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| Home Front: Politix |
| B.O.'s Speech Falls Short |
| 2008-03-19 |
| Barack Obama has run a campaign based on a simple premise: that words of unity and hope matter to America. Now he has been forced by his charismatic, angry pastor to argue that words of hatred and division don't really matter as much as we thought. Obama's speech in Philadelphia yesterday made this argument as well as it could be made. He condemned the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's views in strong language -- and embraced Wright as a wayward member of the family. He made Wright and his congregation a symbol of both the nobility and "shocking ignorance" of the African American experience -- and presented himself as a leader who transcends that conflicted legacy. The speech recognized the historical reasons for black anger -- and argued that the best response to those grievances is the adoption of Obama's own social and economic agenda. It was one of the finest political performances under pressure since John F. Kennedy at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960. It also fell short in significant ways. The problem with Obama's argument is that Wright is not a symbol of the strengths and weaknesses of African Americans. He is a political extremist, holding views that are shocking to many Americans who wonder how any presidential candidate could be so closely associated with an adviser who refers to the "U.S. of KKK-A" and urges God to "damn" our country. Obama's excellent and important speech on race in America did little to address his strange tolerance for the anti-Americanism of his spiritual mentor. Take an issue that Obama did not specifically confront yesterday. In a 2003 sermon, Wright claimed, "The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color." This accusation does not make Wright, as Obama would have it, an "occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy." It makes Wright a dangerous man. He has casually accused America of one of the most monstrous crimes in history, perpetrated by a conspiracy of medical Mengeles. If Wright believes what he said, he should urge the overthrow of the U.S. government, which he views as guilty of unspeakable evil. If I believed Wright were correct, I would join him in that cause. But Wright's accusation is batty, reflecting a sputtering, incoherent hatred for America. And his pastoral teaching may put lives at risk because the virus that causes AIDS spreads more readily in an atmosphere of denial, quack science and conspiracy theories. Obama's speech implied that these toxic views are somehow parallel to the stereotyping of black men by Obama's grandmother, which Obama said made him "cringe" -- both are the foibles of family. But while Grandma may have had some issues to work through, Wright is accusing the American government of trying to kill every member of a race. There is a difference. Yet didn't George Bush and other Republican politicians accept the support of Jerry Falwell, who spouted hate of his own? Yes, but they didn't financially support his ministry and sit directly under his teaching for decades. The better analogy is this: What if a Republican presidential candidate spent years in the pew of a theonomist church -- a fanatical fragment of Protestantism that teaches the modern political validity of ancient Hebrew law? What if the church's pastor attacked the U.S. government as illegitimate and accepted the stoning of homosexuals and recalcitrant children as appropriate legal penalties (which some theonomists see as biblical requirements)? Surely we would conclude, at the very least, that the candidate attending this church lacked judgment and that his donations were subsidizing hatred. And we would be right. In Philadelphia, Obama attempted to explain Wright's anger as typical of the civil rights generation, with its "memories of humiliation and doubt and fear." But Wright has the opposite problem: He ignored the message of Martin Luther King Jr. and introduced a new generation to the politics of hatred. King drew a different lesson from the oppression he experienced: "I've seen too much hate to want to hate myself; hate is too great a burden to bear. I've seen it on the faces of too many sheriffs of the South. . . . Hate distorts the personality. . . . The man who hates can't think straight; the man who hates can't reason right; the man who hates can't see right; the man who hates can't walk right." Barack Obama is not a man who hates -- but he chose to walk with a man who does. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #38 Proud - the irony of Cump being that of those listed, and for much of the Union Army/administration, he had the most experience with and in the CSA - IIRC he was the initial president of what became LSU, lived there for a while, and arguably had the greatest understanding of the psychological bases of the war - of course resulting in his, er - activities in the theater. All of which is the most delicate way of saying he knew what had to be done and he did it. |
| Posted by: Halliburton - Hyperbolic Idiot Detection Service 2008-03-19 23:06 |
