Righting Wright's Wrongs

Hattie Garlick writes:

"It is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt". Thus spake Dana Milbank (offering a paraphrase from Proverbs before him), summarising the bulk of angry blogs that appeared in the aftermath of Jeremhiah Wright's speech at the National Press Club on Monday.

Beofre 30 television cameras, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended his view than Zionism is a form of racism and that the government created the AIDS virus to eradicate racial minorities, accused the States of terrorism and  - according to Victor Davis Hanson his biggest mistake - insulted the liberal corps of reporters who had amassed to record his rantings.

This is one of many reasons that his speech marked a serious turning point in the danger posed by Wright to Obama's candidacy. The rev has made it personal with the press, shifting things up a gear. Expecting a media storm that would inevitably have embarrassed Obama and probably have attempted to reimplicate him in Wright's skewed world-view, Obama was forced to call a press conference to finally denounce his former pastor: "There wasn't anything constructive out of yesterday. All it was was a bunch of rants that aren't grounded in truth."  All of which could have been avoided had Obama set an example of moral outrage from the outset.

But the ghost of a moral link with Wright didn't only set Obama up for a fall with the press. "The white poor and middle class Hispanics" writes Hanson - or in other words, the exact demographic with whom Obama needs desperately to make inroads "look at Wright's middle-class upbringing, his mansion and perks, and wonder why he is... so venomous towards the society by which he has done so well." Wright's rants encourage the ordinary voter to turn his gaze away from race and towards class and, perhaps ironically, this could work against Obama's interests. Because here, another ghost of a moral link is forged between Obama and Wright in the shape of Michelle Obama, who's twin-sets and pearls and $1.65 million home grate against her statement that for "the first time in [her] adult life" she is proud of her country. And it only another short leap from her to Obama's own statement about the bitterness of small town America.

Regardless of either of these hazy links, logic dictated a turnaround in Obama's attitude to his former pastor. Context is everything. A press conference is not a church service, and the Press Club carries none of the same immunities of a religious building. In this context, Wright's passionate eccentricities became "an outright attack on the stated beliefs and policies and values of Barak Obama in a secular setting" says Andrew Sullivan. And more personally, Wright's suggestion that "we both know that if Obama did not say what he did [in distancing himself from Wright's own beliefs], he would never get elected" forced the Democratic candidate to defend his earlier statements and his honesty, and thus openly contradict the man he has so far refused to clash with in clear terms.

Which all begs the question: what on earth did he think he was doing? Trying to bring his former disciple down, according to Rush Limbaugh. Obama's success threatens his own. "I think that people like Reverend Wright... [get] really upset that if a black candidate is elected president, that they're going to be somehow diminished in their task, at keeping everybody in the flocks all revved up and angry... what's best for him is that if Obama looses, because then it's easy for him to say, "See, the white power structure doesn't want a black man to rise to the pinnacle of power in the United States."

Comments

[JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO]

The Wright business is being blown entirely out of proportion, and I believe the reasons for this are neither honest nor wholesome.

In focusing so much attention on this, America, which weeks ago was congratulating itself with the idea that a black man could run and win, now begins to show old, true underlying attitudes.

In this the country resembles someone whose hair dye-job was being praised weeks ago for its freshness but is now the source of ugly gossip as the genuine hair color creeps back in at the roots.

God, if Obama made a mistake here it was a small one.

Just look at the mistakes in Washington. Often it seems nothing else goes on there but mistakes.

Bush and the strategic blunder of the century, wasting lives and resources on a colossal scale?

A Supreme Court which effectively appointed Bush in the first place?

Hillary Clinton living with Bill Clinton for three decades of ethical degradation and embarrassment and shame?

Bill Clinton, a man of considerable talents who to a large extent squandered them and demonstrated countless times a highly doubtful character?

John McCain mocking and attacking the Religious Right and then shortly after crawling for their support?

One could write a book called Washington Mistakes. If the author only briefly cited each error and kept the time-frame to say the last fifty years, the book would be encyclopedic in length.

[Adam Instone]

Obama must really be thinking 'who will rid me of this turbulent priest.' Has he, with his denunciation done enough to settle the wavering white lower income population of Indiana? Probably not. I fear the divisive and negative Hilary will win Indiana by 4 points and eat into Obama's lead in N.Carolina enough to claim a moral victory. Ultimately it will change little except fatally damage both HRC and/or Obama in November. I do expect the Democrats to endorse Obama but the world should expect another Republican Presidency for four more years.

[patrick vidaud]

Well, its all down to superdelegates. As I see it, either they please black Americans or they win the White House. Those who say that they are now obliged to lift Obama over the hurdle because he has the largest total of delegates and popular votes ignore the fact that their count disenfranchises the Florida and Michigan voters. If the votes of these two states, who in the presidential election will have a significant say, are allowed, Clinton would be close in the delegate count and ahead in the popular vote. If there is a "steal" in the making at the moment the perp is Obama not Clinton.

For most black Americans, an Obama nomination is a win-win outcome. If he gets the presidency its terrific. If he looses against McCain then at least he ran and the bad old honkies will have been seen to do the black man down as usual. I have a lot of sympathy for the scenario of a black man going for the presidency. I have even more sympathy for a woman getting the break. That's why I'm for Clinton. Also, she actually has a good chance of beating McCain. In the all important swing states she beats McCain, Obama doesn't.

For me, in a perfect world, Condoleezza Rice would be the next US president. Maybe next time.