Obama Swings
It was refreshing to see an angry but steady Barack Obama cut off Rev. Wright at his knees. I thought the tone was pitch perfect and -- absolutely justified, of course.
Now, with a week to go before the May 6 primaries, and with Hillary pandering about a meaningless gas tax and McCain not flinching from smear-level campaigning, it would be nice to see Obama continue with that combative edge.
Early in the campaign, like 6 months ago, I thought he was wrong not to take a more confrontational stand toward Clinton. He proved me wrong. But now, it seems, he's got to be ready to punch his way to the finish line 'cuz the other guy -- better, the other gal-- ain't about to let up.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Good point. This could, ironically and against all “conventional wisdom” about how much Wright has hurt him, be the emotional catalyst for where Obama needs to take his game in dealing with the “undead” Hillary and a clarifying moment for those who weren’t persuaded by his “nuanced” earlier response.
April 29th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Dream on.
If Obama understood the country he lives in, he would have understood, a long time ago, that there is no possible way to get to Commander in Chief from Bill Ayers (”I blew up the Pentagon and don’t regret it) and Reverend Wright (”Black people have different brains than white people; the CIA invented Aids to kill blacks; the US is the leading force for terrorism in the world.”)
He mistook the objectively racist, anti-semitic, pro-Islamist fever swamps of polite Bu-Bo dinner party sentiment for something that you can make play in Peoria.
But don’t blame Obama. Blame the benighted, gun-toting, Christer electorate, and work up your next theory of how to lose the next general election.
A harsh recession, a bitterly unpopular war, and the one of the most despised Presidents in the history of the Republic.
And the Left loses, once again.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Wright impishly referred to a politician’s need to do what a politician’s got to do. That’s a good thing to bear in mind. Honestly, I think there was some stagecraft here. Cutting it off with Wright much earlier would have been seen as calculated but hasty attempt to ditch inconvenient baggage. Doing it now — with all the big-state primaries over, and Obama comfortably in the lead … well, I think Obama & Co. made a clean and necessary break just *look* like a nasty one. From now on, when Wright comes up, Obama can say, “Oh, what did the retired Reverend say recently? I haven’t been following for a while ….”
I gotta say, if Wright’s church happened to be in my neighborhood (Tokyo; not much chance), I’d EVERY Sunday — for the entertainment.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:58 am
I look forward with delight to further Wright appearances. Inevitable.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:59 am
MT -
The slump of Obama’s shoulders as he walked offstage after the news conference, having in essence been abandoned a 2nd time by a father (OK a surragate this time) and having had to verbally kill the man, the pained look in his face as he did the killing, the air of depression that hung over him as he spoke, make it hard for a naif like me to believe all this was staged. Also hard to factor in Wright’s unclownish appearance on Moyers as part of this whole intricate political performance. And finally, why not wait a few weeks before pulling off this great scam — that would actually be the optimal timing.
Wright felt his surrogate son was an ingrate of sorts, he envied his success, especially his crossover appeal and felt that this sort of appeal threatened his own more polarized and paranoid world-view. To me that seems the simplest explanation. In the process of trying to bring down Obama, Wright made a fool of himself. Which is too bad, because in his better moments he’s far from a fool.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Well put, evets.
“Doesn’t understand what country he lives in” rightwing asshole laugh line of the day re: the Senator from Illinois: “He mistook the objectively racist, anti-semitic, pro-Islamist fever swamps of polite Bu-Bo dinner party sentiment for something that you can make play in Peoria.”
What’s “Bu-Bo” ?
April 30th, 2008 at 6:11 am
He may have meant David Brooks’ nonsensical “bo-bo” (bohmeian bourgeois) - thats what it seems.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:34 am
I think he meant Buddhist-Bourgeois. It’s admittedly a niche group, but Stott, ever astute, works with a very fine socio-critical lens.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:54 am
While you blinked
http://wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/obam-a29.shtml
April 30th, 2008 at 6:55 am
Buddhist Bourgeois - isn’t that what the capitalist “communist” regime in China is calling the coalition in Tibet?
April 30th, 2008 at 7:05 am
I love jcumming’s links. Political Affairs, WSWS, etc.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Yeah, I see no contradiction in posting from both Stalinist and Trotskyist sites. But it would be interesting if the content, not the name, of the site was mentioned.
The WSWS piece is about how Obama endorsed Petreus. You don’t see the Netroots talking about their hero like this.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:45 am
I agree, well put evets.
This is overdue. The guilt-by-association crowd can go get stuffed now.
And the let’s-sell-the-chomsky-viewpoint-to-the-electorate crowd can go back to dreaming about the whopping .5% of the vote they hope to get.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:55 am
“The guilt-by-association crowd can go get stuffed now.”
I agree. It’s time to get over Pastor Hagee.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:04 am
evets, I’m not sure I can agree with your psychoanalysis here.
Was Obama’s tone and delivery halting, agonized, “more in sorrow than in anger” (but still in a fair amount of anger)? Was it weary, resigned? Did he seem shocked, and bereaved? Yes. In other words, IT WAS ALL THE THINGS IT NEEDED TO BE, FOR ITS INTENDED IMPACT. For all that Obama said, what he *projected* was, “I can’t fucking believe this is happening.” Well, come on — is he really *that* stupid? I don’t think so. More likely, he knew what he had to project. Maybe he even stayed up all night in order to look haggard enough — a good Method actor would.
Wright said something in this recent shitstorm that seems to have flown under everybody’s radar: he said that he *told* Obama at the start of this run, if he gets to the White House, he’ll be going after him, criticizing him — Obama will then be part of the machine, right in the driver’s seat, of what Wright’s talking about when he cries “God DAMN America.” They both knew, from the very beginning, that there would have to be a very public rupture, somewhere along the way. From that point on, it was just a matter of timing. Well, the time has come. At a point where Hillary can’t catch up, but when it’s still a long, long way (over six months) from the general election. Just about perfect, I’d say.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:11 am
“I agree. It’s time to get over Pastor Hagee.”
Sure. So lets get to important stuff like McCain releasing his full medical records.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:59 am
And his wife releasing her tax records or McCain at least releasing all of their assets in her name . . .
April 30th, 2008 at 9:27 am
My big question is where is the black community during all of this? Why are they largely silent while this sociopath single-handedly tries to derail the candidacy of the first black president? Why aren’t they lining up to denounce Wright and support Obama?
If this were Jewish issue you know that every two bit rabbi and community organizer would be clamoring for a microphone.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I might be the only one not impressed by Obama’s about-face yesterday. He acted shocked at the pastor’s beliefs - that HIV was created by the US goverment, that Louis Farrakan was an enlightened voice, etc. - and he expects us to believe that for the past 20 years, he has never known about Rev. Wright’s beliefs, despite the fact that Obama said that he loved Wright like a family member. Horse feathers. Yesterday represented a huge flip flop, not a “clarification.”
April 30th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Even if it was to some extent a flip flop, I wouldn’t hold it against him. People are entitled to make mistakes and get on with their lives. It’s what he does now that’s more important. My guess is that Obama’s attachment to Wright was part local politics and part personal psychology.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:17 am
MT -
Reporters on the scene of Obama’s press conference yesterday described a palpable air of tension, anger and melancholy. I don’t think the guy’s that good an actor. Besides which, while the break with Wright may help him in the long term, actually choreographing it in this way at this time is quite counterproductive in the short term and may still keep his candidacy from ever having a long term.
That, my friend, is the long and the short of it.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
MarKC I don’t know if I agree. Let’s say a Jewish candidate had a Rabbi who talked JDL/Kahane talk….or even simple Peretzian Anti-Arab racism. Jews would stay mum, I’d bet.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
So, Hillary’s pastor comes to the defense of Rev. Wright
April 30th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
It’s not a flip-flop to any extent. Obama is asking us to believe that he had no idea that his pastor was a kookburger. This is of course absurd. But he can’t come out and say that, having a background that is more whitebread than even me, he joined TUCC to build up some good old-fashioned street cred. His problem is that his political career took him into the stratosphere far quicker than he could make the necessary, er, adjustments.
