Robert Novak writes today that the Democrats are facing a huge problem with the whole Rev. Wright situation and Barack Obama. There's actually a good argument to make that Obama's electability is seriously compromised by the Wright business. But at this point, if the superdelegates move to Hillary, they'll be responsible for not only going against a numerical majority of voters, but will have denied the first black man who ever had a real shot at the Democratic nomination. Can't imagine that will go down well. I think it's more than likely that the Democratic nominee will be Barack Obama. And -- I can't believe I'm saying this, given how gloom-and-doom I've been about the GOP for so long -- I think it's likely that he will lose to John McCain.
I say this after spending a long weekend thinking about the Speech and the public's reaction to it, having several conversations with various people about it, and trying to game out different scenarios. I just cannot come up with a scenario in which Rev. Wright's radicalism (including the Hamas stuff) can be contextualized away. It's too emotionally potent. The Obama speech appealed to intellectuals in the media and elsewhere, in part because it truly was a good speech, one that spoke to voters as if we were capable of thinking complex thoughts, not just reacting to sound bites. The difficulty -- an insuperable one, I think -- is that it took Obama half an hour or more to make that argument; it takes only a few seconds for people to take in Rev. Wright's rhetorical land mines.
Obama aims for the head; Wright's sermons are blows to the gut. Which are more likely to move voters? Do you think independent voters are going to be more moved to vote for the candidate who is a war hero who was tortured for his country -- or the guy whose spiritual father described his country as "the US of KKK-A"?
Understand: I'm not saying HOW people should vote. There's a case to be made that the more patriotic thing to do is to vote Obama, who would get us out of Iraq, than to vote for the Vietnam hero who would keep us there. Again, though, think about how powerful symbolism and emotion are in our politics, especially given that the primary forum for "debate" (I know, the word is debased) is visual, not print.
I also believe, based in part on various in-person and e-mail conversations I've had over the long weekend, that there are quite a few whites who are pleased to see Obama, the great liberal hope, suffering because of the same rules of public discussion of race that liberals have used to punish conservatives who deviate from them. I've been hearing a strong "sauce for the gander" sentiment from whites who believe Obama is asking to be held to a lesser standard than whites. These feelings run very deep. You can say that people are wrong to feel that way, and you may be right, but the fact is, that stuff is there, and it's a big political problem for Obama.
Victor Davis Hanson is onto something:
The more the pundits gushed about the speech, the more the average Americans thought, “Wait a minute — did he just say what I thought he said?” It’s not lost on Joe Q. Public that Obama justified Wright’s racism by offering us a “landmark” speech on race that:(1) Compared Wright’s felony to the misdemeanors of his grandmother, Geraldine Ferraro, the Reagan Coalition, corporate culture, and the kitchen sink.
(2) Established the precedent that context excuses everything, in the sense that what good a Wright did (or an Imus did) in the past outweighs any racist outburst of the present.
(3) Claimed that the voice of the oppressed is not to be judged by the same rules of censure as the dominant majority that has no similar claim on victim status.
What is happening, ever so slowly, is that the public is beginning to realize that it knows even less after the speech than it did before about what exactly Obama knew (and when) about Wright’s racism and hatred.
Again, Obama gave a good and intelligent speech, but the problem he faces in an age in which the news media cannot control the story is that come the fall, Jeremiah Wright's Greatest Hits will be all over the Internet, incessantly, and also in paid ads for 527s. The contrast with McCain's heroic persona will be stark -- and nuanced arguments (like conservative Bacevich's case for why voting Obama over McCain is better for the country, re: Iraq) will get no hearing. I talked to a reporter today about James Cone's crazy anti-white theology, and the reporter, who (I think) had interviewed Cone the other day, says Cone has provided various explanations contextualizing his more radical views (e.g., something he wrote in 1969 saying that a God who doesn't stand by blacks in wanting to smash whites isn't a God worth worshiping). How on earth to you "contextualize" that kind of thing? Here's more about Cone, from a McClatchy story on how Cone's teachings have influenced Obama's church:
Jesus is black. Merging Marxism with Christian Gospel may show the way to a better tomorrow. The white church in America is the Antichrist because it supported slavery and segregation.Those are some of the more provocative doctrines that animate the theology at the core of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Barack Obama's church.
[snip]
Wright has said that a basis for Trinity's philosophies is the work of James Cone, who founded the modern black liberation theology movement out of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Particularly influential was Cone's seminal 1969 book, "Black Theology & Black Power."
Cone wrote that the United States was a white racist nation and the white church was the Antichrist for having supported slavery and segregation.
Today, Cone, a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, stands by that view, but also makes clear that he doesn't believe that whites individually are the Antichrist.
