March 13, 2008 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is the hatred. You are taking this out of context, but thanks for asking.
March 13, 2008 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a sentiment lots of Americans agree with actually. Perhaps a black dude isn't allowed to say it. He didn't blame gay people so it's not the same. Odd that you would think it is though.
What hatred?
March 13, 2008 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Robertson and Falwell claimed God allowed 9/11 to happen because of gays and abortion. This is an example of utter insanity and hate. Wright, with his "chickens coming home to roost" comment is echoing precisely what Michael Scheuer, the CIA guy originally tasked with targeting bin Laden, has unequivocally stated about al Qaeda's war on the U.S. - it's happening not because of some abstract theology or because of our "freedom", but because the U.S. is and has been "over there" with an explicit set of policies, pursuing an explicit set of interests with explicit allies. 9/11 was intrinsically related to "blowback" in CIA parlance. Anyone who fails to see this elementary fact and thinks that Wright is crazier in his perspective on 9/11 than, say, George W. Bush or the neo-cons who pose al Qaeda as an existential threat to America and our freedom in theological terms of "good' vs. "evil" is blind IMHO. Of course, Wright is an angry black man talking in a church pulpit, so he's scary and we need to denounce him...
March 13, 2008 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Me thinks it was all a flowery way to say
March 14, 2008 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fly,
This was my favorite line:
"If there's a single theme to Obama's intellectual achievements, it's been his ability to sieze upon powerful words and themes, lifting them out of their original context and reframing them to be inclusive and uplifting. Thus, Rev. Wright's fiery sermon on "The Audacity to Hope" in a racialized world becomes the title of Obama's serene meditation on the possibilities of transcending political and racial polarization."
You speak truth, Fly.
2d3sky
March 13, 2008 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Will you guys wake up!!!
Get in the real world or Obama will be beat by people who are.
March 13, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why, thank you. And I thank the others who have posted their encouragement, as well.
March 13, 2008 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's retiring this month.
March 13, 2008 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
re: Fly concluded, "This one's not going away until Obama puts it to rest."
Beyond Obama and this election, this is not going away until "white" America can put aside their tender racial sensitivities and get on with truly helping to build a racially equitable society.
In the meantime, supposedly "liberal" people like Fly here will continue to squirm when angry black men point out the racial injustices that continue to this day, and demand that they be silenced or distanced, sent back to the fields until they learn. Sad.
March 13, 2008 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes.
March 13, 2008 9:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
twirling fartknocker--yep.
but maybe 'Fly' had a difficult youth. maggots have to squirm through rotting stuff a really long time ... before they transcend it, you know.
and Fly said he wrote partly to learn from our feedback, but he only thanks those who encourage him? ummmm ...
watch out for any little black spot eggs falling off the wall ...
March 15, 2008 3:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
re:race versus gender...
is "you didn't get the promotion" as bad as you didn't get the job"?
i have to do this as a mental exercise, as i am a foreigner and white, but i don't know how, if i were neither, i would explain to my kids that i didn't vote for barack obama when i had the chance.
March 13, 2008 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
fly,
i respect your voice very much, so believe that i'm not playing games when i ask: "rebuke what?" you mention logic, tone, and words. wright's logic is that many people are freaked out by obama because his origins are very unlike those of most of the people in charge of this country (and that that kind of xenophobia is the opposite of christianity). do you see something different? i'm not sure what words are offensive either, except for one that is used in service of the point that it is offensive. wright's tone, i understand, is startling if you're not familiar with the black preaching tradition, but can obama rebuke his minister for his tone?
of course i understand that the gop is gonna have a field day with this video, and i agree that wright should not have a campaign position, because he's clearly advocating a way of thinking about race and identity that the campaign doesn't share. i think obama will have to address anxiety about wright somehow, and i hope it's by noting that it was only through confrontation that the civil rights generation achieved anything, and now that they have it's up to us to move past confrontation and come up with a new discourse about race and identity and difference. (he could then slip in something like, "that's what this campaign has been all about.)
as for tax exempt status, legally this sounds pretty safe. i didn't hear wright advocating a certain kind of vote or even implying that it's BAD that hillary hasn't faced this or that...simply that the majority who share her experience don't "get" what it's like to be black, and obama does. this is hardly a campaign talking point, but it's also not an endorsement. criticizing bill is a little more explicitly political, but bill's not running for office and i doubt that an assessment of history crosses the line legally. (those remarks, clearly, ARE offensive, but i don't want to respond too seriously to them until i have more verification and more context than i'm likely to get from fox.)
i think the best thing for obama to say would be "yeah, that's how our fathers and mothers described the challenges they faced, and i respect their struggle for social justice even though i see the world very differently." and then: stop. talking. about. it.
March 13, 2008 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wasn't this sermon preached on January 13 - 2 months ago? Didn't Obama reject it at that time - albeit through his spokesman?
Why (just because it's playing on Fox) must he reject again? He has repeatedly apologized whenever someone in his campaign behaves poorly - 4 incidents I know of for sure
1) Calls his entire campaign staff on the carpet for the "D-Punjab" press release on Clinton's relationship with Indian companies, and personally apologizes
2) Personally apologizes for Gen McPeak's statement regarding "crying fits on TV" (This was in New Hampshire) McPeak also pretty much disappeared from public view until the line up of military officers this week.
3) Samantha Powers and the "monster" - she immediately apologized (within hours) and resigned (within 12 hours) (Since she apologized also to Obama - I think he may have told her what for)
4) A little under the radar, what with the Ferraro thing, but a member of Obama's LGBT advisory committee resigned and apologized this week after circulating an email which dredged up Bill Clinton's various sex scandals vis a vis Spitzer
I don't see why Obama has to apologize AGAIN for Pastor Wright - just because an old video has surfaced on Fox.
March 13, 2008 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
All of this makes me sad. We have come a long way as a nation since the Civil Rights Act, but we have 'many miles before we sleep', as it were...
Thank you, FLyOnTheWall, for your post. It was just about the most even-handed treatment of these troublesome issues during this campaign season that I have seen. I appreciate that.
This is not a post-racial United States. We are far from it, though we are a lot closer now than we were 50 years ago. We may never get there as a whole. We have come a long way in the last 40 years, though. And however this primary season and general election turns out, at least I am finally seeing a glimmer of hope.
It takes time to eat away at perception. Sexism and racism are learned traits, passed on from mother and father to their children. I was fortunate in this regard. My grandparents were born and raised into these attitudes and passed them on, to a certain extent, onto my parents. However, despite what they might think or feel, my parents never intentionally passed them on to me. I am eternally grateful for that.
I was allowed to be raised in a post-Civil Rights Act generation of school integration. From my first day in school, I had classmates that were white, black, Hispanic, Asian, Filipino, and Indian (As in the country). Skin color didn't matter to me... I just hoped I was picked toward the front of the line for kick-ball at recess. They were just my classmates... My peers...
And they still are...
I am not in the majority in this country with my experiences and attitudes growing up. I know that. However, looking at the numbers, I am not alone. No matter how this thing election cycle turns out, I am encouraged that more and more Americans, in general, over time, see this the way that I do, even if, at the moment, they are skewing younger than 40 years old. Over time, this great nation (And we are still a great nation despite the past 6 years) has shown it's ability to reason that personal merit matters incrementally more than than ones genetics, including sexuality. This gives me hope for the future, even if that future may not be now.
I never really looked at Sen Obama and saw him as the 'black' candidate just as I never looked at Sen Clinton and looked at her as the 'female' candidate. To me, and many others, they are both just candidates fighting for a strikingly similar cause. I am aware that many people look at it in this manner, though. And as such, though I do not personally believe that this campaign should be fought on race and gender lines, I understand why it has to be so.
Ferarro's and Wright's comments were both absurd to me for different reasons. They both will cause trouble for whomever wins the nomination in the fall. I know that. I am not naive. Both need to be repudiated, even if for different reasons.
However, I only ask people understand that these folks are from a different generation that had their own baggage. I can't stop them from being what they are, nor do I have the right. To folks of either side, don't think for a moment that the Republican 527's won't target the African-American community with mailers in the fall about Ferarro or Bill's comments as much as they will plaster white American voters about Rev. Wright. They will, and their effect will be predictable and significant at this point.
I can only hope that, one day, maybe now, maybe sometime in my future, that these things won't matter as much anymore. The trends are on my side and on my generation's side and on those generation's born after me. And I have the time, if that is what it will take, for this not to matter nearly as much anymore.
March 13, 2008 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is all turning into an incredibly petty game of he said/she said.
First of all, the original post tries to equate a political figure high up in the Democratic party (former vice presidential candidate) making a political comment to a reporter with that of a religious figure of regional stature moralizing to a narrow audience with a specific experience of being oppressed by a ruling class.
There's also an attempt to equate the plight of the African American throughout our country's history with that of women in general. I don't think you can equate either of these pairs.
And I'm sure if someone were to take the time to search, they would find some influential person in Hillary's life that made some very provocative feminist statements that could be interpreted to be derogatory toward men. Should Hillary publicly express disdain for that person for the sake of her political career? When will it all end?
Ferraro is a national political figure and should have been responded to. But this mess with Wright is a manufactured controversy designed to raise ratings for the networks and rake in advertising dollars. And what a coup they achieved.
We should instead celebrate our freedom of speech and then pull it back to the issues: How do Obama and Clinton plan to get us out of Iraq and maintain regional stability? What tax structure will be best to rebuild our infrastructure, revitalize our economy, and pay off our massive debt? Who can best marshall the political will needed to reform our health care system?
