The 'Race' Speech Revisited

Real Clear Politics ^ | May 2nd, 2008 | Charles Krauthammer

[The_Republican]

"I can no more disown him [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown my white grandmother."

-- Barack Obama, Philadelphia, March 18

Guess it's time to disown Granny, if Obama's famous Philadelphia "race" speech is to be believed. Of course, the speech was not just believed. It was hailed, celebrated, canonized as the greatest pronouncement on race in America since Lincoln at Cooper Union. A New York Times columnist said it "should be required reading in classrooms across the country." College seniors and first-graders, suggested the excitable Chris Matthews.

Apparently there's been a curriculum change. On Tuesday, the good senator begged to extend and revise his previous remarks on race. Moral equivalence between Grandma and Wright is now, as the Nixon administration used to say, inoperative. Poor Geraldine Ferraro, thrice lashed by Obama in Philadelphia as the white equivalent of Wright's raving racism, is off the hook.

These equivalences having been revealed as the cheap rhetorical tricks they always were, Obama has now decided that the man he simply could not banish because he had become part of Obama himself is, mirabile dictu, surgically excised.

At a news conference in North Carolina, Obama explained why he finally decided to do the deed. Apparently, Wright's latest comments -- Obama cited three in particular -- were so shockingly "divisive and destructive" that he had to renounce the man, not just the words.

What were Obama's three citations? Wright's claim that AIDS was invented by the U.S. government to commit genocide. His praise of Louis Farrakhan as a great man. And his blaming Sept. 11 on American "terrorism."

But these comments are not new. These were precisely the outrages that prompted the initial furor when the Wright tapes emerged seven weeks ago.

[fieldmarshaldj]

It should be required reading... so that students realize what phony, lying, sacks of $hit left-wing rodents truly are... especially when they whore after the most powerful office in the world.

[goldstategop]

Sometimes you have to throw him under the bus. Its nothing personal; its just politics.

"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

[doc1019]

Yep, yep, Obama had a white mother, so has every president in American history, and his uniqueness is what? Rev. Wright is his uniqueness …by, by Obama.

[Steve_Seattle]

The Hammer nails it.

[eggman]

It only took Obama 20 years of listening to Wright before he finally heard what most of American heard in just a few seconds of listening. As President how many years will it take him to realize that Iran, North Korea, and the terrorists are not going to change their tune just because he's in charge and wants to talk with them.

[Enchante]

Great column - reasonable, decent people can quickly determine that Wright is the kind of ranting racist extremist who should not be accorded respect or embraced as an honored mentor.

Yet, for Obambi, Mr. Harvard Law grad, it takes 20 years and a prolonged public humiliation to recognize what is obvious: Wright is a hateful, dishonest, ignorant race-baiting demagogue.

Actually, Obambi knew all along but Wright was always useful up until the point where he became a burden to the presidential aspirations of B. Hussein Obama. Time to throw Wright under that bus along with granny, who maybe now won’t be so lonely under there.....

[Seeing More Clearly Now]

Bye, bye, you bum,you.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Obama lives on another planet.

He said he would nuke Pakistan, which isn’t considered our enemy.

And he’ll sit down with the mullahs in Iran. Uh, Obama? We don’t have normalized relations with them. Can you guess why the president of Iran has not been to the White House since the Shah was in power when Carter was in office?

He’s an IDIOT.

Next he’ll be threatening to invade Canada. If he does that, Hillary will get the nomination.

[Earthdweller]

Charles is slicing up the matrix with white hot precision. He's like a political surgeon. LOL.

Amazing.

[indcons]

Excellent article, as always, by Krauthammer.

[driftless2]

Once again the libs declare that it’s time to “move on”. Does anyone seriously believe that if it were disclosed McCain had a close relationship with a Klan member and had attended Klan meetings, even if he had later denounced it, the lib media would be moving on? The whole suggestion of moving on is ridiculous. Obama made his bed, now he has to lie in it. And lying is something he does very well.

[Jeff Chandler]

Apparently there's been a curriculum change.

[snicker]

[Mancolicani]

This Krauthammer is a political genius! Wow!

[PogySailor]

The faux outrage of the cornered. Typical of a pol caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

[kalee]

bttt

[ishabibble]

As always, CK puts it all into “context”!

[ClearCase_guy]

Krauthammer is great.

[jimfree]

Wow!

[Bender2]

First, Obama claimed his pastor was right!
And then to the GOP’s delight,
The Rev spoke up,
Barrack upchucked,
And Rush hopes there's no end to the fight!

Yet, never forget, if a White reverend said the sames things as Wright in a White church, reversing it to be anti-Negro, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Black pundits, MSM and their Liberal Democrat allies would have apoplexy to the max! There would be a public lynching for all hands at the White church.

It is so refreshing, after so many years of being force fed that only us typical White folks can be racist, it is nice to see the hypocrites where they live!!!!