In an interview, Cone said that when he was asked which church most embodied his message, "I would point to that church (Trinity) first." Cone also said he thought that Wright's successor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, would continue the tradition.
Oh boy. That'll go over real big on Main Street. If I worked for the RNC, I'd be licking my thin lips in anticipation of running the fall campaign against either Hillary Clinton or the guy who goes to the Marxist black liberationist church.
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Yeah, we should be hugely concerned about Obama's pastor . . . because if Obama gets elected, all of a sudden the shoe will be on the other foot and white men will stop running everything from the Senate to the penitentiary, stop owning all the wealth that has not yet been transferred to OPEC or the Chinese, stop holding all the top jobs in finance and industry . . . . If Obama gets elected, all the white men in Manhattan will have to move to crumbling rat-infested housing in Philadelphia and Detroit. Their children will be sent to public schools without textbooks or functional bathrooms. Police officers will break into their homes and shoot them after getting warrants with the wrong address. Their grandparents will be lynched to make up for previous inequalities in the lynching program, and all public facilities, as well as the more genteel private organizations, will be re-segregated to exclude white men. Yes, it is the apocalypse. Be afraid! Be very afraid!!
Or perhaps, if Obama is elected President, life will continue as usual. The hand-tailored corporate wingtip will remain on the white foot where it is now. President Obama will resemble every other Democratic president, though with a slight alteration in hue. Seriously, what's all the hyperventilating about?
Daniel is that his position is that the amount of anxiety displayed has been excessive, not that "any anxiety ... is illegitimate."
This. Two weeks of almost non-stop analysis is excessive. The disproportionality of the focus and the rhetoric and the teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing and frenzy-whipping is excessive.
This entire matter is important simply because Obama himself made it important. Four years ago he presented himself to the American public as one thing (a post-racial healer and uniter) and now the revelations about Wright (and his response to it) reveal a different thing. The appeal and uniqueness of his candicacy rests on this single premise. If the premise is shown to be false, then Obama is revealed as just another politican.
Politicians often bring this on themselves with claims about themselves that turn out to be unfounded. Obama is reaping what he sowed.
Well, a few problems with the reasons behind your prediction (with the disclosure/acknowledgement that I usually vote Dem and that, of course, anything could happen):
"I say this after spending a long weekend thinking about the Speech and the public's reaction to it, having several conversations with various people about it"...
Doesn't strike me as a reliable way to predict the outcome of an election that involves hundreds of millions of people and is more than 7 months away (in which time a LOT of other stuff will happen).
And does even the more negative interpretation of public reaction really indicate something insuperable for Obama? One poll that gauged the general reaction showed extremely positive numbers for him. And one that didn't seemed to have its wording shaded to elicit the more "negative" response. Anyway, whichever one you put more stock in, neither really indicated an insurmountable problem in a race where the fundamentals all point to the Dem's advantage, and in which the GOP candidate's stance is essentially that he wants to provide more of what has made those fundamentals problematic for the GOP in the first place. (Even GBush1 felt compelled to discuss a "kinder, gentler America" as he ran to succeed a generally popular Ronald Reagan.)
"took Obama half an hour or more to make that argument; it takes only a few seconds for people to take in Rev. Wright's rhetorical land mines."
Disingenuous: He didn't speak for a half-hour because that's literally how long it took to make a statement about Wright. He gave a half-hour speech, using the controversy both to address the issue of Wright himself and the larger one of race relations. Yes, the problem was big enough that he needed to make a speech, as opposed to issuing a statement, but the "major address" routine is a fairly familiar way of recasting the whole thing in a favorable light and refocusing people's attention--not an indication that it literally takes x number of minutes to say what you need to say. I mean, there's probably an actual political reason why nominees give long-form speeches at their parties' respective conventions rather than just doing a quick-hit review of their stances on various issues and then saying goodnight after 10-15 minutes. (And let's be honest--if he had gone up there and spoken his piece in 2-3 minutes, wouldn't you now being marveling at How Little He Had To Say About Such An Important Issue?)
Your citation of Hanson ("What is happening, ever so slowly, is that the public is beginning to realize that it knows even less after the speech than it did before about what exactly Obama knew (and when) about Wright’s racism and hatred") seems to contradict your own perception of the quick-hit nature of people's attention spans. If there's a legitmate fallacy among the "media elite" that their own reaction to the speech is the same as everyone else's, I think there's an equal and opposite fallacy among conservative opinionators that their fine-toothed interpretive attention is equalled by the general electorate's. Again, to be cynical (this is politics after all), you say he "gave a good and intelligent speech, but...", but the "but" and everything after may be moot. Giving a good and intelligent speech, in itself, may well be the quick-hit takeaway for many people, even if they couldn't quote a single thing from it a week or two later. (And is Hanson's statement of fact about what people are thinking really BASED on fact, or on what he's hoping they're thinking?)