| #37 Proud - the irony of Cump being that of those listed, and for much of the Union Army/administration, he had the most experience with and in the CSA - IIRC he was the initial president of what became LSU, lived there for a while, and arguably had the greatest understanding of the psychological bases of the war - of course resulting in his, er - activities in the theater. All of which is the most delicate way of saying he knew what had to be done and he did it. |
| Posted by: Halliburton - Hyperbolic Idiot Detection Service 2008-03-19 23:04 |
| #36 I was with you Mike until that last name.... |
| Posted by: Proud GA Cracker 2008-03-19 19:01 |
| #35 I should also point out the enormous number of white people who worked to end slavery in the 1850s and 1860s. Ever heard of the Underground Railroad? The Army of the Potomac? Ulysses S. Grant? Abraham Lincoln? Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain? Harriet Beecher Stowe? William Tecumseh Sherman? . . . |
| Posted by: Mike 2008-03-19 18:10 |
| #34 Oh, and if I recall correctly, most slaveholders in America owned but two or three. The cotton fields of Alabama (is that right?) with hundreds of slaves being beaten by overseers, was an anomaly rather than general practice. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-03-19 18:02 |
| #33 #19 Check your info on the Georgia colony. What were the two distinctives of the Georgia colony? In: Colonial America, Georgia Answer Georgia is the last of the original 13 English Colonies founded in North America. It was founded by James Olgethorpe for the purpose of helping indegent debtors locked in English jails. It was the only penal colony established by England. It was the only colony founded by Olgethorpe." Wiki answers |
| Posted by: Proud GA Cracker 2008-03-19 16:42 |
| #32 le monde was rather anti-shirak, in fact, it's main cartoonist made him a constant target It was an incredible simile until it hit the wall of reality. Oh, well. Thank you for the correction, anonymous5089. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-03-19 16:36 |
| #31 White immigrant Europeans who came from societies of mansions and wealth. My Irish Great-grandfather would be surprised to hear that, since he stepped off the boat with only one change of clothes and a bible as those were his only possessions in the entire world. I'm so sick of the race baiting. The next person who whines about race and not getting a fair shake near me is gonna get punched. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-03-19 16:33 |
| #30 White immigrant Europeans who came from societies of mansions and wealth. Wow - my southern Italian-fishermen ancestors would be surprised by that. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-03-19 14:54 |
| #29 Here from Salon is a cynical hard bitten Chicagoin journalist writing, in a left publication, about Obama's Chicago legacy with the white left and the pro-Paleos |
| Posted by: mhw 2008-03-19 14:31 |
| #28 Gerson is a Republican (or was one as late as 2006 when he worked for the Administration). It would have been more significant if this had been written by a Dem. |
| Posted by: mhw 2008-03-19 13:59 |
| #27 It's as startling as if Le Monde wrote against President Chiraq As an aside : Actually, and JFM could correct me, as I DON'T read l'immonde out of sheer principle, bar a few online articles pointed out by critics like Erik Svane from NP!, le monde was rather anti-shirak, in fact, it's main cartoonist made him a constant target; true, the run up to the OIF saw the msm embrace the "pacifist" and the gvt's political line (and reciprocally), but I think l'immonde always has been rather critical of shiraq, starting from the 1995 election, when it shilled for the other "conservative" candidate, édouard balladur. In France, the msm is not at the feet of the pols, in many regards, it is the other way around, the pols are terrified of going against the dogma pushed by the shattering classes. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-03-19 13:54 |
| #26 And yes, it is significant that this appeared in the Washington Post. It's as startling as if Le Monde wrote against President Chiraq while he was still in power. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-03-19 13:20 |
| #25 It was the Democrat party (Dixiecrat) that were the traders, and still are. It is demoralizing to have this hyprocracy forced into the public scene like this. Blacks were not the only slaves, many do not realize that. Democrats want to enslave the entire nation for those idiots marx and lenin. That party is an abomination. |
| Posted by: newc 2008-03-19 13:18 |
| #24 Was he really as good as he sounds? Even better. MLK did a lot for this country, though as Pancho points out he had some flaws. However, the only perfect man died on the cross and we should not go overboard dwelling on the flaws of a man who rejected violence at a time when so many embraced it. |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2008-03-19 13:16 |
| #23 My mother came here with one small suitcase and the desire to become self-supporting. My father had a bit more, but that's because he had been working to support himself and his mother since the age of fifteen. Neither exactly qualified as mansions and wealth, although some of Mama's cousins were very wealthy, indeed. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-03-19 13:15 |
| #22 Reflecting back on this PC PR speech I can only reflect on one truth. BO would make a fantastic BS vacuum salesmen. In the 1920s. |
| Posted by: Icerigger 2008-03-19 12:49 |