We are falling into a trap set up by forces not in our best interest.
March 13, 2008 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you.....great summary.
March 13, 2008 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks to all who are passing though and adding their thoughts; I'm overwhelmed by the response. To my new readers, I'd ask that you respect the one request I make - that your posts engage with ideas, and not with people. I'd also refer you to my earlier posts.
As I read through these comments, I'm struck by a few persistent themes. One set of responses seems empathetic to the ideas to which Reverend Wright gave voice - that in a nation defined by the reality of racial oppression, only a man who has experienced that reality first-hand can hope to address its problems. To these readers, I'd respond that I understand the source of Rev. Wright's anger, but take issue with his central theme. He elevates the race of the candidates above their ideas, policies or positions; he claims that the identities with which we are born necessarily trump those we construct. I disagree. More to the point, so does Senator Obama.
A second set of reactions comes from readers who are repelled by Rev. Wright's remarks, and transfer their revulsion to Obama. I think that reflects an incomplete understanding of the pastoral relationship. There is no reason of which I am aware, no shred of evidence, that Barack Obama shares the most controversial views of his (former) pastor. To the contrary, his candidacy has been built on his advocacy of a starkly different view of the world. I would not wish to be defined by the views expressed in my place of worship. I do not think it appropriate to define Senator Obama in that manner, either.
March 13, 2008 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you a Clinton plant?
Your comment about Obama not having the same views as his former pastor "of which I am aware" does sound a little too familiar to another line we heard from HRC not too long ago. That combined with what I consider to be a very poor take on this Pastor Wright thing makes me wonder where you really stand.
March 13, 2008 10:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
i was definitely among the "empathetic," but i don't agree with your characterization of the sermon. many have mentioned that it was a sermon, not political advocacy. but beyond that point, i really don't know where you get: "in a nation defined by the reality of racial oppression, only a man who has experienced that reality first-hand can hope to address its problems." i heard: "in a nation defined by the reality of racial oppression, only a man who has experienced that reality can understand what it's like." i didn't hear, even by implication, an effort to tell people how to vote, though his sympathy for obama is certainly clear. i don't think that's naive; this is church, and the audience is listening for analogies and parables. wright is talking to a church full of people who have been identifying, sometimes excruciatingly, with a person whose candidacy represents a great good they hadn't dared to imagine was coming in their lifetime. he knows they're discouraged by having that new hopefulness battered by all the accusation and innuendo that's been swirling around, and he is comparing the experience of being discouraged as a minority drowned out by a majority to the experience of jesus christ, which is a pretty time-honored trope in any ethnic christian church. i hear plain old solace, linked to the events of the day, which i think may not be as common in some traditions as it is in the black church.
March 13, 2008 11:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fly sez:
>>Thanks to all who are passing though and adding their thoughts; I'm overwhelmed by the response. To my new readers, I'd ask that you respect the one request I make - that your posts engage with ideas, and not with people. I'd also refer you to my earlier posts.
Clearly, you are overwhelmed by something.
I am not 'your reader'; I read lots of people here. The rules of the site are already plenty for me.
First you're telling Obama how's he's got to treat his mentor friend; now you're telling me and everyone else the limitations you'd have us observe while responding to many others' posts. You seem to have a real control freak problem.
I'd rather engage with people if I want to, thank you.
And thanks, but I'm up to here already with what you've said in this article, so I won't need to refer to more of it ...
Apparently you've developed something of a fan base around here and they've spoiled you somewhat.
But until you own the site, blackbugonabarrier or whatever, you don't make the rules for the rest of us.
March 15, 2008 3:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fly.....good effort but you definately missed the mark. Thank God you are not on Obamas advisory committee.
March 13, 2008 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love how the MSM is acting like this is "new". They are such idiots its amazing.
March 13, 2008 10:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Both Billy and Fly are concern trolls. Billy says "My understanding was that Wright started his ministry as an alternative to the Nation of Islam. His rhetoric, although couched in Christian instead of Muslim terms, doesn't seem that different." So you start off with speculation and build on it with opinion as the basis for your conclusion. Total sophistry. The Trinity UCC is a Christian church. If you have an "understanding" otherwise, substantiate it before posting your irresponsible speculation. And exactly what about his rhetoric sounds similar to "Muslim terms" and what's your expertise to make this comparative theological analysis?
I don't see this as a big deal. First of all, I don't have a problem with anything Wright said, and I'm a white male (as are members of the Trinity church). Second, McCain has Hagee, Robertson, and now Parsley, among other wack-jobs, who have endorsed him. So what? The KKK endorsed Reagan -- did that make Reagan a KKK member? No. Did it keep Reagan from getting reelected in a 49-1 state landslide? No. Third, let's put this in perspective: Wright was the former pastor of his church. Many Catholic Democratic politicians have pastors who speak about the mortal sin of abortion from the pulpit -- terms that are completely contrary to Democratic Party principles. Yet such Democratic politicians still go to Mass, and might even be involved in some way (oh horror) in the church. There are ministers and rabbis all over the country making controversial statements during religious services. They're religious sermons, period. Nobody cares.
To compare this to Ferraro is an outrageously huge stretch.
March 13, 2008 10:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said, thanks.
March 13, 2008 10:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
To compare what Geraldine Ferraro said with what the Reverand Wright apparently says on a regular basis as being equivalent IS SO FUCKING OFF THE WALL that you should be ashamed of yourself.
But of course you have been in denial since the start of this campaign and you are not going to admit that so you come out with a "discovery" that Obama has to "explain" away. Give me a freaking break. It was all out there from the start and you guys deliberately ignored it until FOX NEWS of all places called your bluff. YOU ARE PATHETIC
March 13, 2008 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly right Andrew. And a little more here: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/yet-another-political-calculat.php
March 13, 2008 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Geraldine Ferraro wanted to make this primary about race and the Clinton campaign was embracing this Southern Strategy for Pennsylvania. You have a right to support this but take it to Republican party where it belongs.
"They attack me because I'm white." As Josh said, bring out the clown.
March 13, 2008 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
externalize much?
either that or you do not let new information percolate to far into your thinking. Not hearing much out of you besides anger. Any thoughts or defensible positions?
As I understand it - there is nothing to EXPLAIN AWAY. Or for that matter is there much to BE UPSET ABOUT.
TIMING IS EVERYTHING. THIS IS OLD NEWS. And the underclass railing against the ruling class is usually A RALLY CALL FOR LIBERALS.
March 14, 2008 12:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm wondering where the commitment to religious plurality and tolerance that is, if anything, our founding national purpose has gone in this discussion?
We are attacking a candidate over his Pastor and House of Worship? We are using YouTube clips of religious services to attack a candidate? We are asking a man to renounce the Church where he was married and baptised his children, where he grieved over the loss of his friends and family?
Has this campaign season and the media spin cycle blinded folks so much that we forget who we are as Americans?
I'm not sure.
I'm a Roman Catholic. I assure you that you could create out-of-context YouTube clips of services conducted in my faith life that would likely offend the sensibilities of many Americans and would cost any Roman Catholic candidate votes as well.
The same can be said, quite honestly, for any of us who don't belong to one of the mainline Protestant faiths that have traditionally fed the United States Presidency.
This nation, however, if it was founded on any value, is founded on the notion of religious tolerance. We judge our fellow citizens on their public words and their actions and not their House of Worship.
If the Sabbath is not a safe harbor in our political life, then the fabric of our Democracy has truly changed.
I am not saying that those who took issue with Reverend Wright's words and tone and their political implications don't have cause. What I am saying is that allowing Big Media and FOX and Ben Smith at Politico to spoon feed us this stuff without stopping once to think about our long and proud history of freedom of religion is mind boggling to me.
We are Americans. Yes, we could easily judge our candidates by words spoken within the four walls of their tabernacle, temple, church or meeting house, but in our long tradition as a nation we have refrained from doing so for the most part.
In effect you are asking this question tonight, should membership in an African American Church, with an African American pastor where issues of the faith life of Black Americans are discussed in the context and fulness of the Black experience in America be a disqualification to the presidency?
And, if that is so, what does it say about the nature and meaning of American democracy in 2008?
March 13, 2008 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ferraro and Clinton don't know what it's like to be called niggers, but they sure know what it's like to be called bitches. I've been thinking lately how easily people call females bitches. Is it with even more ease than people used to address blacks with the n word? Does anyone say "I'm not gonna say what s/he is but it rhymes with trigger?" Probably not, but to just come right out and say a female is a bitch is not going to get most folks shunned.
March 13, 2008 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
How much of that is a successful co-opting of the term. I have several women friends that take it as a compliment, and it's often used as such in my circles.
Eh anyhow, sucks for Obama. He's got to push Wright out. To say Blacks are more oppressed than women is just as impossible as the converse. I'm not going to pick and choose saying group XX is more oppressed than group Y. Not with Clinton, not with Obama.
At least Samantha Power avoided a racial thing.
March 13, 2008 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a Catholic, I can see the fix that Sentator Obama is in, not by reflecting on my own situation but for feeling empathy for John Kerry in 2004 when high profile Roman Catholic priests were speaking out against him and said they would not give him communion if he came to mass in their respective churches.
Like Kerry and many other left-leaning Catholics, it's tough because although I disagree with a lot of the Catholic Church's standings on issues. The church's stances on a woman's right to choose and contraception come to mind. While I hold the church responsible for much of the AIDS epidemic in poor countries for their denunciation of the use of condoms, I cheer their opposition to the death penalty.