He just changed his mind about throwing him to the wolves.
Wright, I trust, will be back. In the meantime he is Obama’s Sword of Damocles.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
MT:
I noted that under the radar comment and had a different read. It seemed to confirm to me that Wright’s deep cynicism (even bizarre paranoia), is so complete that anyone, even a member of his own parish, and relevant in this context, his own race, is instantly perceived as the “other” once they gain office.
He is so distrustful of government that his own friends will be tainted with the stink once they go there. Distrusting government (or more precisely power) is very wise, but Wright seems almost broken in his lack of hope for the future. Maybe that’ll prove to be right (get it?), but I certainly hope not.
If my thesis is true, then Wright should perhaps have turned on Obama when he became a Senator. So I don’t know–maybe it’s just that Senators are too small potatoes to become the enemy.
Anyway, this persona Wright has is something he puts on and takes off as readily as a mask. His whole deal is a bit disingenuous it seems.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
bob w -
Is it possible it’s not all that cynical, that even though you don’t like Obama’s political views, his motives may be complex (it happens) and he may actually have some decent qualities?
Or is everyone to the left of you, by definition, a morally squalid cardboard character?
April 30th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
“Or is everyone to the left of you, by definition, a morally squalid cardboard character?”
There are a lot of Left politicians I’ve admired: Gene McArthy, Jerry Brown, Ann Richards. Hell, even Bill Richardson. True, I don’t like their views, but I admire their courage and integrity.
I keep watching Obama to detect some, but I don’t see it. If you want to offer a less cynical explanation for Obama’s membership in a crackpot church, I’m willing to listen, or go read about it at Andrew Sulllivan’s page.
What I think I’ll read is a bunch of buncombe about a torn young genius dicovering his identity as an African-American Man, etc etc., as if Columbia University in the early 1980s was a wasteland of White bourgeois comformity.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
As an Orthodox Jew who is in synagogue at least once a week, believe me, I’ve had rabbis with political outlooks seriously different from mine, yet I’ve learned much from and greatly respected some of these men. I didn’t stay in their pews out of cynical, ulterior motives, but for reasons that are somehat complex.
Below is a pretty good take on this issue from Noam Scheiber at the New Republic. It makes sense to me, and is basically what I suspected even before learning some new details.
“The question is worth revisiting now that his ex-pastor is threatening his entire campaign.
I’ve heard two basic theories since the Wright tapes first surfaced in March. The first is cynical: Obama was a black politician in Chicago with an exotic background and intimidating credentials. He needed a home in a black church to gain credibility with his less educated, less affluent, more parochial-minded constituents. Trinity offered him the requisite cred.
The second, not entirely unrelated, theory is psychoanalytical: Obama, as the product of a racially-mixed marriage, in which the black father was almost entirely absent, had spent his whole life groping for an authentic identity. Wright offered Obama both the father and the identity he never had.
The problem with both theories is that they don’t answer the question of why this particular church, this particular pastor. Yes, Wright was a prominent figure with a large congregation. But surely there were other pastors and churches that fit that profile. And, in retrospect, probably distinctly less controversial ones.
Which is where this fascinating passage from David Mendell’s Obama biography comes in:
Wright earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sacred music from Howard University and initially pursued a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago Divinity School before interrupting his studies to minister full-time. His intellectualism and black militancy put him at odds with some Baptist ministers around Chicago, with whom he often sparred publicly, and he finally accepted a position at Trinity. …
Wright remains a maverick among Chicago’s vast assortment of black preachers. He will question Scripture when he feels it forsakes common sense; he is an ardent foe of mandatory school prayer; and he is a staunch advocate for homosexual rights, which is almost unheard-of among African-American ministers. Gay and lesbian couples, with hands clasped, can be spotted in Trinity’s pews each Sunday. Even if some blacks consider Wright’s church serving only the bourgeois set, his ministry attracts a broad cross section of Chicago’s black community. Obama first noticed the church because Wright had placed a “Free Africa” sign out front to protest continuing apartheid. The liberal, Columbia-educated Obama was attracted to Wright’s cerebral and inclusive nature, as opposed to the more socially conservative and less educated ministers around Chicago. Wright developed into a counselor and mentor to Obama as Obama sought to understand the power of Christianity in the lives of black Americans, and as he grappled with the complex vagaries of Chicago’s black political scene. “Trying to hold a conversation with a guy like Barack, and him trying to hold a conversation with some ministers, it’s like you are dating someone and she wants to talk to you about Rosie and what she saw on Oprah, and that’s it,” Wright explained. “But here I was, able to stay with him lockstep as we moved from topic to topic. . . . He felt comfortable asking me questions that were postmodern, post-Enlightenment and that college-educated and graduate school-trained people wrestle with when it comes to the faith. We talked about race and politics. I was not threatened by those questions.” …
But more than that, Trinity’s less doctrinal approach to the Bible intrigued and attracted Obama. “Faith to him is how he sees the human condition,” Wright said. “Faith to him is not . . . litmus test, mouth-spouting, quoting Scripture. It’s what you do with your life, how you live your life. That’s far more important than beating someone over the head with Scripture that says women shouldn’t wear pants or if you drink, you’re going to hell. That’s just not who Barack is.”
So, if you buy Wright’s account–and it rings pretty true to me–it was his intellectualism and social progressivism that won Obama over. Certainly it’s hard to imagine that someone like Obama, who came from a progressive, secular background, would have felt genuinely comfortable in a socially conservative, anti-intellectual church. The problem for Obama is that the flip-side of these virtues was a minister with a radical worldview and a penchant for advertising it loudly.
Which, put another way, means that Obama’s decision to join Trinity was probably the opposite of cynical. Trinity was the place where, despite the potential pitfalls–and he must have noticed them early on–Obama felt most true to himself.
Update: Just to clarify, by “felt most true to himself” I mean “most true to himself as a worshipper.” The point is that the pastor who made him feel most welcome as a worshipper probably also made him pretty uncomfortable politically. “
April 30th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
And I’d stack Obama’s integrity up against that of any of the folks you metioned. Hell - even Bill Richardson.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Well, damn. Faith to me is ALWAYS litmus test, mouth-spouting, quoting Scripture. That’s why I go to church. It has nothing to do with how I live my life, what I do with my life.
No wonder I have so much trouble “getting” Obama.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Excellent addition to the comments again, evets.
This is an interestign take, and adds a lot of good perspective on Wright. Of course it doesn’t excuse his loony notion that the US infected peopel with AIDS on purpose.
And it doesn’t change the fact that such subtelty will be lost on the voting public. And that the Republicans will bring their double-barreled dishonesty to bear on this topic.
My cynicism about politics is that if it takes longer than 30 seconds to explain, you lost. Sad.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
bob: “If you want to offer a less cynical explanation for Obama’s membership in a crackpot church, I’m willing to listen”
evets: “believe me, I’ve had rabbis with political outlooks seriously different from mine, yet I’ve learned much from and greatly respected some of these men”
Right on, evets. Why, just this past Easter I had the intriguing experience of attending my inlaws’ quaint Missouri Synod Lutheran church on Easter morning, and listened to the young, sheltered pastor tell us that Jews and secular humanists were absolutely indubitably bound for eternal hellfire. Sucks to be them.
I find it funny that supporters of the “crackpot religion capital” of the West–aka, the Republican Party–are only now whining about crazy pastors. What took you so long to “see the light”, hmm? We Americans have a very high tolerance for crackpot religions, which is why it’s rather funny to hear Repubs get their panties all bunched about the good Reverend “wacky” White. Perhaps Obama is as good an actor as Bubba or the Gipper, or perhaps he honestly realized it was time to end contact with a crackpot minister who was crackier than crack. Either way, I have a hunch that most Americans don’t give a crack. I guess we’ll find out in November.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
“It has nothing to do with how I live my life, what I do with my life.”