| #21 Many whites came as indentured servants to this land in the early years. |
| Posted by: BrerRabbit 2008-03-19 12:25 |
| #20 PT- White Americans may have come from scocieties of mansions and wealth but most of the actual people were poor, in many cases dirt poor. |
| Posted by: mhw 2008-03-19 12:11 |
| #19 The Anerican race scene started with the collision of two diometrically different extremes. White immigrant Europeans who came from societies of mansions and wealth. Black people sold as slaves to merchants by rival black tribes fro profit who came from the wilderness and underdeveloped African jungles. It has taken hundreds of years in America for these two peoples to normalize and even up. But what will tilt things in the wrong direction is the spewing of hate from one race towards the other. Martin Luther King did not spew hatrid and that brought people together, Jeremiah Wright and his proxies who damn this nation, most prominent proxie being Obama who clearly admires Wright, would destroy a tremendous amount of that progress in America. |
| Posted by: Punky Threang1071 2008-03-19 11:12 |
| #18 B.O.'s speech in El Dorado, Kansas, January 30 '08 You know, we have been told for many years that we are becoming more divided as a nation. We have been made to believe that differences of race and region; wealth and gender; party and religion have separated us into warring factions; into Red States and Blue states made up of individuals with opposing wants and needs; with conflicting hopes and dreams. It is a vision of America that’s been exploited and encouraged by pundits and politicians who need this division to score points and win elections. But it is a vision of America that I am running for President to fundamentally reject – not because of a blind optimism I hold, but because of a story I’ve lived. It’s a story that began here, in El Dorado, when a young man fell in love with a young woman who grew up down the road in Augusta. They came of age in the midst of the Depression, where he found odd jobs on small farms and oil rigs, always dodging the bank failures and foreclosures that were sweeping the nation. They married just after war broke out in Europe, and he enlisted in Patton’s army after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She gave birth to their daughter on the base at Fort Leavenworth, and worked on a bomber assembly line when he left for war. In a time of great uncertainty and anxiety, my grandparents held on to a simple dream – that they could raise my mother in a land of boundless opportunity; that their generation’s struggle and sacrifice could give her the freedom to be what she wanted to be; to live how she wanted to live. I am standing here today because that dream was realized – because my grandfather got the chance to go to school on the GI Bill, buy a house through the Federal Housing Authority, and move his family west – all the way to Hawaii – where my mother would go to college and one day fall in love with a young student from Kenya. I am here because that dream made my parents’ love possible, even then; because it meant that after my father left, when my mother struggled as a single parent, and even turned to food stamps for a time, she was still able to send my sister and me to the best schools in the world. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2008-03-19 11:11 |
| #17 My attitudes towards race and religion were forged by my time in the Navy. Race doesn't matter, send the problem children to the chaplain. Let him give it a try. |
| Posted by: Penguin 2008-03-19 10:55 |
| #16 I think that Pancho is a little too hard on Dr. King. We'll never know for sure because he died too young. Definitely a flawed human (ain't we all) with socialist ideas. BUT, he did deliver a lot of momentum to the Civil Rights movement at the time it could be moved. I've always wondered how much influence the forced integration of WWII had on the creation of that "teachable moment" for society. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2008-03-19 10:54 |
| #15 Martin Luther King himself was a fraud--a phony, skirt-chasing black preacher who plagiarized his doctoral dissertation and who swore worse than most sailors. Yes, Pancho you can say that too, but its too easy to rationalize him away by ignoring what was indeed accomplished by his actions. Same with Lydon Johnson, who can be equally characterized as a two bit hustling backwoods politician who'd use the n word at the drop of the hat, even in reference to King. However, without those two individuals the possibility of the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1965 would have been slim to none. Those acts implemented intent and words of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Just holding us up to true meaning of the words articulated in the Declaration of Independence. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-03-19 10:53 |
| #14 Pancho, you are exactly right on King, but not so right on the awakening of the blacks. If anything, we will continue to be dumbed down as a nation until something happens to force the truth upon us in grade school. I don't see that happening soon. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2008-03-19 10:33 |