I could go down the line (as I'm sure others could about their, mine or other peoples religion and its leaders.) However, it's the church I was raised in and their humanitarian and generally compassionate stance which was influencial to leaders like Bobby and John Kennedy to Mother Teresa is why I associate myself with it.
However, Obama's problem is a bit more sensitive and he has already intelligently addressed it, and I'm sure will touch on it again. Those quotes that will become famous and will surely be tied to him by the Republican attack machine (if not the Clinton attack machine/same thing really).
What a Catholic might advise Obama to say to the attacks to come: "I obviously do not agree with everything my pastor says and wholeheartedly reject the things in mind. Many of my Catholic friends and colleagues from both sides of the aisle have similar issues with their church leaders and the things they say. But on the whole as a Christian, my church has kept me closer to God."
If anything, this might help dispel some of the crazy Muslim rumors floating in cyberspace and e-mail trash bins. Also, it opens up a big can or worms if people start examining, as their destined to do, the words and rants from religious leaders of politicians and critics. John McCain with his spiritual advisors, may also want this one to fade away. As for Hillary, it might spotlight whether or not she actually really goes to church which doesn't matter to me, but will to a lot of the voters she's trying to attract.
March 13, 2008 10:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I made a little post elsewhere.. in short, we MUST defuse the false "God damn America" issue immediately. It is a far wider-reaching problem that will come bite all our asses very shortly.
Never EVER allow the right wing question patriotism.
March 13, 2008 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Too late, my friend. He's done.
March 13, 2008 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Billy Mad, you must also be Billy Denial and Billy I-Failed-Basic_Math because you're living in an angry paranoid fantasy world. In the comments here and to other posts, you've developed an almost conspiratorial tone in Fox News fashion in trying to slur Obama and boost Hillary. Your sore tone saddens me to think that there are plenty others like you in the Democratic Party.
March 14, 2008 1:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
You guys should stop bother about what the reverand or Ferraro have said, stick to the issues you are missing the point here, stop feeding the hype please.
March 13, 2008 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
This post is nonsense!
Pure Bull, regardless of one's point of view or predisposition? Race is a fact of life in the U.S.A.! Get over it!
Chattel Slavery is the distinction in the U.S.A.!
One to the extent that one is believed to exist is owned; this is not the same as one bonded by debt or servitude! It a nutshell this is it folks.
The presumption that one should respond according to some meme or narrative or prescribed fashion, and when folks called black are involved it becomes real special. Since Obama is this near celestial being and black he is supposed to do such and such. BULL!
Lest Obama match Clinton toe to toe if not by more toes on condemnations of those deemed to be in error whose appearance are as his; the question must be raised: Is Obama lack of condemnation, the race card?
On Ferraro and Race Card? Try dumb, stupid and time has passed cards! If is makes you feel better put race in the deck, but really it isn’t worth the effort! Forget the tip for tat crap
On Ferraro, a Bush doctrine applies: Bring it On!
A bit mercenary perhaps, but $75M in March and 10 more Supers would be OK! Could live with any 10 or more Ferraro may encourage. You GO GIRL!
Kinda like the reverse of the reverse; Sorry Clintons this is working as all others! Yep! Appreciate it!
As Geogre Clinton put it" Free your mind and your ass will follow." (In the macro sense, pardon the candor)
To paraphrase Bill Russell and likely others: I am American who is black, not a Black American.
In other words understand difference between race, color, group, description, etc. Apply the same standard to all regardless of description; group differences will always be, but this chattel residual slavery nonsense( you owe me cause I owned you and freed you OR you owe me because you owned me), and current day subtext race card, sex-race card, Ward Connelly, anti-whatever you choose, and so on needs to go.
Sorry Folks! For many years many others have tried this and it failed (albeit with temporary and sporadic success); this is a snake oil dressed to be drunk as a meme drink; it is merely effluence that oozes out of bowls of yesterday from time to time. For those in need, drink aplenty!
March 13, 2008 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't expect that people here can possibly understand how this will affect Obama's prospects in the general election. Combine this with all the other material that can put into doubt Obama's patriotism -- his refusal to wear the flag pin, his failing to put his hand over his heart when the national anthem was played, Michelle Obama's remark that she had never before been proud of her country -- and you have all you need to do the man serious damage when running against an authentic American military hero.
And, sorry people, it's way, way past time that Obama can do anything to correct the toxicity of this story. This is something he particularly should have known about for years upon years -- nobody knew better than Obama what the man was preaching. His time to reject and denounce was many, many years ago. Can't unring that bell with an apology on this one, so long after action was required, and only because he's been caught.
I've got to wonder what the superdelegates, who, unlike the crowd around here, weren't born yesterday, will make of this story. After seeing this, I'd have my heart in my throat if I had said I was going to vote for Obama.
March 13, 2008 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
re: "the toxicity of this story"
Yup, he's black, has black friends, and you know what, some of them are angry about the f*&$ed up sh%t that has happened to African Americans over the last, say, 450 years.
You're right, there's no running from that. If he tried to run, they'd probably cut his foot off anyway.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, it sure is interesting to see everyone's *true* colors. Sad, but interesting. The repugs are a little more transparent about their bigotries -- they are a known quantity. It takes a bit more stirring of the pot to see the "liberals" racial prejudices come out. Very clever at burying such things, liberals are, until an angry black man gets in their face (even from the safety of their living rooms as they watch online video).
Regardless, I still have hope we can continue on this long journey our country has embarked on called equal justice for all. Shoot, it wasn't until Frederick Douglas said it that folks began to realize that the words "we the people" could actually mean people beyond white male property owners. It'd be another 100 years before all americans had the vote, and we're still not there yet.
Let's just get it all out on the table, all our cards, and see if we can't use this as an opportunity to push the whole equality thing a little further, despite the messed up things Camp Clinton is doing now and the wicked things Fox et al will do through November. That's all part of the process. If brave folks in the past had been afraid of resistance to equality, we wouldn't be where we are today. Now, it's our turn to push things even further. Now is not the time to cower in fear. This is the best opportunity we've had in a generation to get fired up and pull this country even closer to equal justice for all. C'mon, people. Stand tall for what is right!
March 14, 2008 1:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
"cut off his foot". dude, you are cracking me up in this thread.
March 14, 2008 2:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Rev. Wright married the Barack & Michelle Obama.
How often has Santus Obama attended a Rev. Wright hate speech sermon? Why has he remained with this Church? Why have his children baptized by this "Reverend"?
Senator Obama worships with his family in a Church with racist hate speech and its members throughly enjoy it. Americans will remember the entire show. This man is worse than anything ever said by a Clinton surrogate. Section 527 groups will run this until the end. The more an Americans watch the tape the worse for the Obama campaign.
After the Crucifixion of Geraldine Ferraro, a nice older woman, who was correct in her initial statements, judgment and character matter. Obama and his wife who said on 2/18/08: "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change."
Empty Suit.
March 13, 2008 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Hate speech sermon ?"
Dumb cracker comment!!!!
March 14, 2008 12:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama is so yesterday now. Here are the five stages of grief.
Denial: “This can’t be happening to me.”
Anger: “Why is this happening? Who is to blame?”
Bargaining: “Make this not happen, and in return I will ____.”
Depression: “I’m too sad to do anything.”
Acceptance: “I’m at peace with what is going to happen/has happened.”
Which stage are you in?
March 14, 2008 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm in the "Kiss my ass, you're an f...ing idiot" stage.
Hillary's toast. Deal with it.
March 14, 2008 12:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fly, I think this is an interesting post, but I have a problem with something you said - here it is:
If these sorts of attacks have no place in our political dialogue, then a generic denial by a campaign spokesman isn't going to cut it.
This is a spiritual advisor - not a political advisor. The uncle analogy makes sense because, let's face it, most people feel like their pastor is part of their family. Many people also feel that their congregation is part of their family. This sermon was not given to some random group of voters in Illinois as an attempt to sway the electorate, these were Obama's Congregation - does anybody actually believe that people who go to Obama's Church were thinking about voting for somebody else? Have you heard the term preaching to the choir?
It benefits FOX news (who also employs Ferraro) to draw a connection between Obama's spiritual life and his political life, but where can we connect anything that Obama has said or done in his political career to what was said by his spiritual advisor in this sermon that took place in December of 2007 - after most of his political accomplishments to date had already been accomplished?
Also, it would be important for me to know if Obama was even at this sermon - is that clear? Or are we now just supposed to go on a witch hunt of every person that Obama and Hillary love, are related to or have any sort of spiritual connection with, regardless of whether or not they are actually connected to either of their political campaigns?
While we are at it, should we hold each of the candidates personally responsible for every word that ever comes out of every friend, family member or loved one they have - unless they come out and denounce and reject said friend, family member or loved one?
My point is that there is a HUGE difference between our political and our personal lives. Holding people to the fire and asking them to trash everybody they love who has ever said something that would not be politically expedient is nothing short of insane!
March 13, 2008 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unless Obama can put this rest NOW, It.Is.Over.
All the Republicans need to do if he's the Democratic candidate is show ads of Obama contrasted with Wright screaming his head off "Goddamn America" ad infinitum and mainstream America will run in horror.
The superdelegates know this and they will pick Clinton. I also wonder if Obama isn't a little naive to think that he can distance himself from his PASTOR and/or that someone wouldn't discover his statements and use it against him.
For a brief period there in early Feb. I thought it was possible...