Ah, yes. The ol’ name-it claim-it sect of wacky fundamentalist faith. Doesn’t matter what you do, it’s what you beliiiiiiiieeeeeeeevvvve that earns you a golden seat in heaven. That’s why Larry Craig plays footsie in bathroom stalls, Mark Foley feels up little boys, and Ted Haggard does meth with male prostitutes (he’s cured of “gaydom”, btw)–because it has nothing to do with how you live your life! Just accept JC as your personal savior, sign the dotted line, and you’re good to go!
April 30th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Samuel, you really need to reset you sarcasm detector.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
“Well, damn. Faith to me is ALWAYS litmus test, mouth-spouting, quoting Scripture. ”
Ok — let’s assume Obama does have this, to you, questionable social-gospel approach to religious faith. It still means he’s in church for reasons that have nothing to do with getting some street cred, scoring political points or shoring up his racial identity. In other words, for reasons that aren’t cynical.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
No sale. To make this case, you have to make a caricature of all other churches, which is the point of my sarcasm. I belong to a liberal, mainline Protestant denomination, which takes a lot of politcal positions I don’t agree with.
And, I’m finding it hard to believe that Wright is the thoughtful, judicious, challenging intellectual that passage is struggling manfully to describe. I see a lot of Stokely Carmichael and no Reinhold Niebuhr. I see a ham, a buffoon, a demagogue. It’s what everybody else sees too, which is why he has been banished from Obamaland.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
” I see a lot of Stokely Carmichael and no Reinhold Niebuhr.”
I see a combo of both. To see him simply as a ham, I think you have to view things though a selective filter.
I also assume that in the pulpit he generally demonstrated more of the thoughtful side than the angry ham, and that some of his hammy routines were mere (non-demgogic) entertainment, that is harmless. If you look at the Moyers interview he was basically thoughtful and engaging, even when expressing some views I (and I’m sure you) couldn’t accept. He chose to make an ass of himself at the press conference for a host of reasons, but I don’t believe that’s who he is essentially any more than I believe the persona displayed with Moyers definitvely captures him.
He was banished from Obamaland because he’s now a wounded bear, trailing blood and coming after his cub. Obama was willing to forego banishment so long as Wright was just a complex, sometimes infuriating (though talented) figure, difficult for the average American to digest, but willing to stay out of Obama’s way. That was pretty decent of Obama. Maybe he should have been more ruthless, more cynical. It may have helped him politically.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
evets-
I don’t know what its like in Orthodox Synagogues, I was raised Reform, which used to be the Jewish equivalent of United Church of Christ, ie politically left, founded by acolytes of the Haskaah (Jewish enlightenment) - Mendellson, etc. - and I can talk liturgy and talmud with the rest of them.. Notwithstanding my complete lack of faith, I enjoyed growing up in an atmosphere in which Saturday School meant going to Amnesty International meetings.
I disassociated myself completely, as did my family - who don’t at all share my opposition to Zionism (while they are big two-state solution abckers) - from the Temple in which I was raised because since 9/11 if not earlier, the Rabbi - and many Rabbis, as far as I can see, politicize theh ell out of their sermons, in a more Hagee esque manner- i.e. lecturing Jews on Kol Nidre for not supporting Israel. So my point on that is that its not so much what the private view of Rabbis is- or the public outside of services view- but the view from the Bima. So my question with all this said, is that do you ever hear vicious Likudist talk from the Bima?
April 30th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Dan O-
Chomsky is a moderate social democrat, and polls show the public shares much of his perspective.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I thought you said Chomsky was an anarchist?
April 30th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
“do you ever vicious Likudist talk from the Bima”
Likudist - often enough, with almost no countervailing sentiment. Vicious - sometimes, though less than you might guess. Generally ehnocentric - all too often. I’ve just joined a group started by some young rabbinical students (I’m 30 years their elder) who want to promote engagement amongst Orthodox Jews with the non-Jewish communities around them. They’re intersted in social justice, community service projects etc. This is a pretty big step in the Orthodox world, which as you know is basically (sometimes radically) insular. So there’s hope.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
” I see a lot of Stokely Carmichael and no Reinhold Niebuhr.”
I doubt that Martin Marty would have an overall positive - albeit mixed - opinion of Wright, a former student, if he was “a lot of Stokely Carmichael and no Reinhold Niebuhr.” I think the problem with Wright is that he’s heard way too many “Amens” whenever he’s opened his mouth over the years and, aside from the unhinged racial paranoia that’s evident in certain of his views, his ego ballooned as his congregation grew.
The thing I found most offensive in his Press Club remarks, aside from the dismissive attitude toward Obama’s delineating some clear differences with him as disingenuous, was that he put his personal views as above criticism by creating an inseperable identity between even his every pronouncement - no matter how far out - and the black church itself. This was rather remarkable hubris. Also kiind of cowardly in a bragadocious way. He also showed in the Q&A a side to himself that may go over trading quips with some like-minded folks who know him well, but was embarrassing and demeaning - at best - at a nationally televised event.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
In other words, reg, he is a ham, a buffoon, and a demagogue.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Not ‘in other words’ Bob — in your words. What reg said was something different. You’re a smart guy and know that. Why play this game?
April 30th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
evets: You’re right, and I’m not just saying that because you are flattering me. Apologies to reg.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
So JC, I took your challenge and read the WSWS article. I think their view can be summarized as “these candidates are all warmongers” as illustrated by this passage:
Obama’s call to reconfigure US military deployments in light of “wider strategic interests,” including “issues with Iran,” comes just days after Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, used a Pentagon press conference to issue a threat that the US military is planning “potential military courses of action” against Iran.
Obama’s use of the phrase “wider strategic interests” is meant to be shorthand for “we have lost perspective on the importance of Iraq to our goals and need to take action to lessen our presence there”.
The Cheney use of the phrase “wider strategic interests” basically means threaten or start war with Iran.
The two meanings are pretty much opposite. The writing is equating them, though, because they fit the pre-arranged conclusion, which is roughly that anyone short of Lenin is a hopeless tool of imperialism.
The real problem with the article is, in spending so much time buttressing the above point in various ways, it didn’t bother to speculate intelligently why Obama might have made that endorsement.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Chomsky is a self-described anarcho-syndicalist. How you translate to “moderate social democrat” is a secret you should share with Penn and Teller.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
In his theoretical inclinations, Chomsky, yes, is an anarcho-syndicalist, like Orwell, Muste, Dwight McDonald and other stars in his universe. These sincere inclinations did not stop Orwell from supporting British Labour and McDonald from working with CIA-funded cultural fronts. Anarchism is the ideal political situations for Chomsky, and his writings on the topic are worth reading. But in practice, and in terms of his nuts and bolts prescriptive politics, he is a social democrat.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
MT
The issue is Obama supporting Petreus. This is mongering of war.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Sorry for the multiple posts - thats good stuff Evets. I know a lot of “Modern Orthodox” who are heavily into the Left…even some women who identify as “Orthodykes”
April 30th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
So, is it fair to say that cummings isin theoretical terms is a Marxist, in nuts and bolts and all cummings is a liberal?
April 30th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I can’t follow this without sports analogies.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I can follow my last post, woody. What I meant to ask is:
Is it fair to say cummings is theoretically a Marxist, but in the nuts and bolts of everyday politics he is a liberal? He generously makes that distiction ffor Noam Chomsky, who always struck me as a Chomskyite.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
“cut off Rev. Wright at his knees?” Marc, you have to be kidding. Obama’s too-little-too-late distancing raises more questions than it answers. And don’t take my word for it. Look at the polls. Obama said Rev. Wright “isn’t the same man I met twenty years ago,” but what about the other nineteen years? Are we to believe that Obama was unaware of his pastor’s bigotry? That he never knew of Wright’s reverence for Louis Farakhan? That in twenty years he never once heard his spiritual advisor’s anti-white rhetoric? If anyone has been “cut off at the knees” it’s Obama, and in my opinion the guy is clearly unelectable going forward.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Thank you, Andrea, for pointing out the obvious (though, apparently, not so obvious to some….) much more eloquently than I did.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Ralph Nader - or staying home - is sounding better and better by the hour.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I agree about insincerity - but lets be honest here - Hillary and McCain have FAR MORE disturbing connections with “spiritual leaders”….see a recent mother jones piece about Hillary attending some secretive prayer breakfasst thing for quite some time with “the family”, Hageee.. etc. They all get a pass, because they ahve more of a mass base. The very ability that the media have in making Wright an issue and Hillary’s “Family” not an issue is that Wright and Obama are Black.
