Wambsgans/APRev. Jeremiah Wright
Posted on 03/23/2008 6:40:53 AM PDT by SJackson
Sunday, March 23rd 2008, 4:00 AM
Wambsgans/APRev. Jeremiah Wright
Despite their frantic efforts to one-up each other on issues large and small, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could soon find themselves sharing the same unhappy burden: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Unless one of them can find the courage and the sense to forcefully denounce the black pastor, Clinton and Obama both could end up watching John McCain get elected President.
Midway through the second week of the Wright fiasco, and five days after Obama tried to cool the boiling issue with an important speech on race, it is increasingly clear we are witnessing a Democratic train wreck. For months, the collision has been unfolding in slow motion as the closely fought campaign worked its way across the country and the chances for a clear winner slipped away one state at a time.
Suddenly, the wreck is happening at full speed. The dream team is looking like a nightmare.
Race was always a touchy subject, but not the dominant one, at least on the surface. Now there is no other issue.
With only 10 contests left, the campaign is turning on Wright's outlandish anti-American statements and Obama's tepid reaction to them. Obama seems flummoxed by the complexities of the racial polarization he promised to heal and the party is being divided in a way that could sink him. He's even making things worse for himself as his silver tongue has gotten tied in knots.
Polls in Pennsylvania and nationally show that Obama's otherwise-thoughtful speech last week failed to solve the political problem Wright created. Whites are shifting to Clinton or, in hypothetical general election matchups, to McCain.
For those voters, Wright is a clear yes or no question. Trying to split the difference, however amiably, as Obama did by rejecting Wright's most inflammatory comments while also sympathetically explaining them and equating them to white frustrations, created a muddle that has reinforced doubts about Obama's convictions and values.
In the short run, Clinton obviously benefits in the nomination fight. But she shouldn't get too comfortable. For Obama's problems with Wright will become her problems if she makes the same mistake of not being forceful enough about her own values. The same kinds of voters - working-class whites in swing states - who are shunning Obama will abandon her if she takes the standard, Democratic, politically correct course and coddles Wright and his poison.
As well they should. You can't be a President if you won't stand up to an anti-American bigot. More to the point, you can't become President by running against the country or having people around you who hate it.
It's a bright-line and the right answer is for Clinton to denounce Wright for saying, among other things, that the American government created the HIV virus to wipe out "people of color." So far, Clinton has ducked the test.
Instead, her campaign is said to be quietly arguing to superdelegates that Wright makes Obama unelectable against McCain. That's true. But Wright also will make Clinton unelectable if she can't stand up against him.
Of course, if she does, she could win the nomination but lose much of the key black vote for the general election. She is thus damned if she does and damned if she doesn't.
Although Obama leads in overall delegates and the popular vote, neither he nor Clinton will get the 2,025 majority of delegates without a big infusion of uncommitted superdelegates. That makes the remaining contests, starting with Pennsylvania on April 22, crucial in terms of momentum as well as delegates and total votes.
Clinton has a big lead there and Obama has compounded his Wright problem with more sloppy language. Trying to explain what he meant in the Tuesday speech by his reference to his late white grandmother's expressions of racial stereotypes, he called her comments those of a "typical white person." Even though his campaign rushed to "clarify" the remark, his words further undermine his calls for a postracial future.
If there is such a thing as a "typical white person," is there also a "typical black person"? And is Jeremiah Wright typical? What would grandma say to that?
As for McCain, he was off in Europe and the Mideast, meeting heads of state and dealing with global issues. As contrasts go, he couldn't hope for a better one. With his opponents stuck in the muck of race and gender politics, he looked like a man serious about being President.
Devastatingly, Steele writes, Obama has "fellow-traveled with a hate-filled, anti-American black nationalism all his adult life, failing to stand and challenge an ideology that would have no place for his own (white) mother."
Just What Did Obama Know About Wright's Past Sermons? (Plenty)
“Barack Obama either agreed with what was preached from the Trinity pulpit, or he tuned it out and stayed around pretending to for political reasons. To say he stayed for 20 years but doesn't agree with Wright's preaching is incredible denial. It'd be like a man buying White Sox season tickets for 20 years, attending the games, and saying he's not a fan.”
Obama’s supporters want us to ignore this story… just push it under the rug. While they’ll align Republicans with any obscure pastor who does or says something controversial, they’re trying to convince us that Obama’s 20-year long close relationship with Wright, including his effective endorsement of him, his church and rhetoric with a $22,500 donation in 2006 is irrelevant.
“When Obama decided against wearing an American flag pin, we may all have been a bit too quick to accept his rationale, too quick to find that issue unimportant. Now, that American flag pin has gotten a lot bigger for a lot of us, especially in light of what may have been and may still be Obama’s deeper, and, perhaps, secret, less than patriotic beliefs about America.”
“Wright says that blacks can’t be expected to sing God Bless America because of racism. Obama doesn’t salute the flag during the National Anthem. That sure strikes me as an amazing coincidence since Obama swears he never heard Wright say anything against America.”
Here is the link to the Star Spangled Banner video with obama standing there without his hand over his heart...
