…as things stand, Obama is damaged. If, as some folks are arguing, hanging with Uncle Jeremiah is simply the price of doing politics in black Chicago, that makes the Senator not the change you can believe in but just the same-old-same-old. And at least a sliver of the electorate will find it hard to accept that even the political realities of Illinois require a man to raise his daughters in a church led by a vulgar kook who makes humping motions from the pulpit when he discusses Bill and Monica. Jeremiah Wright is not most Americans’ idea of a pastor, and the longer he’s in the spotlight the more he distances Obama from the electorate. Accepting (as everyone assures us) that the candidate himself is not an Afrocentric liberation theologist who believes every crackpot conspiracy of the last 70 years, every other explanation as to why Barack Obama spent two decades in the company of a profane race-baiter leaves the Senator looking either weak or weird. If he can wriggle out of this tonight, he’s some kind of genius.
We’ll find out. This may be a bridge too far.
[Update a few minutes later]
Despite his track record of controversy, Obama appointed Sanford as a member of his Hope and Unity central advisory committee. He dismissed complaints about Sanford’s earlier statements, calling them “isolated comments of an elderly man with a heart condition who likes to speak his mind.”
Harder to dismiss were Sanford’s increasingly controversial statements directed toward Hillary Clinton, Obama’s rival for the Democratic nomination, which were caught on video and spread throughout the internet. In one speech, Sanford says “I’m gonna push her face in some dough and make some gorilla cookies,” and later says “that woman look like a fish head sandwich.” In another, Sanford holds up a clear sheet of plastic and taunts Mrs. Clinton to “wear it fo’ a Godzilla mask.”
At first Mrs.Clinton laughed off Sanford’s remarks, and even said she would “welcome Mr. Sanford’s help after I am nominated.” Mr. Sanford replied that “I’m a junkman, not a plastic surgeon.” As the campaign wore on and her lead disappeared, she began responding testily, issuing statements that “God’s gonna strike you down Fred Sanford,” and “shut up foo’.”
Will the controversy never end?
[Update late morning]
Well, if these two snippets are any indication, the speech is less than genius level, at least to me:
For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
…Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
The nagging questions remain. He’s not merely “an occasionally fierce critic of US foreign policy.” He’s a man who believes that the US government was behind 911. He didn’t merely say things that were “controversial.” He accused the US government of deliberately creating AIDS and importing cocaine, in order to kill and injure black people. He didn’t merely have political views with which one might “disagree.” He held (and as far as we know, continues to hold) views that are vile, hateful, and by most lights, insane. I find this minimization and mischaracterization of the remarks to be utterly disingenuous.
As to the last graf, so what if he was a Marine? So was Lee Harvey Oswald. Who cares what other universities and seminaries he lectured at? They are no doubt the same ones that welcome Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky. And Ahmadinejad.
As I said previously, even if I were a church goer, there are no amounts of good works that would allow me to hold down a pew in the presence of someone who spewed such lunacy from the pulpit. There is simply some bad that cannot be balanced against the good, when it comes to being a member of and donor to a church, and exposing children (of all ages, apparently, to judge by audience reaction) to such bigotry, hatred and idiocy. It’s like praising Castro because Cuba has universal health care (ignoring the issue of how good the health care actually is in Cuba–I don’t see many people flocking down there for the clinics). But then, many of the people who get funny feelings up their legs listening to Obama are exactly the sort of people who do that, so maybe I’m not the target audience here.
I understand that it’s not the whole speech, and I understand that I’m only reacting to the actual words, and not his golden delivery with the halo above his head. (This latter “argument,” such as it is, reminds me of people who, to my great amusement, told me that I couldn’t and shouldn’t judge or criticize Michael Moore’s “masterpiece,” Farenheit 911 by the screenplay that I read, but that I should instead watch it, as though that would somehow render nonsense sane.)
I doubt it would make a difference. The question for me remains: what was he thinking? And if this is a reliable guide to his judgment, then my judgment is that he would be a disastrous president, probably Carter-like, and an eager coddler and appeaser of dictators.
[Update a few minutes later]
Some Cornerites find some things to like about the speech:
…here was Obama praising the Founders for their ideals. Here he was noting the stain of slavery, but not letting it become THE story of the Founders, but only a part of the story, not letting it press out the reverence the Founders are due.
That might be the lasting legacy of this speech. The Jeremiah Wright controversy will eventually become a footnote in American political history. But the moment of the first serious black contender for the Oval Office speaking with reverence and admiration for slave-owning Founding Fathers, and dismissing explicitly the idea that the United States is, by virtue of the nation’s Original Sin of slavery, a fundamentally racist nation, has the potential to become a turning point.
And “he’s so clever“:
By framing his Rev. Wright problem as part of the unfinished business of America’s founding principles, he makes it unpatriotic to turn away from him now. This isn’t a Barack Obama problem; it’s an American problem that only he can help solve.
Well, no one has accused him of not being a talented orator or politician. But sorry, I’m still more inclined to see it as Obama’s problem rather than America’s.
Jonah writes:
I thought it was a much better speech than I thought it would be. It had some lovely movements and he came across as a remarkably classy and decent guy. But I think there were some serious logical, philosophical and political flaws to it.
Yup.
Charlotte Hays shares my opinion about his minimization of the remarks:
Obama is no longer a post-racial candidate. In his speech (it’s still going on, but I’ve heard enough) today, he has embraced the politics of grievance. He says that the Rev. Wright has “elevated what is wrong” with America — elevated?
Not fabricated but elevated. Does that mean the Rev. Wright is correct about America’s deserving the attacks of Sept. 11 — but he just elevates it to undue prominence? Obama says that we shouldn’t “condemn without understanding the roots” of remarks like those Wright made. Whatever the roots, these remarks are to be condemned. Within what context is it correct for the Rev. Wright to say “God damn America?”
Or does it mean that he’s correct about the US government deliberately creating AIDS? And he just “elevated” that “issue”?
Sorry, just doesn’t wash, no matter in what dulcet tones it’s spoken. And it’s a good point, as Mark Hemingway expands on, that the real problem is that, no matter how good the speech, the days of Obama as a “post-racial candidate” are over.
[Update in the early afternoon]
Here’s the full text. I’m not sure I’m interested or unbusy enough to read the whole thing, but if I get around to it, I may have further comments.
[Update at 3 PM EDT]
The speech is slippery, evasive, dishonest, and sometimes insulting.
Yes, it pays to actually read what he says, rather than just bask in the glow of the flowing oratory.
[Update a few minutes later]
Hmmmm…the Derbyshire post seems to have disappeared. Not sure why. Too bad I didn’t grab the whole thing. He provided several examples.