People who know Obama, from what I’ve heard, make him sound like Bob Rae (famous ex-left politician in Canada, who despite moving to the centre is dogged by his old connections). Obama is a typical ex-leftist, like David Horowitz. I’d still vote for him, but he is a turncoat.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
You’re right. Hageee is a nut job. And McCain has gotten a pass. But Obama brought this on himself. You can’t claim to be a uniter, then haggle for weeks over a decision to denounce your lifelong racist friend. At the very least, Obama should have denounced Wright immediately. The fact that its dragged on this long speaks volumes about his judgment.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Andrea and David.
Obama wins this race. He is going to get the nomination, and he is going to comfortably cruise past McCain. Wright, Ayers; these things are either nonsense or temporary blips which he has handled exceptionally well (thus making them temporary).
This ain’t going to have any legs. Any of these perceived vulnerabilities are matched, and then some, by McCain. Clinton is a dead letter and only the horse-race narrative even keeps her around.
Really. It’s over. Obama is vastly more charismatic and eloquent than any other person in this race. He is raising more money by huge amounts. The nomination is wrapped. He is right on the war. McCain’s once revered maverick status was squandered when he pandered to Bush and the religious right. And Barack has the lowest negatives.
O-v-e-r.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
bob w: “a Marxist, in nuts”
I think you got that part right…
April 30th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Dan O - But of course. Thanks for the reality check.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Well, my friend, I’m sure everyone at CNN, MSNBC, Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and all the other mainstream outlets agree with you. God knows they seem to worship the ground he walks on. But if Obama wins the nomination (which many agree, seems likely), and continues to lose support (as he is now), will you be willing to share the responsibility? Until Barack Obama happened onto the scene, Hillary (and the Democratic Party) were an uncontested shoe-in. Today, the race between Obama and McCain would be a dead heat. In Vegas we call that “diminishing odds.”
April 30th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Well, I need to distance myself first of all from Andrea, because I believe that Andrea is totally wrong headed in thinking that those aforementioned, so-called media outlets “worship” Obama. It is true, as jcummings and others have stated, that there is a double standard here. No one calls the Republicans (and that includes Hillary Clinton) on their own sleazy connections. Obama is being made to be a scapegoat.
But the name of the game is winning in 2008, with a candidate who has some progressive credentials. Obama meets the latter half of that, but he is null and void of the former: being winnable. As a John Edwards supporter, I am just more than a little pissed off that the Democratic base followed the fashionable trends in hurrahing Obama in such a blindsighted manner. Four years from now, when there are 7 right wing justices on the supreme court, and we are paying half of our paychecks to fuel costs, I hope that those early Obama supporters can look at themselves in the mirror.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
and when I say that Obama has some “progressive credentials”, I am speaking in relative terms here.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Do any of these Clintonoids think the fact that her chief spokesman was an advocate of violent revolution at the same time Bill Ayers was underground or that she worked for a law firm that defended the Black Panthers and in which the prinicipal was a member of the Communist Party AFTER she graduated from law school won’t be the stuff of 527 ads in November. Not to mention the fact that Bill Clinton pardoned about a half dozen terrorists. Give me a break. This lilly-livered hysteria over Obama’s supposed “negatives” when Hillary is the Queen of negatives and Bill’s recent round of sleazy associates are “unvetted” is ridiculous.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
If John Edwards was some wizard at winning elections, he’d either be the incumbent vice-President or, at the least, a senator. Or, perhaps, the guy who won the Iowa caucus after living there for two years.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Well, it may be early to say this…but…..John Edwards for President in 2012. Maybe we will have something left by then.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
“Or, perhaps, the guy who won the Iowa caucus after living there for two years.”
Too bad for Edwards that he did not have the kind of Corporate America-slash-Hollywood funded war chest that Clinton and Obama had that enabled them to visit Iowa a couple of times per year (in person, not counting their manipulative television ads).
April 30th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
reg displays that two can play the redbaiting game, whilst redbaiting me “a marxist, in nuts.” In fact, while nuts were not a staple, capitalism did indeed start in agriculture.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
“I think the problem with Wright is that he’s heard way too many “Amens” whenever he’s opened his mouth over the years and, aside from the unhinged racial paranoia that’s evident in certain of his views, his ego ballooned as his congregation grew.”
Yes, and I thought I would point out how much those crazy, paranoid views of his are afloat in the community around him. I think many people would be surprised to learn how deep the paranoia runs and how popular these beliefs actually are in poor black communities. I’m sure you will hear many other pastors on the South Side saying similar things. To call these views ‘his’ I think is to somewhat miss that they just reflect the strongly held views of the black community which he serves.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I’ll shut up after this, but here is how I see it.
I predicted over a year ago that Obama would win. Why? Because he is a phenomenon. I have seen nothing like this in all the years that I have been involved in and following politics.
No one draws crowds like he does. It’s a lot of work to fill a room for a political event and he had thousands showing up for events when the race was as cold as winter. This is not window dressing. This is the sign of a serious groundswell of support, and it is unprecedented in modern times.
Of course, a lot may happen in 6 months, and I may have to eat my words with a steam shovel, but I’m pretty sure I won’t.
Of course he’s come down a bit from where he was. Hey, this is politics, and he has Clinton trying to bloody his nose, and McCain doing the same. They’re going to throw everything they can at him. Some of it will stick, and some of it has–that’s inevitable. His negatives will rise. His support in some groups will taper off. But just as surely his support amongst others will rise. A wave of the uncounted and the uninvolved are becoming inspired by him. Pundits (and Hillary supporters) can blow it off like we’re walking through Jonestown, but that’s wishful thinking, and fairly spiteful as well.
In the general all the democrats will back Obama. Even the Hillary women who are angry that their historic moment is slipping away, and currently pretending they will not vote for him. It’s not like there is a Clinton DLC legacy here to react to that will force voters to a third candidate like Nader. There is no impetus for such a move right now. What’s the charge against Obama, that he beat Hillary and denied a woman the chance to be president in this election? Is that going to be enough to abandon the party and set McCain up? Hardly.
And who anointed her anyway? When did she become the dauphin? Nobody is stealing anything. If she made the better case for her candidacy she would be in the lead and she would be winning. She failed to persuade and so she is not.
Polling right now should just be disregarded. We’re not in a head to head race yet. Obama has the Hillary distraction which prevents him from turning his full attention to McCain. The numbers indicate nothing. We do know that McCain is vulnerable in many many ways that Obama is not, and that he carries the negative coattails of the war, the economy, the recent Republican scandals, near historic federal debt, and a housing and finance implosion. He’ll win the the core strongholds, but he’ll lose the swing states and get crushed in the Democratic states.
Only a war with Iran saves a McCain candidacy at this pint I think.
Finally, I have nothing to apologize for or accept responsibility for. Centrist that he is, Obama is the best shot we have of winning, and the best shot we have of returning some sanity to our government. Of addressing the insurance crisis, the flight of manufacturing jobs, the insidiously corrupting effects of corporate lobbyists, the debt crisis, and the runaway privatization of public functions. I choose to throw my lot in with the person who represents a chance to put back on the table so many issues that have been taken off the table. Issues off the table because the Republicans lost their moderate core some years ago, and off the table because the Democrats, led by the DLC, became convinced that the Republican agenda was the route to victory, to our ruin. For that I won’t apologize, and for that I’ll go down with a fight. I will not dumb down my expectations. I will not be cowed by leadership that tells me to swallow their shit and pretend I like it. I will instead go with someone, who for once in my life promises that we can do something better.
