Well, if you thought that Jeremiah Wright wasn't going to be a continuing issue, you didn't see his performance at the National Press Club today. Here's the transcript. In short, Wright:
1. Defended the idea that the US Government could have invented AIDS to kill black people.2. Refused to criticize Louis Farrakhan, and called him one of the greatest men of the last and current century.
3. Said that US soldiers are like Roman legionaries (which is not terribly controversial if the point you are making is that America is an imperial power, but he's making the point that our soldiers are oppressors like the Roman centurions were of the Jews in Jesus's time).
4. Said that Obama is distancing himself from him (Wright) not because he really dissents from Wright's message, but out of political expedience.
5. Said criticism of him is criticism of the entire black church.
The man is an egomaniac, pure and simple. Andrew Sullivan, who has been probably Obama's highest profile advocate in the blogosphere, has defended Wright in the past, but now has had it with the guy. Excerpt:
Obama needs not just to distance himself from Wright's views; he needs to disown him at this point. Wright himself, it seems to me, has become part of what Obama is fighting against: the boomer, Vietnam era's obsession with its red-blue, white-black, pro and anti-America fixations. That is not what this election needs to be about; and Wright's massive, racially divisive and, yes, bitter provocation requires a proportionate response.We need a speech or statement from Obama in which he utterly repudiates this poison, however personally difficult that may be, however damaging the impact will be. The statement today will not do it. This is no longer about cynics trying to associate one man's politics with another. It is now about Wright attempting to associate himself and some of his noxious, stupid, rancid views with the likely Democratic nominee. Wright has given Obama no choice - and he has also given him another opportunity. He needs to seize it.
Will Obama seize it? What does it say about his character if he doesn't? What does it say about his character if he does? The drama is getting Oedipal in here!
Prediction: Andrew Sullivan is doomed, as Ross prophesied last week, to join the ranks of those disappointed by Obama, and boy, is he going to be bitter. I believe that Rev. Wright is more right than wrong when he says Obama is distancing himself out of political expediency, not conviction. Because if you look beneath Obama's unitive rhetoric, you'll find that he head-fakes to the right, but almost always takes the leftmost position.
Anyway, if Obama backers are sick and tired of the political media's focus on Rev. Wright, they need to take that up with Rev. Wright, who chose to go to the National Press Club (!) today and say all these things. He invited reporters to come hear him. He's orchestrating this. His ego cannot stand to be silenced. What's Obama going to do about it?
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
"Said criticism of him is criticism of the entire black church."
Good! Keep talking Rev., sooner or later the American people will take you at your word and realize the same poisonous bile is going on in "black churches" all over America. It's NOT just Rev. Wright, he's not some far out loon but a pretty typical black preacher.This racist trash has nothing to do with Christianity, it's warmed over Marxism.
"Obama needs not just to distance himself from Wright's views; he needs to disown him at this point."
He's gonna have to disown his wife too. She's nearly as bad as Wright. I'm pretty sure Obama believes all this garbage too, that's why he chose to have these people in his life. He just is trying to hide it, put him in office and it'll come out.
The awful truth is that many blacks feel the same way that Wright does, believe the same insane things that Wright does, want revenge the same way that Wright does.
Indeed. God help America.
I don't see it. I read the entire transcript and it seems pretty tame. While one might disagree with him, I don't see anything too bizarre.
On the AIDS issue, he cites his sources as to why he thinks the government is capable of creating the AIDS epidemic. He might think they did and I might think it is a crazy idea, but I would have said the same thing about the Tuskegee Experiments and about dozens of other rather bizarre stories in the history of American public health.
We might think Louis Farrekhan is a nut, but there is no denying his importance in the race conversations of the late 20th century.
His comparison to Roman legionaries is explicitly in reference to imperialism and the fact that imperialism means some people rule and others are ruled. Our military is not enforcing our laws or collecting taxes, so the comparison is a stretch, but not a radical one. Replace "laws" with "economic interests" and replace "taxes" with "oil" and, presto!
I'll give you points four and five.
While all of this seems like tired rhetoric to my suburban white ears, banality is the worst criticism I can offer. I don't see crazy and I suspect that he is not even pushing the envelope in the African American mainstream. So, to call him crazy would be painting a wide brush across a lot of people. So maybe I'll take back point five.
People, I want universal health care and I want out of Iraq. If we have to suck it up and vote for Clinton to WIN in November then we'll have to do it. Ugh. We mustn't let our spite trump issues that are important to us. McBush destroys Obama at the polls in November and you know it.
Wright could be having more than senior moments but be on his way to a dementia like Alzheimers or borderline personality mental illness or some other form of mental illness- he needs a psych evaluation and if Obama says that this guy is different than he was 20 years ago when he met him- Obama might be right- the man is having a mental breakdown- he just retired ( looks like he was fired) and is taking it rather badly.
We the nation should not be punished for a man going crazy- he is not running for office.
We need a person who is for uniting people for building on confidence and hope and who will be respected by others 0 that is Obama and I am glad he got rid of his pastor!
I am sick and tired of pastors who end up in million dollar homes anyway- or that Pope who come to the US and still do not change the cannon law to protect children from priests- a pox on all their houses.
Give me the Dali Lama any time - a humble man who preaches love and compassion and peace.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.