"Do you think independent voters are going to be more moved to vote for the candidate who is a war hero who was tortured for his country -- or the guy whose spiritual father described his country as "the US of KKK-A"?"
Well...history suggests that they'll vote for the guy who isn't the war hero if they simply feel he's closer to their own opinions on the core issues. Clinton over Bush1. Clinton over Dole. Bush2 over Kerry. That doesn't mean people actually had a moral preference for squirreling out of military service in wartime, versus serving and performing courageously. It just shows us what's really insuperable: political fundamentals. I suspect the question really is who has the biggest liability, ultimately...whether voters will choose the guy whose spiritual father etc over the guy who will have been shown saying--himself, in heavily rotated commercials--that staying in Iraq 100 years is fine with him, and that he doesn't actually know that much about the economy. My guess is yes...commercials and punditry featuring Wright won't be aired in a vaccuum, after all.
Again, I'll acknowledge anything could happen. But if, as I suspect, independents/swing voters/whatever ultimately sense that Obama isn't actually a guy who goes around thinking "God damn America," it could be the GOP who gets a lesson in what gets real old, real fast.
"Obama aims for the head; Wright's sermons are blows to the gut. Which are more likely to move voters? Do you think independent voters are going to be more moved to vote for the candidate who is a war hero who was tortured for his country -- or the guy whose spiritual father described his country as "the US of KKK-A"?"
That's United States of AmeriKKKa, with all her proWHITE segregated church houses. Get our story straight, even this particular detail!
No matter how much those dated video clips of Pastor Jeremiah Wright's prognosis of 'progerss' in AmeriKKKa offended the majority European American status quo, it was the real gospel to practically every non-European ethnicity and nationality not enjoying the blessings and benefits of this nation's largesse and freedom, often by legislative design. As zealously overwroght as Wright was, his basic crime was inexpedience during a point of anger and disconsolation. America did bomb Japan. America, through her intelligence agencies, has usurped and destroyed more foreign governments for capitol gain than we ever want to admit. Our national orginal sin is bound horrifically in conquest and slavery for centuries. The ugly reality is that America has not been fair and equal to all her citizens. The ugliest truth is that America still is not fair and just to all her citizens. We have current immigration laws, Jena, and Katrina to best demonstrate that to the world, much to America's chagrin and embarrassment. We're a young nation with a very checkered past.
It's real easy for the intended beneficiaries of the American manifest destiny alleged to have been mandated by Divine Providence to presume to chastise the proginee of their slaves for having not gotten beyond the xenophobia engrained in every wrung of the current social order. It's easy for you to dismiss us as pathetic, self-loathing whiners, while demanding we thank you for an opportunity to meet Jesus while in the chains of your captivity and participate in building this nation at the end of whips. It has been a long time since 1865. I suppose European Americans feel we should all be way beyond this point by now.
But, we still have Jena. We still have the hateful words of our President's mother at Katrina. We still indure the highest rate of social detriment in the forms of poverty, disease, homelessness, lack of access to the commons, and greatest restriction of movement. We suffer victimization just for skin color and hair texture in a so-called free society where the status quo resents laws meant to protect us and endow us with a voice too long silenced. We're still seen as N-(expletives) no matter what progress America boasts. America is still TECHNICALLY segregated by ethnicity no matter how offensive that truth is for the status quo to hear. We are not all just Americans. We are divided into groups as African Americans, European Americans, Central Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and whoever-Americans. So, our quest for civil rights, equality, and the subsequent liberty enyoyed from living in a true democracy has yet to be realized, as Pastor Jeremiah Wright has let us know in no uncertain terms. That is the reality, truth, and life for many of us whose voices are rarely heard by the broader, more privileged end of our society.
The thing is that American Xenophobia existed way before Pastor Wright reminded us that our bigotry still damns us as a nation. The status quo is more miffed that he could make such claims and still get a credible platform even now, more than they are insulted by his claims. It embarrassed America by taking away the pretentious gloss of egalitarian brilliance usually used to polish our imagined democracy in the eyes of the watching world who is currently laughing at us at a time of Bush calamity. This was just the worst time to hang out that dingy American laundry out of which we have been too long unable to get those aggravating stains of our bigotry, our inequality, and our discontention. The status quo felt like this discussion was less important now, and could be tabled until some other time. After all, for God's sake you have allowed one of us to run for the nation's highest office. What more could we possibly want than that? Well, actually, a whole lot more, the details of which you will learn as the conversation continues. We thought this civil discourse should be an ongoing conversation that joyuously ends the blessed day we are all deemed by each other to be JUST Americans in the eyes of our new American LAWS, no matter how you personally feel about Pastor Wright.
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