March 13, 2008 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps he was naive to think he could run for President and no one would notice he was black and that he had black friends, some of them angry about racial injustice.
If only all his friends were "colorblind" whites, he mighta had a shot.
Not so lucky after all.
March 14, 2008 1:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the most popular reader bloggers at the new TPMCafe is FlyOnTneWall and he/she has some thoughts on the Wright matter too.
--Josh Marshall
GIVE IT A REST!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 13, 2008 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
It might be helpful to have a candid interview on one of the Sunday morning shows with both Obama and his pastor. The pastor can explain his views and Obama can show where he differs and how its time to move past the divisive language of the 60s. It's easy to demonize Wright as some black power nutcase by using selections from his speeches but it's always better to have a human face and a candid interview. If he's still a liability he can officially resign but I think it is completely unreasonable to ask Obama to sever ties with him.
March 13, 2008 10:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree and I think many will.
March 13, 2008 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is now 7:45PM Pacific Time and I am really suprised at how fast this story has disappeared from the blog. I really think this may be a one cycle story after all. It sure fizzled out fast.
I'm a white guy, but since I've been supporting Obama, I've made a habit of reading alot of the black political blogs to get a different perspective. I've got to say, the sense I get from the postings I've read is that this is both par for the course from the black church in general and the Rev. Wright in particular. It is, in their collective minds, no big deal. I think I'm with them.
Having said that, I do agree with those who say Obama needs to respond agressively to damp down this "controversy". After watching the video of Rev. Wright (and several more on YouTube-you should really see this guy preach. He's something else!) I was struck by how he didn't mention how dificult it must be for a woman to get as far as Hillary has in US politics. That's his perogitive and the church is more about being black than being a man or a woman. But, I think the opening for Obama is to say something about how both he and Hillary are making history and breaking all kinds of barriers in this campaign. He could say that the legacy of racism and sexism is being confronted in this campaign, and we'll be a better country for it. He could say something to that circles back to his message of unity and healing and hope, just more eloquently than I did
March 13, 2008 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think this is the quiet theme that is arising from this post.
No denouncing, no rejecting.
The struggle of the powerless against the powerful is part of the narrative of many people in this country and needs a reckoning. This means all oppressed sects - female, black, native american.
To draw a contrast - I think the things Ferraro said upset her deep inside. You can see it on the interview. She knew inside that the vile things she said demeaned everything in her own life. A sad sad event to have happen as a surrogate for a presidential candidate in a nation-wide interview.
March 14, 2008 12:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Information-
It is not unusual to have tapes and videos of a sermon in some churches. People buy them to review afterwards or give to someone who missed the sermon...whatever.
Senator Obama did not put his hand over his heart for the Star-Bangle Banner. It was not the National Anthem.
And I guess I must be a horrible racist African American because what the Pastor said was not offensive to me. I actually watched a few of his sermons (lessons) and it is spiritual, not secular.
How I understood it is if you do bad things to people, it is going to come and bite you in the butt and it did with 9/11.
The whole White Man thing is quite dated in my book. I am married to a European Man. For me it just automatically translates to those in power, abusers of power and oppressors. I guess it is one of the code words.
One thing that I like about Senator Obama is that he reaches out to all Americans and there is still much we have to learn about each other.
March 13, 2008 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wright is an enormous liability that won't go away, no matter what Obama does -- which is not to say I don't agree that something more than the old uncle excuse is necessary. It absolutely is. Still, even though I hate to say it, Wright could absolutely be a deal breaker in the general election. You really have to be a latte liberal to shrug off his brand of sermonizing. Now I'm one and I go beyond shrugging. I say Wright's got a few pretty fair points to make. And here I'm talking about the 9/11 comments and the "goddamn America" stuff. These kinds of things definitely promise to turn a lot of independents and Republicans who might've gone Obama back the other way -- not to mention the white working class Democrats. If there was ever a reason for them to go McCain, Wright could supply it. Which sort of neutralizes the electability argument Obama's had till now. Sad mistake here. His campaign should've figured this thing out and had really strong talking points ready long before now. And, as much as it speaks to Obama's loyalty that he still considers the guy his pastor, I suspect that rejecting and denouncing, gently and kindly, but still doing it at some point way earlier than this might've been the smarter thing to do. I'd be real glad if something proves me wrong here, but I fear this story has legs.
March 13, 2008 11:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Concern concern.
I am not concerned. He has already distanced himself from the Pastor.
This is old news for me and I strongly believe that Senator Obama is the best candidate.
This could very well be people trying to shake up the Super Delegates.
And of course, our only alternative is (dada) Senator Clinton who has proved that she is not CIC material with the mismanagement of her campaign and that she is tons and tons way alot and tons more devisive than Senator Obama. She is so old school politics and what people are tired of.
And I have said I believe her not being capable? She lost my vote at the beginning of this primary process. Lost it because I believe in the 50 state strategy, she does not and has said so numerous times.
So electability issues, I think Clinton has a worse problem than Senator Obama and his ex-pastor.
March 13, 2008 11:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
AMEN! I tell ya!
AMEN! WITHOUT A DOUBT!
March 13, 2008 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Weak kneed is about the best I can say for you. The candidate presents a package..........a truthful and honest package, warts and all. Supporters rally around him or her and the campaign begins. Hopefully by the time voting day arrives the candidate resembles the one they met and supported on day one. This constant apologizing for what other people said or what you and others may perceive they said or meant is crazy making and could eventually destroy the message and the campaign.
March 13, 2008 11:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
As roo_P stated, the "GD America" quote will certainly be a problem. The right will surely exploit it to the max to confuse the less astute voters. It will indeed need to be dispelled, but not with an apology or repudiation. We must not cower to these fascist tactics with dishonesty. Criticisms of American government policy should be framed as patriotic, as a desire to make our country better. They should be viewed as calls to greatness, not a lack of loyalty to one's country. We all need to stand up against such blatant distortion of our founding values by a corrupt media.
“As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
- Abraham Lincoln
March 13, 2008 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those people will vote that way regardless.
March 14, 2008 1:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
While agree 100% with the idea that we ought to support free speech and the idea that intelligent criticism of the government is a form of patriotism, the folks who don't even know this story yet and cannot get their minds around the nuance will see the 527 swiftboat ads that will surely come and vote McCain. He was a prisoner of war and Obama was a member of a church that had Wright as a pastor. Its radioactive for Obama. Patriotism in a time of "war", is the last frontier. Folks can reasonbly disagree about policy and the direction the country is headed but patriotism, rightly or wrongly, is considered a given in a presidential candidate. Call that into question in a "plausible" way, and the rest doesn't matter and will not get a fair hearing in the court of public opinion.
We can sit here in our pj's and intellectualize this but it will provoke a gut level response in John and Jane Doe.
March 13, 2008 11:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
The power given to swift boating overlooks the weakness in those who were swift boated.
If you believe in free speech, criticism of the government, and freedom of religion, as well as a thinking citizenry, now is the time to stand up for that - not cut and run.
Pretending that John and Jane don't think is what gets us the 12 State strategy. Which does not work all that well based on its last performance.
March 14, 2008 1:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
I would say that we all need to beware of those that want to send the political police into anyone's church to pass judgement on what is said inside.
March 13, 2008 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
"GD America" isn't a problem. You just said it. I just said it. Obama didn't. Nor did one of his surrogates. A former pastor said it in the context of a sermon. William Sloane Coffin was a former pastor to the elite at Yale and was a war protester and civil rights marcher -- he probably said things about the country that was offensive to right wing ears. Did his comments taint the careers of all future GOP Yalies, like W, Pataki and others? Nope. Yet Billy is convinced Obama "is done" over this. Pathetic.
March 13, 2008 11:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fly, I have enjoyed your analyses and writing style for the most part. After reading this piece, I've concluded you are either very young or very inexperienced or perhaps both. I find it lacking in historical perspective and devoid of the empathy that is needed for this topic and that is needed for you to be a great writer.
I'm not going to add much to what others in this thread have said in opposition to what you have written and recommended. I do note that you're not handling that criticism very well.
Wright has pointed out that white elites don't know squat about the black experience. Geraldine slipped on her own tongue (which she periodically does) proving what Wright said weeks earlier was true. Nothing lucky at all about being black in America.
Peace.
March 13, 2008 11:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent, well thought out post. Recommended! There is so much fire in this story. It hits upon two key aspects - and it is amazingly in stark contrast to Obama's own campaign. One is that angry anything is not appealing - angry women and angry black men and angry white men are just not progressive. You can't blame other people for your problems and get ahead. Black people blame America, white people, and everyone else. They hate white people so much that if they read a book they are accused of acting white, something Obama called out in his 2004 speech. Second, why would white people elect someone to office that could disenfranchise them? Everyone likes empowerment, noone likes to feel disempowered. If an angry white man is elected to office, the mobs riot as in Nixon era. If an angry black man gets to office, what then? Anyways, the rhetoric of Wrigth is divisive, and it brings up the question... who is Obama?
Not that it matters that much - this is a great conversation - but I would still bet money on Obama winning the whole thing. Not because it's progressive, not from white guilt, but because he Earned it as a person. McCain is too old, too much of a senator. Hillary is crying herself to sleep right now.
wow, this post was long.
March 13, 2008 11:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Equating Wright and Ferraro makes no sense at all.
Wright is a key figure in Obama's adult life. I don't see how Obama can successfully distance himself now.
March 13, 2008 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fly and other proponents of slime,
Why wont you address my question regarding the 21st century southern strategy?