I believe him, I’m on board, and I will not apologize for aspiring to something better.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Very cool thread. Many good points.
Some minor thoughts regarding these latest turns in Obama & Wright — or is now Obama v Wright? From a localized view visa via Detroit:
This is definately relieving to see Sen Obama fight, and smartly just get to the point. You know, this past Sunday, as Rev. Wright was keynoting at the NAACP gig at Cobo, the entourage known as the Kilpatrick administration was copiously taking notes on Wright’s self-rehabilitation. Detroit’s Nixonian Mayor is scheduled for a summer trial on charges perjury and corruption. The texting junk everyone’s fluent on is key, but it’s really small potatoes. But when the next huge batch of tawdy messages goes public the city will be further humilated. How pathetic it has come to be in this great city.
Kilpatrick had his face time Sunday with Wright, and they yaked and yuked up quite good together. Must have been a touching moment. In a depressing sort of way.
Those of us who are counting down the days, we hope it’s just days, until Detroit has a different Mayor and one who’s on the proper side of the rule of law –for it — are looking at the trial as the beginning of a liberation moment in Motown.
So thank you, Sen. Obama. Thank you for throwing Wright under a fleet of buses. Seriously, no better time than right now to cut off the reverend. Let’s fill up the weeks between now and the start of the Kilpatrick trial with Obama going one way (to the nomination) and Wright going another. While this is happening, I’m loving these stories in the Fress Press and News of Kilpatrick become a student of Wright in arts of saving one’s own sorry hide. I know none of this helps you dear Sen. Obama, but you’re probably doing more to help Detroit right by doing nothing more than simply letting these cretins commingle.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Well, Dan O gave me some substantive stuff to think about. That was pretty good. And not just in its persuasiveness, but in its sheer content. Great comments, Dan O.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:15 am
You totally have to watch John Kerry blow (sort of) about this.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:19 am
And while you’re at it, here’s what you should really be worrying about: who wins in the electoral college.
Gotta say, HuffPo kinda rocks these days.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:03 am
Those nasty right wingers at powerline see it different.
[blockquote]”What had changed between March 18 and April 29? On March 18, Obama explicitly rejected the opportunity to denounce Wright as the “crank or demagogue” he so tranparently is. He was like the grandmother who loved him unconditionally. He could not be disowned. On April 29, Obama had second thoughts. He had reconsidered. He had changed his mind. Obama could be disowned. Why? Obama explained:
[W]hat I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing. Anybody who knows me and anybody who knows what I’m about knows that — that I am about trying to bridge gaps and that I see the — the commonality in all people.
Obama returned to this theme in response to another question:
I want to use this press conference to make people absolutely clear that obviously whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this. I don’t think that he showed much concern for me. I don’t — more importantly, I don’t think he showed much concern for what we are trying to do in this campaign and what we’re trying to do for the American people and with the American people.
And the third time around on this theme Obama got to the nub of it:
[A]t a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that’s enough. That’s — that’s a show of disrespect to me. It’s a — it is also, I think, an insult to what we’ve been trying to do in this campaign.
In Obama’s eyes, the most serious wrongdoing in Wright’s statements is their disrespect of Obama. From the revered father figure who could not be disowned, Wright has become the the father from whom separation must be achieved in favor of his own identity, or the boorish relative who cannot be tolerated. The adolescent grandiosity and adolescent pettiness of Obama’s remarks are perhaps the most shocking revelations of this entire episode.”[/blockquote] I have to agree!
May 1st, 2008 at 7:28 am
A spoon-fed NY Times rides to the rescue!
>Late Monday night, in the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, N.C., Barack Obama’s long, slow fuse burned to an end. Earlier that day he had thumbed through his BlackBerry, reading accounts of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s latest explosive comments on race and America. But his remarks to the press this day had amounted to a shrug of frustration.
>Mr. Wright’s multiday media tour of the last week was the breaking point in a 20-year relationship with Mr. Obama.
Only in this hotel room, confronted with the televised replay of the combustible pastor, did the candidate realize the full import of the remarks, his aides say. At the same time, aides fielded phone calls and e-mail from uncommitted superdelegates, several demanding that the candidate speak out more forcefully.
>As Mr. Obama told close friends after watching the replay, he felt dumbfounded, even betrayed, particularly by Mr. Wright’s implication that Mr. Obama was being hypocritical. He could not tolerate that.
etc, etc, etc
Being a reporter is easy when the sources call you.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:47 am
To respond to someting earlier….Wright is not a racist. A Black person cannot by definition be racist.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:50 am
“Being a reporter is easy when the sources call you.”
That was, for better or worse, typical campaign reporting. Nothing there beyond the conventional. Also, since Obama had already rejected Wright’s comments in this vein and clearly delineated the differences in their worldviews, but in the manner of someone who is neither petty nor insecure, without simply demonizing a man who he’d been friends with for over 20 years, it seems rather clueless not to recognize that the key to Obama’s anger at the subsequent Press Club performance was Wright’s ego-driven bloviating that Obama was only saying what he was saying about Wright’s views for political reasons. Of course that’s what Obama was responding to in anger - the rest of what Wright had to say was essentially irrelevant since Obama had already cut any cords with Wright as anything resembling a “spokesman” and had put their relationship in context - and had done it rather brilliantly. Frankly, for the nerds at Powerline to call Obama adolescent and petty is rather rich. This is the entry below the Obama post:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/04/020418.php
Nothing adolescent, petty or grandiose over there at AssRocket’s.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:55 am
“Wright is not a racist. A Black person cannot by definition be racist.”
I await the Marxist explanation for this.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:55 am
Oh god, GM - I’ve got to thank you for directing my attention to the AssRocket’s site. Their promotion of Douglas Feith’s (!) book was funnier than a segment of the Colbert Report.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:06 am
MT “HuffPo rocks these days!”
I have to admit it’s a useful one-stop shop to check in before one moves on to the Times and - among an enormous amount of trivia - some interesting commentary and news, but I would appreciate it more if they didn’t regularly stoop to stuff like this: “Official Tearfully Admits He Sniffed Female Lawmaker’s Chairseat” Worse, it’s linked to the front page from the “Politics” section. I kid you not.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:38 am
Black (and minority) inability to be racist? This is not so much Marxist as Fanonite - I had a comrade years back who convinced me of this viewpoint, this man was a former Panther who had come to live in Canada. Black people may be prejudiced, but to be racist is to implement prejudice, and one needs hegemonic social power to implement prejudice. So Farakhan may have ugly thigns to say about Jews, but he isn’t a racist, in that he doesn’t have the social pwoer to implement these views. A Jew in America in the 30s couldn’t be racist. A Jew in Israel right now may well be and probably is. A Gay person may not like Catholics but can’t keep them from positions of influence. A Punjabi may have serious problems with his Bengali neighbour but neither can go to war over their differences.
Ask the victims of Katrina. To assert that Blacks can be racist is the equivalent of men calling Feministw “feminazis”. It used to be only racist reactionaries would call Black nationalists racist, but now its every good liberal.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:41 am
Meanwhilei n the real world
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/08/ED8L101F5U.DTL
May 1st, 2008 at 9:26 am
That is the most unconvincing tripe I’ve read in a while, cummings. I expect better of a Marxist. At least aknowledge black racism as as an epiphenomenom. Or someting.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:36 am
It is not “racism” nor is it “black”. Bigotry, prejudice, etc. I will accept. Not “racism”.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:37 am
jcummings,
The thought that blacks are somehow exempt from being tagged racist by virtue of their minority status is the most absurd psychobabble I’ve ever heard. Websters defines a “racist” as: 1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race, and
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination. By both definitions, Reverend Wright is racist.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:50 am
“epiphenomenon” ? I’m losing faith in bob williams. He’s starting to sound like some kind of elitist.