Notice her ear ring!
I think there will be some trouble when he loses the general- hard to see now how bad it will be- much depends on “the mood on the streets” in November. We can hope for record-breaking cold in early November..that would help.
FYI - Given the new and much worse format FR uses on the comments page, someone just trying to see what comments have been posted has to scroll past lengthy replies. A string of photos like this makes for a lot of scrolling, and a lot of bandwidth for folks on dial-up.
Hope FR goes back to the old format - I hate the new one!
Much worse, and more widespread. Look for it in Cleveland, Baltimore, Buffalo, Detroit, Florida, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago and LA. Horrible scenes will unfold when he loses (either the nomination or the general). NOBama, NOpeace.
I’m one of the white devils.
Been called that a few times and have laughed quite heartily about it.
Or better yet, one which (sadly I'm old enough to remember vividly) the Chicago Riots of 68
You are right. If the blacks do not get Obammy, there will be an uprising, the likes of which you have never seen. Thanks to that idiot who had no business running for president,he will have managed to set race relations back 50 years.
Gotta love that cop in the middle... knocking heads and doesn’t even drop his stogie.
I was wondering how many conservatives there were in Vermont. You need to come South my friend.
Clintoon is the one who should be lambasted by those on the right, she is getting a free pass for affiliations with these clowns.
Pittsburgh wont be better off.
I live near a mostly black area, and I already have plans for getting out when the area burns. And if escape is not possible, then I am ready to defend my house and myself.
With black leader stoking the fires now, one can imagine what it will be like later when things really get going.
The Truth about Black Liberation Theology, particularly post 166.
The root of this theology is the ideological and religious development of the violent black liberation movement of the 1960's.
Obama can say that the problem with Rev. Wright's church (and all the others like it) is one of the VERY THINGS he is HOPING to CHANGE if elected. Only as President could he possibly bring about the much needed CHANGE and ensuing reconciliation, thereby actually FURTHERING The Cause (with all its mesmerizing 'hopenosis').
Of course, this will not stop the coming Republican attack ads, nor move many Republicans to vote for him.
But it could keep The Movement alive & spare the Dems from a horrific, August Convention in Denver, something that is hopeless now for the Clintons to accomplish...
To me, this situation says more about the Republican candidate than it does the Dems. I always suspected that the dems were the reals racists in our society, so no big surprise there.
“Our” candidate, however, and his spokespeople like Kemp, are too chickensh!t to even comdemn Obama’s sitting in that pew for 20 years listening to that garbage. Or the fact that he donated tens of thousands of dollars to the “church”. Or that he subjected his children to racist hate sermons. Or that his wife hated America until Barry had a shot at the “Big Time”.
I just wish our side would grow a pair, and start going after this asshat like they (the Dems) went after Newt, Trent Lott, etc. McCain can find the “guts” to physically assault 92 year old Strom Thurmond on the Senate floor, but cannot find it in himself to provide leadership on the Reverend Wright issue.
He and the Republicans keep clogging my email and my mailbox with appeals for money. NOW HEAR THIS: UNTIL I SEE SOME LEADERSHIP-— NOT ONE THIN DIME, AND NOT A SINGLE VOTE!
Sorry for the rant. I’m just sick of this crap.
“I think there will be some trouble when he loses the general- hard to see now how bad it will be- much depends on “the mood on the streets” in November. We can hope for record-breaking cold in early November..that would help.”
I don’t expect it to be too bad..... the outcome will be apparent several weeks before the general.
Patience: Patience. Our side doesn’t need to get into this fray AT THIS TIME, while the other side is commiting fratricide. Let’s wait and see how it plays out and then have a strategy that is well timed and hard hitting.
His grandmother was alive and well when he gave the sppech. I’m not sure she survived being thrown under the bus though.
“I’m bracing myself for something like the 1992 L.A. riots if and when Obama loses.”
No kidding. And those riots WILL occur.
The link contains this from 1985:
Upon graduating from Columbia, Obama attempted a career as a community organizer. He wrote that when classmates weren’t sure what that was, he didn’t have a sufficient answer for them. “Instead, I’d pronounce the need for change," he wrote. “Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds. Change in the Congress, compliant and corrupt. Change in the mood of the country, manic and self-absorbed. Change won’t come from the top, I would say. Changewill come from a mobilized grass roots.
“That’s what I’ll do, I’ll organize black folks. At the grass roots. For change.”
Note this is from 1985 when President Reagan was in office so his comments about "Change" go back to those days and what has he done to make "Change" happen in 23 years except join ACORN which we all know is part of voter fraud around the Country and also part the mortgage crises as they put pressure on mortgage lenders to loan to people not qualified, became a member of Rev Wright's racist church, met with Weather Underground members, wife worked for Daley machine, and ...? What else don't we know about the black Senator from Illnois who wants CHANGE with no specifics?
They are not just standing by waiting for the right moment, though.
Kemp sent almost an entire segement on Hannity and Colmes DEFENDING Obama.
Those words will come back to haunt us, I’m afraid.
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