Frankly the majority of people who compare wright to ferraro are perpetuating hrc's race filled strategy?
Rather we are tacit enablers or active proponents of hate, all of us are nothing more than simple haters....
love,
a middle aged white guy....aka daddy cracker.
March 13, 2008 11:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could you isolate for me just exactly what Wright said (by the way, I don't believe he said it all that recently, only that it came to our attention this week) that "crossed the line." It seems to me he probably gives sermon after sermon of similar content. From a tactical perspective, no doubt this could pose big problems for Obama. But from a grievance perspective, what is the precice charge? Not that there isn't any, but your post isn't clear on what are the offending statement.
I didn't want this campaign to go this way (who did?), but now that it has, we should at least try to be exact about our language and thinking. These tensions between the forces of gender, race, and other divisions in our society are ones that we plainly need to confront and discuss. We should take this as an opportunity to do that in a careful, constructive way, even if our leaders can't seem to.
March 14, 2008 12:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mike,
Hold that thought.......and go to bed and dream about voting your heart......it always works for me ;)))
March 14, 2008 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Women got the vote in America after Blacks, women got the right to own property after Blacks. I think that Senator Hillary Clinton might have an idea of what it is like for her people to be unpeople. And what is this about a "clip" on Fox? I saw a 3 minute film. That is not an out of context excerpt, that is not picking the juicy parts. In television terms 3 full minutes is an eternity. The problem is Wright, not Fox. (Gad, I never thought I would say that the problem was not Fox.)
March 14, 2008 12:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not sure how to phrase this correctly but here goes. It is very difficult for a black man to fight/compete with a white woman.....especially an establishment woman like HRC. The black man even if he is Barack Obama has to be very careful. He often finds himself in a no win situation.
To ask Obama to defend his position because of an elderly pastors comments as they may relate to his competition with a well established white woman is a very tough call.
My take on it is if you are a caring Democrat you will give this a pass and a rest.
March 14, 2008 1:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great piece, Fly.
The problem, as I see it, is that the likes of Hannity, O’Really, Republican and many Democrat whites equate African-American anger as what defines blackneness. Of course, it’s a vicious double-bind.
I think there’s something cruel and hard to want and expect Sen. Obama to disavow, renounce and reject an old spiritual mentor and an old man. Suppose Obama does, then won’t the question be raised that to him no relationship is safe and above politics and that he’ll walk away from his core just to be elected? After all, it’s not as if the likes of Billy Graham did not preach hate of a sort when he said that only the believers in Jesus are saved. And is he not called the Pastor to Presidents.
March 14, 2008 1:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
we have truly entered the twilight zone. TPM homepage continues to flog the dead ferraro story, but gives hardly any attention to this incendiary obama-pastor story.
comments here say "what was so bad, i agree?" have you seen the video of the pastor bumping & grinding on stage while saying "Bill did us (black people) like he did Monica - dirty." I don't care what past you have, what church you go to, there is NO place for that in a so-called house of worship.
for obama to include this man as a spiritual advisor, campaign member and mentor is so much more troubling that kooky ferraro's comments.
and for olbermann to devote a special comment rant last night and then act in denial tonite about this story is further proof we are in the Twilight Zone. keith even mentioned how bad it will look in november for mccain with his "hate-mongering spiritual advisor." but no mention of obama's?
i am stunned at the hypocricy.
March 14, 2008 1:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would tender you are just plain stunned.
You probably thought that the town in Footloose deserved to burn in hell for all that nasty, sinful dancing.
March 14, 2008 1:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
How did you guess? I have the Footloose laserdisc right next to my copy of Passion of the Christ.
March 14, 2008 1:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
No.......you're just stunned.
March 14, 2008 2:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm an Obama supporter and first of all Fly, I applaud you for raising a difficult topic. Today I've seen too many Obama supporters (if I can characterize you as one of those) who have tried to ignore the Wright clips or think it can all be swept under the rug. I liken this to the Swift Boat controversy- hope it will go away because it's complicated and it festers.
I think these videos and Wright are a time bomb for Obama. Some posters here talked about whether Wright is correct in what he says (I happen to agree with alot of what he said in the clips that I saw)- it doesn't matter as much whether those who have already decided they support Obama are OK with it, it's those large groups of undecided voters. This is a gift for the Clintons and the Republican 527 machine. [By the way, I'm almost amazed that the Clintons have been looking at something to tag with Obama with and they didn't have the wherewithall a couple of months ago to see whether Wright's church sold video tapes? They really ARE incompetent!]
Obama has been listening to this man for 20 years, consults with him, respects him so much that he was married by him and had him baptize his children. I know that Obama- like many of us- picks and chooses between what he agrees with and doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, but he is a blank slate for many Americans still, and when they see that one of the voices in his ear has been someone advocating the singing of G.D. America, and criticizing the rich white men who own America, they're not going to see that as something they want to be a part of. Certainly a message by the campaign about it is not going to cut it.
It's interesting- some have criticized Obama as being all about advancing his career. Were that the case, then certainly he would've realized years ago that someone preaching what Jeremiah Wright has been saying is someone to stay away from if you want to be an African American candidate for President in America. Now those 'ambition' accusations seem like small potatoes.
There have been those who say that some of the attraction of Obama's candidacy is it has relieved white people of some of their guilt for oppressing African Americans and other minorities for so long. "Look- that guy Obama has been giving us a pass on all that bad stuff- let's support him and we can assuage some of our guilt, and by the way, he's a hell of a candidate"- a multiple birds killed with one stone kind of vote. I wonder what seeing the clips of Wright in action does to people like that. "I knew it, honey- those people DO hate us."
I fear that the 'avoid controversy' super delegates are going to run for the hills now unless Obama forcefully deflates this. He has proved remarkably adept at doing that in the past- I fear that his feelings for Wright have been a blind spot for him and have made him underestimate how damaging his relationship with Wright can be. Better it happen now than farther down the road, but it would've been better had it been dealt with pre-Iowa.
March 14, 2008 1:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you black or white?
March 14, 2008 2:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if all of the white Clinton lovers here would have stood by a black President who was diddling interns under his desk and vociferously protested that he shouldn't resign under threat of impeachment ? And then turn around and try to get him back in the "White" House via the backdoor by supporting his wife's candidacy for top job 8 years later. Even after she proved she couldn't win a majority of elected delegates in the primaries.
Just a question.
March 14, 2008 1:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Someone posted elsewhere that McCain told Sean Hannity he wanted people to stop worrying about what Obama's pastor says, stating, "We all have supporters who say and do things we don't agree with and we all have made mistakes in our past at one time or another."
Well, that's a good attitude. But it's obvious that the dirty work in the general election (if Obama gets that far) will be done by the 527 and Limbaugh crowd. Funny- they wanted to campaign against Hillary- somehow I now think Obama's gonna be the one they want to chew on in the general.
March 14, 2008 1:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've made more than my share comments already, but I have to say that the folks who express shock and dismay at Wright's style of sermonizing and posing stark challenges to his listeners remind me of those parents who expressed shock that their kids were listening to Little Richard and is about as likely to hold back the tide of social change. This anxiety is rooted in drastically different historical and cultural assumptions and, frankly, monumental ignorance and self-satisfied insulation on the part of too many white folks. Wright is a brilliant preacher. The country needs more like him. That he offends some is signal that he's doing his job. Amen brother !!!
March 14, 2008 1:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was kinda getting a kick out of watching some of the clips. I'm not a church-goer myself, mostly due to being raised white southern baptist. (Hope that doesn't offend anyone and ruin some distant relative's presidential campaign some day) But his services struck me as being quite invigorating. Frank, honest, tell-it-like-it-is sermons.
March 14, 2008 2:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Full disclosure: I am agnostic at best
First, I would like to know if there is such a thing as "post-religious bigotry"?
For every Wright there are two Rod Parsleys. Who is Rod Parsley? According to this forum, 12 March,08 and Buckeye State Blog, [via Mother Jones], Parsley, is an Ohioan "spirtual guide" to John McCain espouses "the distruction of Islam".
When I see stories like the Wright story appear on Fox Noise, red flags go off. When I see the same story on CNN then red flags go way beyond off.
Who is behind the camera in the backroom making the editorial decisions? Or better put, who decides what is news and what isn't news?
Perhaps the Wright story is news. I haven't heard much about Mr. Parsely except in this forum and on the Buckeye State Blog. I still haven't heard McCain totally and completely "reject and denounce" Hagee. "Reject and denouce" is cutting all ties with this person. On 11 March, 08 in this forum, it was reported that McCain intends to "hold[ing] on to [ John Hagee] endorsement." I am now listening to a choir of voices say that Obama needs to cut all ties with Wright. Perhaps he does? If Obama has to take this step, does McCain need to make the same gesture?
Is Obama (under the McCain/Hagee standards) allowed to disagree with some of statements of Wright and keep his endorsement--if he endorsed Obama?
Back to my book. I wonder what Jefferson and Madison what have thought about this discussion of religion and religious test?
March 14, 2008 1:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is Obama (under the McCain/Hagee standards) allowed to disagree with some of statements of Wright and keep his endorsement--if he endorsed Obama?
Under the McCain/Hagee standards, sure.
But I don't buy in to the McCain/Hagee standards.
And the media won't apply McCain/Hagee standards to Obama/Wright. Unfair as that may be, it just ain't gonna happen.
March 14, 2008 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I wonder what Jefferson and Madison what have thought about this discussion of religion and religious test?"