As to the “black’s can’t be racist” thing, jc is parsing a semantical distinction based on the realities of structural and historical racism, but like a lot of those discussions it misses the point. The meaningful point here, so far as Jeremiah Wright is concerned is that he’s not a “racist” because neither his walk or his talk rises above the barometer of “racial paranoia.” To call this man a “racist” - in any sense, leaving lefty socio-semantics aside - is simply false. Wright has some views that deserve repudiation, but he’s no bigot and he’s not spreading “hate” against his fellow Americans of any color. Whether or not one agrees with his bill of particulars, his focus - even when his own lens is distorted in my view and obvioiusly in Baracks’ - is on injustice and on Christian ethics as normative.
Also, this issue is, if not dead, breathing its last gasp. Rightwingers had better get used to that fact. Unless you’ve got an excellent case for John McCain’s extremely unpopular agenda - not to mention his Romneyesque pandering and flip-flopping - prepare for Commander In Chief Obama. Luckily for you, he’s not a mean-spirited, dim, inarticulate, one-dimensional prick like his predecessor.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:50 am
A) Even by those definitions, Wright is no racist. Farakhan maybe, but not Wright.
B) Webster’s is often full of shit. They defined Anti-Semitism as opposition to Israel.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:53 am
New cummings:
Maybe, the idea that a black man can’t be a racist is silly tripe.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:57 am
Nor a consummate opportunist and phony like his primary opponent (the “gas tax holiday” is Hillary’s current rerun of what drove her to kiss Bush’s ass in the fall of 2002.) Make that opponentS - plural - given that he’s not only kicked Hillary’s ass, he’s also beaten the Narcissist in Chief, once considered the most gifted politician of his generation - now reduced to shaking hands and shouting cliches in burgs where he won’t get too much attention.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:08 am
“Luckily for you, he’s not a mean-spirited, dim, inarticulate, one-dimensional prick like his predecessor.”
I’m gonna miss the smell of cut brush in the morning.
reg - I sort of agree with you on Wright and racism, though not entirely. I think he swings back and forth between genuine Christian universalism and the ‘racial paranoia’ you describe, sometimes mixing the two in strange ways. However, I find it hard to distinguish ‘racial paranoia’ from ‘racism’ once the expression of paranoia is assertive enough. I think he’s a sometimes racist.
BTW - I’m ignoring Cummings semantic distinction between racism and bigotry. It may be hepful to note the source of someone’s racism or its current power to inflict harm, but the terms used don’t really matter. Besides, I think Cummings underestimates the ability of the supposedly powerless to do harm and is too willing to assume that their racial views only derive from their subordinate position.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:09 am
“he’s not only kicked Hillary’s ass…”
Gallup Tracking, May 1:
Clinton:49
Obama 45
A fourteen-point swing since April 20.
You go, Grrlfriend!!!
May 1st, 2008 at 10:10 am
From Politico:
When Bill Clinton came to town in 1993, Democrats were a congressional majority, with 258 seats in the House. When he left in 2001, they were a minority with 46 fewer seats. There were 30 Democratic governors when he arrived, 21 10 years later.
As for electability, the Obama side believes — for all his trouble winning lower-income whites in recent primaries — that it is ludicrous to believe (Hillary) is the stronger candidate in the fall.
A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found nearly 60 percent of voters think Clinton is dishonest. Think about that: Only four in 10 voters do not think she lies when she needs to. A majority hold an unfavorable view of her.
Will those numbers improve if she wins the nomination and Republicans resurrect the scandals, the Bill Clinton sexual affairs and her Bosnia fib with the same intensity they brought to the Wright uproar? Unthinkable.
Now that the Democratic superdelegates are facing their moment of decision in this close race, you might think it would be time for politesse to give way to an unvarnished discussion about both candidates’ real strengths and liabilities.
The Obama side is frustrated with the news media for not carrying more of its argument. His operatives thought a Newsday story looking exhaustively at her legal career — including the revelation that as a young lawyer she attacked the credibility of a 12-year-old rape victim — would provoke a herd of other coverage. It did not happen.
If he really wanted, Obama could generate all the coverage he wanted about Clinton’s past by leveling accusations in his own words. But that is not going to happen.
Politically, he correctly believes that he would be called out as a hypocrite if he practiced the conventional art of attack politics after preaching against it.
(end clip)
Anybody who thought it would be a cakewalk to elect Barack Obama has been kidding themselves. But anyone who thinks it won’t likely be done, or that it’s not worth the effort - if only to be rid of the Clinton Cloud that has consistently weakened the party with the combination of incompetence (health care reform), narcissism (Lewinsky), and cowardly opportunism (Iraq) - is also kidding themselves. Forward…
May 1st, 2008 at 10:14 am
bob - I wasn’t aware that the wildly careening daily Gallup tracking polls determined the outcome of the Democratic primary. Somebody better contact Howard Dean…
Also, would you like to post a comparison of the polls from May 1, 2007 compared to todays. That might be more instructive of what Obama has, remarkably, accomplished against the Hill & Bill machine, their vaunted “experience” and the conventional wisdom of the media.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:16 am
Okay, I get it. Only whites can be racist and Rev. Wright is…uh…just an angry black preacher (I can say black, can’t I?) whose rants and proximity to Obama are wholly immaterial because Obama is going to be our next Commander-in-Chief…period, get used to it. Oh, and the Jerimiah Wright thing has breathed its last gasp, trust me.
Helo, reg! Main Street America calling! Do you really think anyone in middle America–anyone at all–agrees with your logic? And trust me, you can’t win elections without Main Street. No wonder we lose elections time after time.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:17 am
Has Jeremiah Wright really affected the safety and security of White America?
Has Louis Farakhan, aside from saying disgusting things, affected the lives of Jews in America?
May 1st, 2008 at 10:19 am
He is a racist, he isn’t a racist….I wish that we could get over this juvenile, PC notion that it is a select few that are racist. As human beings, we all have demonstrated racism sometime in our lives, and continue to do so on a regular basis. Racism/bigotry is ignorance, and we all are ignorant as to the complete dynamics of any institution like race or religion (like Bush saying, “Sunnis, Shiites….I thought they was all Muslim”). In addition, racism has been used as a tool to pit Americans against Americans since our country was first founded. After all, if the black working class and the white working class put aside their differences, they would be the majority, not the middle or upper class. This is why racism is such a powerful tool for the establishment to use to divide us.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:19 am
Aside from the Aids conspiracy theory and the nonsense about Black brains and White brains, familiar for anyone interested in the Black but that’s another story- I challenge anyone to find any objective untruths in Wright’s speeches. You all hate him because he speaks the truth about America being damned.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:20 am
David, when has the Black working class been against the White working class. It is usually the latter pitted against the former. I can’t think of a single time when it is visa versa.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:26 am
Aside from the objective untruths in Wright’s speeches, I challenge anybody to find any objective untruths in Wright’s speeches.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:29 am
” I think Cummings underestimates the ability of the supposedly powerless to do harm”
Unfortunately the powerless internalizing or mirroring the dynamics of societal racism mostly do harm to themselves. I have real trouble taking seriously generalizations equating black and white “racism” - using the Webster definition. Cummings is right in that ripped from structural and historical context, discussions of the impact of prejudice among black people and white people doesn’t make any sense. The irony is that most black “racism” is against other black people. It’s shocking the degree to which dominant negative stereotypes are casually expressed among black people. (My mother-in-law routinely says stuff about black people that makes my skin crawl. Also, of course, about white people.) This is a more complex phenomenon than can be described in a short comment, but it’s real. Unfortunately, black folk live with race and racial perceptions as a major issue in their lives, as do very few whites. It’s can become a near obsession, it’s not totally irrational - as many “high-minded” whites would like to think - and it’s a hell of a burden.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:33 am
Hey Andrea, do you really think Main Street America is totally stupid ? Because that’s your implication. I don’t. Guess it’s pretty obvious which camp among the Democrats is “looking down” and “elitist.” Also which candidate most Americans think lies through her teeth when it’s to her benefit. (Last I looked it was 60%.) So, yeah, let’s go with those “winning” Clintons so we can watch the Democratic Party crumble all over again.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:35 am
You’re right. The racist rant goes nowhere. But this is about electability not semantics. I maintain that Obama’s lifelong relationship with Reverend Wright (who’s viewed by many as anti-white) makes him absolutely unelectable, even to John McCain. I also maintain that anti-Hillary sentiment has trumped gamesmanship and wll leave us lsoing yet again.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:44 am
See, reg, I think its historically natural and understandable for members of an oppressed group to be tough on their own - the old “2 jews, 3 opinions” writ large.