| #13 Shelby Steele I guess I never considered him black. But I guess race is a matter of self identification. He has a good article out and I will post it in opinion. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-03-19 10:28 |
| #12 Martin Luther King himself was a fraud--a phony, skirt-chasing black preacher who plagiarized his doctoral dissertation and who swore worse than most sailors. Obama, Jackson, Sharpton, etc., are just following in his footsteps. King is nowhere near worthy of the inflated reputation he now has. Alex Haley's balloon has finally been quietly popped; maybe someday blacks will be secure enough to view MLK for what he was, not what everyone wanted to pretend he was. The truly sad thing about blacks is that they've been offered such tawdry heroes as role models when the real, bona fide heroes they've produced--people like Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Walter Williams, Col. Allen West, Condi Rice, Ralph Bunche, Clarence Thomas and Colin Powell, to name a few--have been completely ignored (if not outright slandered) by the Democrat Party. You know, the party which claims to be acting in their behalf. The Dems would rather honor the undeserving and inflammatory race hucksters than people who have really done something admirable. I'm sure that some day most black Americans will realize what kind of cynical scam was foisted on them by the Dems. It may not be soon, but it will come, and when it does, they'll realize that the lefty scum who kept their minds enslaved through falsehood were not one whit better--in fact, quite probably worse--than the slaveowners who bought and sold their ancestors before the Civil War |
| Posted by: Pancho Elmeck8414 2008-03-19 10:13 |
| #11 Was he really as good as he sounds? Gladys, the Revererend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (better, mhw?) was a womanizer and a bit of a dandy, but he articulated the vision of those who sought equality of opportunity for the black man in America better than anyone else. He put his life, and those of his family, on the line every time he preached integration... and eventually he was assassinated for it. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-03-19 10:10 |
| #10 Darth, what does Mr. Luther's vision (reform of Catholic Church circa 16th century) to do with the racial reconciliation in the US circa 21st century? |
| Posted by: mhw 2008-03-19 10:01 |
| #9 I've seen it on the faces of too many sheriffs of the South. . . . Yeah, I saw that movie too. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2008-03-19 09:57 |
| #8 Obama and Wright are a disgrace to Mr. Luther's vision. They, and the other race hustlers have prostituted and dragged that dream through the mud for their own personal power and wealth enrichment. They don't even deserve to look at the man they have betrayed. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-03-19 09:40 |
| #7 Was he really as good as he sounds? Good enough to forge an alliance and build a new majority that move this country into manifesting the promises of 14th and 15th Amendments into real law. It took a hundred years, his leadership, and the work literally of millions to make it happen. All to fall in the end at the hands of much lessor men who would turn his legacy into the profession of race and power hustling. The alliance is now shattered. You are witnessing the historical window close after too long a period of abuse of those opportunities he opened. Does anyone question that there are hundreds of thousands Zimbabweans who'd trade places with the Rev. Wright today? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-03-19 09:26 |
| #6 Raleigh, N.C. – After a week filled with bad news for the Obama campaign, Hillary Clinton is out to a 56-30 lead in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2008-03-19 09:22 |
| #5 I loved the comments of John Derbyshire at NRO - corner, "..an ugly mish-mash of ancient socialist clichés and Gen-X spoiled-brat self-congratulation, all enveloped in clouds of flatulent Oprahnian rhetoric. Ugh! Obama's just a red-diaper baby with a nice smile. I actually like Jeremiah Wright better than I like Obama. At least you know where you are with Wright. Obama, I wouldn't trust to mail a letter." |
| Posted by: mhw 2008-03-19 08:43 |
| #4 And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, From every mountainside, let freedom ring! And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. Martin Luther King |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-03-19 07:58 |
| #3 The demos are the the party of the "Hate America First" crowd. It wont hurt him a bit with his followers. The loudest silence is coming from Hillery. She is the only one who is gonna benefit from this. She's keeping quiet hoping to cull some votes. Imagine if BO was a republican (or Nader). A real benefit of this two person demo fight is the amount of money both are going through. Money that is not being saved for the general election. Pass the popcorn please. |
| Posted by: BrerRabbit 2008-03-19 07:55 |
| #2 Call the speech, "The Audacity of Deceit." |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-03-19 07:54 |
| #1 Is it significant that this is in the Washington Post? BTW. I'm not American and I don't know that much about your history but the quotes I've seen attributed to Martin Luther King Jr. are just wonderful. Was he really as good as he sounds? |
| Posted by: Gladys 2008-03-19 07:26 |