AMEN to that!!
March 14, 2008 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't read the posts thoroughly enough, but I think most here aren't so much shocked by Wright's comments- many of us are thinking "How does this play in the suburbs".
The world may need more like him that bring the issues of inequality to light- but the Obama campaign doesn't need more 'crazy uncles' stepping up the microphone. Jon Stewart just appropriately showed a clip of Wright yelling his "God Damn America" sermon in the category of "You're Not Helping".
March 14, 2008 2:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lots of people are not helping including Jon Stewart.......but it does increase his ratings and I guess Obama will have to make a call but I hope it isn't his typical HRC knee jerk "sorry and I'll fire them", that is becoming so embarassing.
March 14, 2008 2:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Brueso,
I am curious...are you black or white?
March 14, 2008 2:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
You keep asking that. What are you trying to figure out?
March 14, 2008 2:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
And Jon Stewart is helping ???
March 14, 2008 2:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
The first person Stewart showed on "You're Not Helping" was Gerri Ferraro and he gave her knocks.
It isn't Stewart's job to help the Obama campaign by ignoring the campaigns missteps- it's his job to mock everything.
March 14, 2008 2:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
This isn't a campaign misstep. John McCain embracing Hagee was an egregious campaign misstep. Geraldine
Ferraro's bullshit interviews demeaning Obama were a campaign misstep. Jeremiah Wright's sermons have exactly zero to do with the Obama campaign because Obama has made his differences clear and this sermon was an event on the calendar of Trinity United Church of
Christ. My point is precisely that Jon Stewart, an amiable and often insightful clown, is the arbiter of exactly nothing and he's playing into a FOX News (and probably Hillary campaign) ploy. Also when he gives kissass interviews - which isn't infrequent, like his recent encounter with Hillary Clinton - I take note that he's not doing his own designated job particularly well. Obama has already created proper distance between himself and Wright. Wright himself is in no sense a disreputable figure, nor is he seeking a platform in the media to disseminate his views on Hillary or anything else - unlike Geraldine Ferraro. He's doing his job as a prophetic preacher on his own turf. He deserves respect, whether one agrees with everything he says or not. He's not some nut like Hagee and he's not some venomous old fool trying to demean a candidate via a media platform like Ferraro. The furor here is white people's bullshit. How it plays in the suburbs ? If Jeremiah Wright were offering sermons from his pulpit in the south side of Chicago that played well in "the suburbs" he'd not deserve his reputation as one of America's great black preachers. This attack on him is offensive - consider the source. If Democrats want to cave to FOX News hysteria, we don't deserve to win and will never move the country forward. Why not just replay the Kerry campaign...
March 14, 2008 2:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bulls eye to Brucds !!!!!
March 14, 2008 3:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've been reading all of this thread, and this is pretty much the most distilled, honest portrayal I've come across. Does Obama, for political reasons, need to create some distance from this? Probably, but is that a good thing? No, it's not.
Wright isn't saying a damned thing that isn't true. America is run by wealthy, white men, straight up. Just because white people aren't accustomed to hearing it doesn't mean it isn't true. No one should be happy about the fact that these statements are seen as controversial. And Wright isn't saying anything like what Ferraro said. The statements aren't even comparable. Ferraro's comments are only relevant in a magical land where being a black politician named Barack Hussein Obama isn't a detriment and pastors like Wright don't have anything to get bombastic about. It's not where we live. In short, Ferraro got roasted for saying something false. Wright is getting roasted for saying something true.
March 14, 2008 4:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wright isn't saying a damned thing that isn't true. America is run by wealthy, white men, straight up. Just because white people aren't accustomed to hearing it doesn't mean it isn't true.
Sure.
Where I get off the bus is with "God damn America."
"God save America"? Sure.
"God rebuke America?" Right there with ya.
"God damn America"????
You can say all of what I quoted you as saying, without taking it to "God damn America."
I'm not a particular fan of Michael Lerner, but he's managed to put forward most of the FACTUAL stuff that Rev. Wright discusses, without crossing over into "God damn America."
As a Jew, I would never say "God damn Germany."
March 14, 2008 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Having heard John Gibson salivating over -- and playing -- the juciest bits of the Wright 'sermon' in the car this evening, I agree that this is going to have to be addressed by Sen. Obama -- directly and in some detail. But I don't believe it has to be, or should be, another in this wearying series of aplogies, reunciation, rebuke, denunciation and whatever the current 'correct' words are. I think it should be an explanation, maybe even a teaching or an illustrative example of how Obama sees things.
Like someone above said, I think the key statement in Fly's piece is this: "If there's a single theme to Obama's intellectual achievements, it's been his ability to sieze upon powerful words and themes, lifting them out of their original context and reframing them to be inclusive and uplifting."
What better way to give an example of that theme by showing how he captured valuable and uplifting, NON-angry lessons from the teachings of someone who speaks in angry, alienating terms about things that are nevertheless important. Not many people could do it but I believe he can, and it would have the added practical advantage of showing the nature of his spiritual beliefs (and that they are Christian in nature, not Muslim although I suspect they fully respect Muslim beliefs as well). By acknowledging the positive influences gained, it wouldn't be a rejection or a rebuke of the person who is his mentor to reject his anger and harshness. It is a generational shift and very central to what Obama is offering the country. (Also, I think most people, conservative or liberal, understand and respect personal loyalty -- in fact, as much as I disliked what G. Farraro said, I thought Hillary was a bit cavalier in her belated jettisoning of her. Even Obama gave a respectful nod to her trailblazing role while voicing his disagreement with what she said; Clinton did not.)
With this whole Farraro flap, I felt that an opportunity was lost. There was some value and truth to what she said -- I don't see it or understand what it was but if she had not gotten angrily defenseive, there was some 'core' there that she felt and a lot of women her generation feel. If she'd cared enough about racial conciliation and about the party to explain it, to offer a dialog, something valuable could have been gained by all. At least her indignation was, and is, authentic - so there is probably something worthwhile at the center of it. (This in contrast to the smooth but glib way HRC will simply jettison ideas or postures that aren't 'working.')
Maybe, as someone else suggested, a variant of Kennedy's speech. That too was an occasion (I'm old enough to remember it!) when people listened because they were angry and ready to condemn/reject .... and they came away with a much deeper sense of who JFK was and, while they still may have oppoesed him or a Catholic in the White House, there was less fear. It was pretty amazing; probably hard for folks today to understand that the resistance to his religion was in many ways fiercer and more heated than objections to Obama's race are today. Truly. I was the only Protestant in my high school who supported him and worked on his campaign and classmates would make me promise not to mention politics when I went home with them.
So, while I do believe that this is potentially a huge problem, it also seems to be an opportunity for something that, if successful, can deal with the 'problem' of Wright and also some of the strangeness, frightening difference caused by Obama's race and name (and the persistent question of Muslim connections). He has so often impressed me with his timing and with his ability to talk about high-tension matters in a very calming, almost educational way. This may be the kind of response that would work best here.
Wonderful post, Fly -- thank you for wrestling with this tough issue and allowing the rest of us to think and talk about it also.
March 14, 2008 2:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting comment Elizabeth2.....not many of us can remember Kennedy speeches as they happened.
You and I differ not in age but how we feel about Pastor Wright....you seem afraid. Afraid about Obama's race, name and religious upbringing.
Just like it was Kennedy's time it can become Obamas time too and each will mark a huge rise in the level of domestic and international times for the United States....and the world.
But it involves us all putting the past behind us....and having the courage to move on....and accept change even if we are not sure what it will look like.
March 14, 2008 2:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am white.
March 14, 2008 2:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I meant to say "BobJohnsonLives- in reply to your question, I am white".
March 14, 2008 2:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am a kinda jaundiced pink, not to the point of being grassy green or anything ... rarely blue, though!
March 14, 2008 3:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree with fly's analysis, well written and thoughtful as it was, but other people have said most of what I'd say anyway so I'll save it.
I do want to say this: I take serious heart in the fact that discussions of race dominate here at TPM (in total # of comments). America has tried to back burner this discussion for too long. It's difficult stuff to talk about but at least we're talking. We don't live in anything remotely close to a 'post race america'.
I saw Fredrick Douglass mentioned more than once. I keep thinking about Fredrick Douglass. I keep thinking about the parallels betweens black and female suffrage. I keep thinking about the fact that Freddy D was at Seneca Falls and that he signed the Declaration of Sentiments. I keep thinking about Elizabeth Stanton's impassioned writings on abolition. I keep thinking about the death defying women who did the bulk of the work on the underground railroad. I keep thinking that while a black man and a white woman are the two contenders for the Democratic nomination, supporters of equal rights and human dignity should be dancing in the streets every single day because, fuckin a, we HAVE come a long way, baby. Instead, here we are, a few million would be dancers, dispirited and bickering - the venom of American Politics having poisoned our moment and cut short our dance.
March 14, 2008 3:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know, it might be useful to figure out for yourself what exactly is the United Church of Christ. What might it have been that made this denomination attractive to Obama?
Well, it is a church that is a Liberal Mainline Protestant denomination that is a product of several mergers. The dominant element is the old Congregational Churches of New England with roots that can be traced back into various dissent movements in olde England. It also includes some Dutch Reformed, and the Moravians. It evolved its own African American Branch as a result of the Congregationalists engagement with Abolitionism in the early to mid 19th Century. The Congregationalists founded, beginning about 1820, academies for African American Children in New England, and a decade later they also founded schools for free blacks in Urban areas in the South, sending the trained teachers, products of their New England Academies, to staff them. After the Civil War, they re-organized many of these schools into colleges, for instance Dillard University in New Orleans was created this way by the Congregationalists -- now UCC -- and from the 1870's onward, trained teachers for the segregated Public School systems in the South -- but the UCC was also in the lead in supporting the legal challenges to segregation.