Challenge is still open to Wright’s overall assertions of how America has been a death machine for most of its existence. The only people who conceive of a notion of “anti-white” are paranoid bigots displacing their often economic insecurities onto the other. There is no such thing as “anti-white”. Are WASPS getting theirj ust deserts after centuries of dominance? Perhaps. But Anti-White is nonsensical.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:46 am
McCain is to Hillary’s left on torture.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:53 am
Last post today I promise:
assignments: watch All about Eve, No Way Out (Poitier/Ryan, not Costner) Do the Right Thing, Blue Collar, Killer of Sheep. Don’t watch Crash. Avoid Crash at all costs.
Read Tim Wise and David Roediger on white privilege, read James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, CLR James, Malcolm X, Said’s Orientalism., Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined Communities,”
May 1st, 2008 at 10:55 am
Consistency alert.
What is here brushed off as some minor “aside froms…” was napalmed as the rantings of a lunatic when the subject of the Bell Curve came up. Sounds like a case of ideological bias has descended upon you.
Anyway, the notion, whether it came from a Panther or anyone else, that racism can only come from the powerful, is sophomoric. If you want to talk about race and power, then use some word or phrase that captures that notion that doesn’t debase the language. You’re just playing semantic games. I wonder what purpose is served by this game? Surely consciousness raising is better served by some other strategy.
From a practical stand-point it alienates people you might otherwise persuade, and gets them all angsty about the words you choose, rather than thinking about the issue you really want them to think about. Good job.
It’s stupid of me to even respond to this. I’ll continue to call actual racism, racism when I see it, and you can call it a “minutely calibrated skin-based prejudicial mental bias sometimes, and only if you’re not white (in America of course, since blacks are the majority in some other countries)” or anything else that makes you happy.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:10 am
reg -
I actually wasn’t referring only to black-white stuff in America. I was thinking of the phenomenon in general, how power-relationships can change quickly, allowing members of a former out-group to do plenty of harm, not only to themselves. I was thinking in this case more of tribal bigotry and rivalries, and the endless cycles of revenge as power relationships shift.
I’m also aware of all you say about the self-hatred of the out-group. I understand the history behind Wright’s anger and paranoia. Still, he’s chosen often enough to feed that anger, to deliberately stoke it and to express it in some ugly ways. I don’t equate these ugly expressions of anger with those of white Americans who choose to stoke their own (often unjustifiable) sense of racial grievance, resentment etc. The two sorts of anger aren’t morally equivalent, but I still don’t exonerate Wright from the charge of ’sometimes’ racism. He could do better and flagrantly chooses not to.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:14 am
“anti-Hillary sentiment”
We’re talking about negatives out-of-the-gate that trump any presidential candidate in my memory (which is long). Anyone seriously concerned about “electability” starts looking ridiculous when they point to Hillary as the “solution” for Democrats. The Clintons started out a decade and a half ago looking like they could breathe new life into the party and they ended up weakening it - Hillary’s manifest incompetence on health care reform being a major factor, leaving Bill blowing, as it were, what should have been a shoo-in in 2000 with his personal antics. The notion that Hillary’s not the person who demonstrated amateurish arrogance, helped usher in a GOP congress and blew a chance at health care reform well over a decade ago is plausible. That she’s not the coward who voted to aurthorize Bush’s war in 2002 isn’t plausible. Especially when she’s got Kyl-Lieberman under her belt just this past year. And compared to the GOP focusing on Bill’s yet “unvetted” record of dealings with unsavory characters like Giustra - in the near-impossible event that Hillary is the nominee - the task of deflecting tired tales of Rezko and Wright would seem like swatting flies.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:18 am
I love the way you talk past me, rather than to my face, jc. It’s called patronizing and it smacks of male arrogance. If you have something to say, say it to me directly. And your comment that “people who conceive of a notion of anti-white are paranoid bigots” is typical of Obama supporters: elitist, arrogant, and smug. John McCain is looking better all the time.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:19 am
“He could do better and flagrantly chooses not to.” Sadly true. Although he also often does do better. I’ve listened to quite a few of this guys sermons and comparing him to Farrakhan is grossly unfair (not saying you do that.) He’s a talented man who, IMHO, has lost the capacity for reflecting on his own limitations and has become too used to being the unchallenged center of his parish universe. The new pastor at Trinity seems like a breath of fresh air from Wright - although I’ve only seen him interviewed once. He doesn’t appear to have Wright’s penchant for grandiosity nor the old-school racial paranoia.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:24 am
“John McCain is lookiing better all the time.” Andrea, you’ve pretty much outed yourself as not to be taken seriously with that last one. If McCain wins, it will be thanks to you and the rest of these Lieberman-lite types in the Clinton camp.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:39 am
I’d suggest folks click on David Corn’s link (above right) for his last two posts on the wondrous Senator Clinton, her sterling accomplishments and her “can-do” candidacy. Further, as evidence that she’s not someone I’d trust to “work for me” at a high level of competence and effectiveness compare where her campaign was six months ago with where it is now. And this with a popular ex-President at her side doing heavy lifting, all on Democratic turf. Pretty pathetic…
May 1st, 2008 at 1:04 pm
“David, when has the Black working class been against the White working class?”
I don’t want to generalize, but I have had to keep my mouth shut in my life when I listened to some (and I do mean, “some”) of my black co-workers back in an old plant that I worked at mouth their anti-semitic drivel in relation to an orthodox jew who worked in the plant who happened to be a friend of mine. Or the treatment by blacks in relation to the Asians (remember the black stores left standing in the LA ghettos during the LA riots, but the Korean stores looted and ransacked?). Your blind hatred for whites, jcummings, has led you to think that only whites can be racist. Not true.
And frankly, in relation to Spike Lee - a wealthy hypocrite who blasted the white Quentin Tarantino for “racism” at the very same moment in the 90’s that he was pitching overpriced sports shoes manufactured in third world sweatshops - his movies are an excellent example of blacks stereotyping whites in a negative light.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Just read that Joe Andrew, former chair of Indiana Democratic Central Comm. and the National Dem CC has switched his endorsement to Obama. He is pretty widely known in Indiana, even beyond political circles.
I don’t know how much of the “machine” he influences, or whether it is too late to influence much at all, but this could be a pretty big endorsement for Obama. Its significance would be enhanced if it were interpreted by the Congressmen whom Bayh was urging to stay on the sideline that it is “safe” to declare for Obama before the primary.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:21 pm
When Governor Ed Rendell - Hillary’s constant companion and one of the faces of her campaign on a daily basis in Pennsylvania - is demonized or called to account for bowing and scraping before Louis Farrakahn before a Black Muslim audience, calling him one of the great spiritual leaders of the 20th Century, to the degree that Jeremiah Wright has been, I’ll believe there might be something to the notion that this isn’t about holding black politicians - in this case Obama - to a double standard in “denouncing and rejecting” whatever it is that allegedly offends white sensibilities (i.e. ginned up, politically motivated “outrage”) on a given day.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:27 pm
So Love JCummings, Love JCummings, Love JCummings, he’s a leftist.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Luckily I think we can look forward to an elevation of the campaign discourse, now that Obama has put Jeremiah Wright behind him. Or not.
