Greenfield: Obama Failed to Defuse Controversy Over the 'Crackpot'

NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Like so many of his colleagues, Jeff Greenfield comes to the MSM from a background in Dem politics, having served as a speechwriter to RFK. But more than most, the CBS senior political correspondent demonstrates an ability to put partisanship aside in his analyses.

Witness Greenfields's comments on this morning's Early Show regarding Barack Obama's speech on race on this morning's Early Show. The show's intro referred to the speech as "a defining cultural moment in America" and a "moving moment." Greenfield was considerably more restrained in his praise, suggesting that Obama failed by declining to disassociate himself from a "crackpot."

View video.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Obama failed to disassociate himself from the crackpot ping to Today show list.

[Roccus]

What OB said yesterday was “...it’s a Black thing........live with it.”

[goldstategop]

"If you don't like Wright, go take a hike!"

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[popdonnelly]

“a defining cultural moment in America”

Oh, really? And who is CBS to determine that, one day after the speech?

Maybe it was a defining cultural moment in that it demonstrated how badly American culture is split.

Maybe CBS can explain why I’m supposed to put someone in the White House who’s wife and pastor hate the U.S.?

[Goreknowshowtocheat]

The girl(Rodriguez) clearly wants them to agree with her that it was a “great speech” and it accomplished all that BHO wanted. She is probably suicidal now.

[meandog]

While it was a great speech in other respects, Mr. O blew it when it came to his hate-mongering mentor; he could have said something along the lines of “It was wrong to sit in the pew and hear these things and it was wrong to overlook the mean-spirited rhetoric just because he was a father figure to me. I would however urge all of you to look back on your lives in which you, too, may have heard something very wrong and didn’t challenge them because the person speaking them was someone you cared deeply for...”

[maine-iac7]

http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/Obama.Blacks.Quiet.2.337535.html

Hannity and Rush need to biew this video - this is the “O” man himself, addressing a meeting of ministers - thinly veiled warning about the “Quiet Riots” that are simmering under the surface?- like the “Quiet Riots” that were already simmering before the Rodney King Riots...

He needs to explain that one...

[Piquaboy]

What Obama is doing is setting racial relations back 50 years.

[Enchante]

Greenfield’s on target. Obama tried hard to obfuscate but he failed to impress. Throwing his white grandmother on the tracks because she once expressed fear of a black man is absurd and offensive - and it was discussed on another thread (Obama seems to have altered the critical details now) that as the incident was related in his first book, it was about a very specific panhandler who approached her aggressively and was relentlessly demanding money — that’s very flippin’ different from just saying “oh, I’m afraid of black men on the street” — but even Jesse Jackson said that!!

There is no comparison between what Obama related about his white grandmother and all the rabid racist rants of Jeremiah Wright..... nothing remotely similary there.

Also, it is absurd to pretend that any minister should embody all the WORST aspects of any community. A minister, a HOLY man, should strive to lead us toward the best in humanity, not the worst..... imperfectly to be sure, we are all sinners, but what a ludicrous position, for Obama to claim that “Reverend” Wright should embody everything that is bad from his “community”......

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

RODRIGUEZ: "Do we give him credit for dismissing the words but not disowing the man, or do you think that that's not enough?"

GREENFIELD: "The question here for me, actually, and this may seem odd given the context, is really not race. Some of the things that Reverend Wright said--that AIDS was a government conspiracy against black people--these are the words of a crackpot, and the question is, if this is a spiritual mentor, this is a guy who is part of your life, at what point do you look up and say this guy is too much off the rails for me to be associated with him?"

That's not Rush Limbaugh reaching that conclusion.

[TalBlack]

“Mr. O blew it when it came to his hate-mongering mentor; he could have said.......”

No, he could not have said anything other then what he did say. Blacks in this country have been held to lower standards then whites and have been saying the most stupid, paranoid and just plain outrageous things for two full generations now. The idea that Barack could disregard that and turn on a dime to take responsibility with this speech is unrealistic.

[meandog]

No, he could not have said anything other then what he did say. Blacks in this country have been held to lower standards then whites and have been saying the most stupid, paranoid and just plain outrageous things for two full generations now. The idea that Barack could disregard that and turn on a dime to take responsibility with this speech is unrealistic.

Perhaps...but, if you sat in a Southern Baptist Churches in Alabama, Georgia, Mississipi or any other Deep South state during the turbulent 1960s you might have heard similiar hate-filled sermons about the necessity for segregation. I know this to be fact because I heard them.
The lone progressive Christian churches on race in the South then were the Roman Catholic ones, Episcopalians, Lutherans, some Presbyterians and a sprinkling of Methodists.

[capydick]

a defining cultural moment in America”

Oh, really? And who is CBS to determine that, one day after the speech?

They should have just said that it was "a defining cultural moment in the CBS Newsroom.

[cake_crumb]

The Rev. Dr Manning is absolutely right about Obama AND his followers.

[ishabibble]

When do we get to the part about Barry's bald-faced lies on Friday night cable TV? For all the words he said yesterday, the ones I heard were, “I lied and I know I'll get caught, so now I am ‘fessing up.”

Barry's first instinct was to lie. He looked terrified during the FNC interview with Major Garrett. How is he supposed to be the POTUS if he can't even handle this one crisis?

[cake_crumb]

What OB said yesterday was “...it’s a Black thing........live with it.”

Pretty much. And that it's our fault for being white. And his grandma's fault for being white. But only his wife has the blood of both slaves (and slave owners) in her veins...he left out his OWN blood. Maybe to purge himself of the sin of having only the blood of slave OWNERS in his veins by having himself embalmed?

[cake_crumb]

Did anyone else have problems with the audio? I have broadband, but it kept cutting out like a bad radio signal...been watching Rev. Manning on You Tube this morning, so my settings seem fine.

[cake_crumb]

I saw the “Barack Warns of Quit Riots” Speech the other day and came away with the concrete impression that Obama is “warning” of riots because HE”S CALLING FOR RIOTS. It set the ol’ impending terrorist attack radar right off.

[cake_crumb]

Absolutely. I started posting in every comment section yesterday that Obama proved himself not only a liar and racist in that speech, but a craven coward as well for throwing the woman who raised him and loved him and put him through exclusive private schools to the piranhas just to save his own ungrateful hide.