Another UCC person most who know anything about the Civil Rights movement would have encountered is Andrew Young. He is from New Orleans, was raised in the UCC, and attended one of the private schools UCC operated. First couple chapters of his autobiography are about this small slice of Black History -- all about an interesting primary and high school education in a racially closed society but in a system that was a legacy of New England Abolitionists -- his decision to attend an all white college in the 1940's, (DePauw in Indiania), and then his connection with MLK from the mid-50's on as a UCC pastor without a church, but in the midst of a movement that understood it's connection back to some parts of the Abolitionist traditions.
Anyhow -- why did Obama join this church? Isn't a church more than one Cleric?
I frankly can't think of any American Protestant Denomination that is more MADE IN AMERICA than the UCC. I suggest it is time for Obama himself to tell us about it, and why it is his religious community. Affirmation, not silly games with denouncing and renouncing and rejecting and all.
(and no, I am not a member -- just worked with them during the Civil Rights Movement Years.)
March 14, 2008 3:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
F-o-t-W:
First & foremost - kudos for an amazing, thoughtful post - as always. Me thinks JMM does recognize your 'super-power' - and in my mind should hire ye.
The seminal question to me is re our Great Country's amnesia - from which follows, no reconciliation (aka corny-good-karma - w/out a hot-minute of - yes it sucked) means no quarter. We shit and walk away - whether internal/domestic strife or the obvious opposite.
When is the level of anger & stewed rhetoric acceptable - when a scarce few have acknowledged one's wounds?
Context - is one of the most important words in the English (or any other language) - as is Sympathy or Empathy.
Please - everyone - if you have been privileged in the American experience - stop for a minute or two - and swap your race, ethnicity for the ones you know have been undeniably trampled (unless your brain dead). And please, put 'their' history in place of yours and your forbears and descendants - and ask me how angry you'd be - and how precipice-flirting you'd be.
This country is Amazing - b/c in the course of human existence and organized nations and polity -we've made more gains to correct wrongs than any other could claim - in the shortest amount of time. But that doesn't necessarily negate - all the lost lives and potential - swallowed up in our dark times. Ask any African- or Native-American. My Great-great-grandparents were an ex-slave and Native- American who propelled our improbability forward.
All this blow-blow about who's allowed to speak from a pulpit or a closet or a grave - w/ hyperbolic bluster - sounds silly to me.
I'd just ask my ancestors. Would you?
March 14, 2008 6:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection.”
"When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian "cell" whose members included...
Read more about it here....
100 REASONS NOT TO VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON
It's #1 on the list.
March 14, 2008 7:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, really "secretive."
http://www.toobeautiful.org/lat_020927.html
Maybe, you should spend more time helping out down at the soup kitchen and less time blogging conspiracy theories. Oh wait ... the soup kitchen is run by Christians. Well, you could help Habitat for Humanity build houses ... damn, that is a Christian organization, too. How annoying. You'd help, if they would just get out of the way, wouldn't you?
Umm, yeah.
Thanks.
mp
March 14, 2008 8:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's not a "conspiracy theory", fool. Nor is it "blogging." It's a well-researched, edited, fact-checked article in the PRINT EDITION of perhaps the premier investigative journalism magazine on the American Left.
The organizing I did in L.A. in the 1980's was largely done together with church people, both in South Central and in the San Fernando Valley. Very different constituencies. Very different churches. And I was (and am) a Jew.
I happen to hang out with, and like, secular people too. We even, like, you know, agree on some stuff. Disagree on other stuff. Somehow we manage to get along. Jews, Christians, Buddhists, non-religious, even... (gasp!) MUSLIMS.
There actually are secular people of good faith, too, you know. Just sayin'.
Your bigotry is leaking all over the place.
March 14, 2008 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, one thing is glaring: the comments show that overwhelmingly, Obama-bots do not think that Obama should be held to the same (high) standard as other candidates. He shouldn't "have to" repudiate Wright's statements because ... well, because he is Obama-san, The Anointed One(tm). Mmm-mmm, that kook-aid tastes good.
I can't get that worked up over what Wright said. All this "divisive politics" blather is overwrought. Unlike most of the people reading this blog, I am a Christian. I've actually read Cone's A Black Theology of Liberation, which underpins Wright's preaching. It would be most useful for the critics to actually study up on the issue before pontificating on it. It would certainly cut down the noise-to-signal ratio.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18-19)
It's not like Obama-bots are not divisive. They want to purge the Party, indeed the country, of everyone who does not bow to their Buddha. Their jackbooting vitriolic commentary has flooded the leftwing blogs with namecalling spew. How different can he be as a candidate, when his followers are a pack of hate-filled spewmeisters, who like nothing more than to put the boot into everyone not in their "in crowd"?
Ferraro correctly pointed out that Obama gets a free pass from the MSM and his band o' jackals because he is black. It was never about his experiences outside the political arena. And you have only to look at the way Ferraro has been pissed on, to see why it is that nobody will describe that elephant in the room. Nobody wants to put on those boots and wade into that pool.
Finally, from over here it looks like the brownshirted Obama-bots have indeed taken over the Party, that, as this blogger claims, "...Obama's entire candidacy is premised on the notion that that generation's day has passed, that it is now time for the next generation to take the reins of leadership" and we are no longer welcome in the Democratic Party. (Well, you'll take our money and our vote, but you don't want our opinions, our candidates or our leadership. Sound familiar?)
So be it. It won't be the first or last time this "worn out and worthless" generation has had to pick you up off the ground, dust you off and put you on the right path again. But, how many Americans will have to suffer and even die, directly because of your hubris?
Go to church. Read Cone. Put your duty to God and country ahead of your selfish desire to one-up old people. You know what needs to be done. Stop waiting for Obama to tell you what to do. You'll feel better and the country will be better for it.
Thanks.
mp
March 14, 2008 8:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, shut up.
Go upthread and read my post. I'll credit you since your post appeared before mine. For now.
You write that, and you DARE to pontificate about name-calling?
I ain't no Christian. My tradition has a word for what you display in this post. It's called chutzpah. It's called lashon hara. In English we just call it vile.
You smear millions of supporters of a political candidate, painting with a brush as wide as the state of Alaska, as "Obama-bots ... [who consider their candidate] Obama-san, The Anointed One(tm)..."
Have you been reading a little too much Michelle Malkin?
It just can't be, can it, that anyone who supports, or supported, Obama could possibly think for themselves, prefer Obama to Clinton based on their records or the campaigns or anything besides Kool-Aid?
Sure, dude. It's the Obama-bots who are the brownshirts.
I also ain't no youngster. I was born 6 months before JFK was assassinated. I've been political since the mid-1970s, before I could vote. And I know PLENTY of people 20 years my senior who have been supporting Obama. So keep your generational hatred to yourself. And consider the possibility that some people supported the guy for reasons other than a "selfish desire to one-up old people". Just consider it. Take, maybe, seven or eight seconds. If you can stand it.
Gosh. And here I thought Christianity was a religion of love. Or so they told me.
You're a damn poor example of it.
March 14, 2008 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"the brownshirted Obama-bots" ??? This self-annointed "Christian" - despite his protestations and referencing of James Cone - gets the clueless ass award.
March 14, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
In the next debate Obama has to be asked about his relationship with the Racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This guy married him baptised his children is his spiritual advisor and close friend
and his clearly one of the biggest racist's in America. He says blacks should not sing "God Bless America" but "God damn America." In addition to damning America, he told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda's attacks because of its own terrorism.
This guy is as Racist as they come.
March 14, 2008 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please describe, in detail, why anything Wright said was racist. Be sure to define racism while you are at it.
March 14, 2008 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with about 98% of what you said, Fly. It was reasoned, thoughtful and balanced. I can parse a few things, such "incumbent" on black people to vote for Obama. I wouldn't say "incumbent," rather that black people don't have to choose Hillary, they can be "free" to vote for whomever they want, EVEN if it is Barack Obama, and not feel guilty about it. They ("we" as I am one) have choice.
Rev. Wright was also "right" about the Clintons being cast from a mold that would not deliver us a Barack Obama. That he used the N-word is not shocking to me, as it is to some of you. And having visited some conservative -- evangelical -- churches, I have heard far more disturbing things said not only about black people and other minorities, but Catholics and Jews and Muslims and gays too. And I watched heads nodding in approval and listened to their applause and verbal affirmations to and for their pastors. Yep, we're all going to burn in hell, while those "righteous" folk are going to sit at the feet sweet Jesus.
Barack belongs to a "racist" church? So do most of you. As Rev. Martin Luther King said 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America. And things haven't changed much since he said it more than 40 years ago.
This morning, as I make this comment, we have Joe Scarborough and MSNBC (not being a Fox News viewer, I have not seen the clips there) railing and repeating the video of Rev. Wright making his comments. The Scarborough idiocy in particular centers around comments made by Rev. Wright shortly after 9/11 with regard to the United States bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US's unyielding position with regard to Israel to the detriment of the Palestinians, and the startling assertion that perhaps this country's policies in the world came back to haunt us on 9/11. I may have stated Wright's posiition a bit more gracefully than he did (point granted), but the bottom line is that Wright was correct in his assertion that the United States did not think for a moment about the consequences of killing those innocent Japanese children, women and men who never set foot outside of their country to harm us. "We" nearly wiped them off the map. And cheered and danced in the streets afterward.