“A widespread Internet rumor about Sen. John McCain popped up in an audience question today during the Republican presidential candidate’s Iowa forum.
“A member of the audience at the Polk County Convention Complex asked about a rumor that McCain had once used a profane word referencing female genitalia to describe his wife.”
May 1st, 2008 at 1:39 pm
“When Governor Ed Rendell - Hillary’s constant companion….” indeed. And furthermore, the double standard seems like this to me: Rendell (McCain, Hillary, whomever), can say things like that, because, well, you know, they’re white, and they have the latitude. But a black man, he may just really believe all of this tripe. He may really be…a dangerous subversive in disguise. He better be trebly checked.
I’m not sure anyone even thinks those thoughts consciously, but they don’t seem too far off to me.
Anyone on the center-right spectrum besides David Duke face this kind of scrutiny? Jessee Helms maybe. But you’re starting to get the picture perhaps. I’m happy to hear other examples I may be missing.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:58 pm
“Aside from the Aids conspiracy theory and the nonsense about Black brains and White brains, familiar for anyone interested in the Black but that’s another story- I challenge anyone to find any objective untruths in Wright’s speeches.”– j cummings
How about the jerkish Wright stating emphatically, on the record, that American had prior knowledge of Pearl Harbor, and did nothing to stop it? How about his urging of black on black criminals to stop what they are doing, and to instead rob and kill whites? (wow, is that a nice one, coming from the good “reverend”). And J.C., there may be racists in your soup, but I think that you are being hysterical here. My feelings of Wright are the same as they are of paleo-conservative Alex Jones, the director of those 9-11 “Level 7″ conspiracy theory documentaries that have an unusually large cult following in both left and far right wing circles.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Well, the one happy result is, this puts an end to Barry Obama’s Earnest National Rap-Session On Race. As Michelle says, we really, really need to move on.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I find it difficult to believe that Wright’s solution to black-on-black crime is to urge them “to instead rob and kill whites.”
Obama had it right in his “race in America” speech in Philadelphia. Rev. Wright is of another generation of black Americans. He is trying to teach lessons that many of us have already absorbed and others have rejected [that there are cultural differences between African and European-based cultures, and one is not necessarily better than another, for example]. In both Detroit and DC he seemed to be presenting the thesis he defended to get one of his degrees in sacred music to a new audience. He also, as many have recognized, demonstrated a narcissistic streak and wrought unnecessary damage on a man who had defended him manfully under great pressure to abandon him.
And, while we’re at it, can we throw the next person who uses the phrase “under the bus” under the steamroller?
May 1st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
“Well, the one happy result is, this puts an end to Barry Obama’s Earnest National Rap-Session On Race.”
Oh c’mon Bob, let’s rap.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:42 pm
As perhaps the only African-American on this site at this time. I can’t say how distressing this has been.
I think Chris Rock said it best “I don’t hink I’ve ever met a black man over 50 who isn’t angry”.
Jokes aside, I’m glad that he spoke up about Wright he needed to get shut down - period.
I am surpised some and a bit saddened at the lack of intimate knowledge that it seems and I can only seems that some of the authors on this site have of black Americans. I believe someone said above where is the black community. May I suggestion some integration and encourage Marc’s readers checking out some African-American blogs, so I won’t have to speak for my entire race
I have to laugh to at the naivete consistently expressed about why perhaps blacks might still be a little more than ticked off or that perhaps racism is affecting how Obama is being viewed. Maybe its the mathemetian in me, but 300 yrs of slavery + 100 yrs of legal segregation - 50 yrs of legalized integration = still a lot time to go before we can say that we live in a colorblind society.
That said it’s not that we haven’t made amazing progress or that we are not leaders in promoting racial equality around the world - but we aren’t there yet and I think that a lot of white people are frustrated by the fact racism won’t go away.
Maybe it’s GenX & Y thing, because we are post integration, multiculturalism there is more of a natural dialogue between races and that as racism becomes more sublte and ingrained that we reconize the gray areas can not be addressed through black and white responses ( since we are also yellow and brown).
A Republican commentator remarked after first Wright-Wrong, that he was glad Obama didn’t throw Wirght underneath the bus like the Republicans did Strom Thrumond. WTF? Jessie Helms, Strom Thurmond made several notoriously racist comments throught their lenghty and celebrated careers in public service. Neither one was thrown out of office no were they seen as unfit by their party to represent the interests of all Amercians. While I agree that Mc Cain should not be tarred and feathered for the just as equally outrageous comments of Hagee, not one person has explained why he has been called on the carpet like Obama?
Also it’s all over the black blogs about the gung-ho Clinton supporter and notorious black nationalist Barbara Reynolds (a Tony Brown Journal regular for those who are truly in the know) who arragned for Wright’s Wacktastic Bitter Mystery tour and the Press Club address.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:44 pm
mathematician perhabs - speller no
May 1st, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I feel ya D-Rock: they surveyed the race of Daily Kos readers and supressed the results. They are whiter than Iceland, circa 1890.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Michael Crosby,
Wright has been quoted as saying that black on black criminals are “fighting the wrong enemy.” What does that mean to you? Was he misquoted here? Did I misinterpret what his “deeper meaning” was?
May 1st, 2008 at 3:49 pm
D-Rock -
Did you see Glenn Loury’s session today on bloggingheads.tv. He expresses a lot of sympathy for Wright and for his desire to bring Obama down. You might find this interesting (or perhaps disturbing).
It is pretty clear that Obama’s forced to denounce, renounce, distance and disown in a way that no white politician would ever have to do. And it seems that the hysteria around this mounts as he gets closer to the goal line. Amazing and excruciating to watch. If he does manage to surmount the hysteria and reach the goal line it will be one hell of an accopmplishment.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:57 pm
No white politician with a decades-long protege-mentor relationship with a raving, race-baiting loon would have some serious ’splaining to do. That politician would not be a serious candidate for anything.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I meant: Any white politician…
May 1st, 2008 at 4:03 pm
David, did you misinterpret Wright when you construed him as saying that criminals should start robbing and killing whites? Yes. I do. Wright has been consistent in condemning “gang-bangers.” He refers to gangbanging as “sin.” He has devoted much of his career to convincing young black men to put their energies to work building their own lives and communities.
If you want to condemn Wright for what he said, fine, there’s plenty there for you. But accusing him of fomenting murder of white people is beyond the pale (if you will).
May 1st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I intended to say that, David, “I believe” you do misinterpret Wright.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Bob W -
I’m not just referring to Rev Wright (and your depiction of him as no more than a raving loon is symptomatic of the problem). Obama’s had to answer for far more tangential associations, the idea being that unless he’s fully and continually frisked we have to assume he’s some sort of potential traitor.
If he had McCain’s association with Hagee for instance — and I understand McCain didn’t sit in Hagee’s church for 20 years, but he did solicit and take pride in his endorsement — Obama would be called on the carpet as McCain never has been. That’s assuming that Hagee, loonier and less intelligent than Wright, was actually considered scary and a political deficit. Which he’s not, because he’s white and so his looniness and his ravings are considered harmless, or even borderline patriotic.
See Bob, now we’re really rapping about race.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Strom Thrumond - com’mon Bob - he carried on an affair with the black “help” and left her an unmarried teenaged mother with w biracial child
Never publically acknowledged child’s existatnce although from time to time gave her some money here and there. Some quotes:
“There’s not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.”
His quote about inviting the govenor of the VI
“I would not have written him if I knew he was a Negro. Of course, it would have been ridiculous to invite him.”
These are just a few of his doozies yet the Republican party supported in and “allowed” for him to grow with the times.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
As far as loony and stupid, i’d put Wright and Hagee in the same ball park. I have see no evidence whatsoever that Wright is intellligent or theologically learned, despite the assertions of Andrew Sullivan and others. Even Hagee writes books!
And, as you pointed out, the Wright-Obama association is much closer. I live near the Hagee church, and I’ve never heard of McCain being in the area.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:30 pm
He said a lot of things when he was a Democrat, no? In fact, back t