On September 11, 3,000 people were killed in the World Trade Center disaster. Today we are 13 men or women away from 4,000 dead in Iraq. Is there a connection between those deaths and our policies in the Middle East? I would say indisputably, yes.
Scarborough's outrage is about how "un-Anerican" -- as if the old saying "my country, my country, right or wrong were the rule of the day -- and merely the plastic patriotism common in conservatives. If you're not wearing a flag pin, you're no patriot. When did we fall to that level of binary thinking?
Perhaps we are looking to or expecting the wrong person to "answer" for Rev. Wright's statements. Since he made them, and is perfectly capable of speaking for himself (just as we do here -- and we don't expect Sen. Obama to explain or disavow our inflammatory comments) maybe Rev. Wright should be afforded the opportunity in a calm, reasoned discussion to share his views.
Like Peggy Noonan, with whom I have found many things to agree lately regarding Obama, suggests Sen. Obama should give a speech about his faith and religion. In the current climate, I agree. Sen. Obama is operating in an evironment where he has to "prove" he is "Christian," and "prove" he is not "Muslim," and "prove" he is of the "right" branch of "patriotic, all-American Christianity," where people are "taking him at his 'word'" instead of just taking him.
But the speech Sen. Obama should give is one whose central theme should be more along the lines of what Nicholas Kristof said: "So what if I am?"
So what.
March 14, 2008 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
And one more brief note: where was the moral outrage of Hannity, Ingram, Coulter, Savage, O'Reilly, Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough, Pat Buchanan, and the rest of the right wing talking heads when some of their "approved" pastors -- supporting Republican candidates -- have said gays are to blame for 9/11, non-evangelical "non-born again" folks are responsible for natural disasters that have befallen this country, "the permissive lifestyles" and "non-Christian" attitudes brought Hurricane Katrina. claimed AIDS was some kind of biblical scourge...
Oh, yeah... they were busy making and applauding and getting voted into office on the basis of such statements just as, if not more inflammatory than anything Rev. Wright said.
March 14, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ron Paul (R) has also said that the US basically set in motion the event leading up to 9/11.
I don't think this is fantasy, but of course, it immediately turns off 90% of Americans.
But let's stay focused on the topic at hand:
What can Obama do to mitigate the damage caused by his association with Wright?
Or do people think Obama has suddenly become unelectable?
March 14, 2008 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Or do people think Obama has suddenly become unelectable?
I'm worried that may be the case.
Talk me out of it.
(Sorry for the double post. Wanted to keep the comment in the subthread.)
March 14, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fly, it ain't just Fox News that's running the story. Or posting video.
March 14, 2008 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Or do people think Obama has suddenly become unelectable?
I'm worried that may be the case.
Talk me out of it.
March 14, 2008 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm lovin it! Obama, even if he somehow wins the DEM nomination is toast. Play the tape over and over and over forever. His 20 year association with the Reverend Wright is the TRUE Obama. The phony transcend race argument is gone and Obama will never be President of the US. God Bless America and talk radio, this is not going away however much the leftist media such as KOS, ObamaPost, MSNBC/NBC try otherwise. Also, there will be no more MSNBC debates so Obama will actually have to answer tough questions not the suck-up kiss up questions from the leftist socialist worthless MSNBC/NBC.
Drudge now FINALLY has it up (as does Hannity, Ingram, Savage, O'Riley, etc.) Way to go Sean Hannity and I don't even like you. The truth will set you free, Jesus was a black man taken care of by those nasty white European Italian Romans. Sure. :)
March 14, 2008 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
YAWN!
March 14, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
I understand the ideas of the U.S. conduct pre- 9/11 and the chicken or the egg relationship it had to 9/11. I also understand the factors and forces that provoke some of the anger in the Wright clips that have been circulating for the past couple of days. But as someone who would like to see Obama be our next President, I see how easy it will be for the anti-Obama forces to repudiate Obama by his association with Wright. The letters are 20 foot high in flashing lights, folks. Obama has run a brilliant campaign, but if he and his handlers underestimate how seriously they need to deflate this (more than just with a statement by the campaign), it will drive this campaign off road fast.
"If Democrats want to cave to FOX News hysteria, we don't deserve to win and will never move the country forward. Why not just replay the Kerry campaign..."
I actually think that ignoring "FOX News hysteria" is a significant reason why Kerry lost in 2004. 'We don't need to dignify the Swift Boaters with a response." Letting the Wright story get legs would be more of the same. Face it- Americans tend to go for the Devil they know. They didn't really know Kerry very well in 2004 and many of them still don't know Obama. The Clintons and the Republicans are doing everything they can to try to 'fill in the blanks' on Obama for those that haven't been paying attention. I understand that Obama can take what he agrees with that Pastor Wright says and leave the rest- but you have to recognize that some people when presented with something or someone new are just looking for an excuse to go back to what they already are comfortable with. Obviously, Obama is much better at defusing campaign problems then Kerry- he needs to do that strongly in this case. You may scoff at the idea of running a campaign that appeals to "people in the suburbs"- frankly, I'm glad you're not running Obama's campaign.
And as far as Jon Stewart goes- he fawns to every serious candidate that comes on his show- they all do. He would to Obama, too, if he appeared on the show, which I hope he does soon. But regardless of what Stewart's own preferences might be, he needs to call both sides on where they're falling short, and a campaign pushing the idea of bringing people together that has an association with a pastor who is selling videotapes of himself saying black people should be singing "G.D. America" has a problem.
March 14, 2008 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Talk about preaching to the choir...."Drudge now FINALLY has it up (as does Hannity, Ingram, Savage, O'Riley, etc.)"
March 14, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you actually expect the socialist media such as MSNBC to cover the actual tapes that can't be misquoted? NYT puts it in the back pages. Like it or not, talk radio reaches more folks than any of these blog sites.
I'm sure you can put your head in the sand and pretend that somehow, this minister of Obama for 20+ years, who converted him to Christianity (of some sort) is just another surrogate. This belief is something only a true Obamaistia (in the mold of Hugo Chavez supporters).
I've lived and prospered through Reagan (never voted for him). You'll survive McCain or Hillary; Obama will never win POTUS or even be veep. Praise the Reverend Jerry Wright and those nasty white rich people.
March 14, 2008 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here is a transcript of one segment:
People have to put up with who cares what a poor black man has to face every day in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Somebody missed that. You got nervous because we got some white members here. I am still in Bible country. I am still in the text.
Jesus was a poor black man who lived who lived in a country and who lived in a culture that was controlled by rich white people.
The Romans were rich. The Romans were Italians which means they were European which means they were white. And the Romans ran everything which was in Jesus's country.
It just came to me within the past few weeks y'all why so many folks are hating on Barack Obama. He doesn't fit the model. He ain't white. He ain't rich and he ain't privileged.
Hillary fits the mold. Europeans fit the mold. Giuliani fits the mold. White men fit the mold.
Hillary never had a cab whizz past her and not pick her up because her skin was the wrong color. Hillary never had to be worried about being pulled over in her car as a black man driving in the wrong...
I am sick of negros who just do not get it. Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home. Barack was. Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people!
Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain't never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had her people defined a non-persons. Hilary ain't had to work twice as hard just to get accepted by the rich white folk who run everything or to get a passing grade when you know you are smarter than that C-student sitting in the white house.
OH I am so glad that I got a God who knows what it is to be a poor black man in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people.
He taught me, Jesus did, how to love my enemies. Jesus taught me how to love the hell out of my enemies and not be reduced to their level of hatred bigotry and small-mindedness. Hillary ain't never had her own people say wasn't white enough.
Jesus had his own people siding with the enemy. That's why I love Jesus y'all. He never let their hatred dampen his hope.
Change/Hope lives!
March 14, 2008 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
MP, the glee you display in tearing people down in your post reveals plenty. Why are you so quick to brand people? Do you really think that everyone supporting Obama is a godless america hater? Have you taken note of the fact that of all the candidates, it is Obama who has received the 2nd most donations from ACTIVE DUTY military? (Ron Paul is 1st). Go figure, huh? I guess those folks are just "brownshirted Obamabots"....
A retraction, qualification,or "whoopsy-daisy" would be fitting...
March 14, 2008 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I despise the phony empty suit Obama. I admit it, I'm an older white guy with no apologies. I love Hillary and Bill. It happens. I've not lied about Obama or most of his supporters in what I've written. In fact, I addressed this before the left touched it.
The Rev's tape will be played over and over by 527s especially if Obama wins the Democratic nomination. The Reverend is not just a surrogate, but rather someone who is referenced in both Obama books (to include the title of his second), married the Senator and Mrs. Obama, baptized their children whom may have attended and listened to the hate speech. Did Obama tell his kids pay no attention to this man?
20+ years of the "KKK of A" is a bit too long for most thinking Americans to accept. Maybe the empty suit can explain. Why did Senator Obama remain in the Church? This is not a crazy uncle but his spiritual adviser.
March 14, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
The fact that you feel compelled to 'admit' you're a white guy says it all. If I could click 'kick in the balls' instead of 'submit', I prolly would.
March 14, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I tend to agree with those above who say this is a big deal. This'll kill him in the fall. I fail to see how it can play out otherwise.
It's amazing to me that people like Oliver Willis think this will blow over.
March 14, 2008 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink