Obama is on TV now talking live, criticizing Wright's statements. I don't know that I've ever seen Obama so depressed, downcast and deflated. He's saying little in this session that he hadn't said before, but he said it so much less effectively. This won't be enough for him. Another opportunity missed. "Obviously whatever relationship I have had with Rev. Wright has changed as a result of this," he muttered just now. Obama is clearly hurting here, but this is not exactly throwing the jackass Wright under the bus. Obama needed to show real fire in his belly, not this rote, "more in sorrow than in anger" stuff. Jeremiah Wright, as Eugene Robinson noted in today's WaPo, is an egotist who is working to derail Obama's campaign -- and this is the only fight Obama can muster on his own behalf?! Not good for Obama.
Steve Sailer nails the psychodynamics of this situation:
At the moment, though, Obama doesn't look like a leader. Obama's problem now is that Rev. Wright's vigor and enjoyment of the situation makes Obama, by contrast, look like a loser. Think about how Reagan wrapped up the 1980 election by turning to Carter in the debate and saying, with a smile on his face, "There you go again." What the hell did that mean? Not much on paper, but on TV it showed that Reagan was enjoying his dominance over the President. Reagan learned that from FDR, who always wore a look of amused mastery as he stuck the shiv in his political opponents. The public likes that in their leaders.In the Obama vs. Wright battle, Wright is now playing the alpha male.
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Zak,
The crux of Obama's problems is that he did not have the good sense to manage his political relationship with Wright more effectively and to keep as far away as possible from somebody like Ayers. Because Obama has very little governing experience, we're supposed to vote for him because he shares our values, has good character, and has demonstrated excellent judgement. A majority of Americans now doubt his values, character (especially leadership ability) and judgement, as well as his understanding of their lives.
I'm also a former U-of-C grad student and Hyde Park resident. His problem is not with people like us, you a reluctant Democrat and me a reluctant Republican. We can understand his situation a little bit better and perhaps even have sympathy for him on some level. Be that as it may, I believe his problem with working class whites is fatal and I see nothing to disuade me of that belief.
If Wright cared about his friend he would have let Obama do the talking and kept his mouth shut. He betrayed his friend, and by derailing the Obama nomination, he let down the African Americans who were looking to see the first black President elected to office.
I didn't vote for Obama in the primary, but it had nothing to do with the Wright business. I was undecided up until the day of the primary. I took a couple of online surveys to see which candidate most closely matched my outlook on the issues, and Hillary came up the winner.
I took a couple of online surveys to see which candidate most closely matched my outlook on the issues, and Hillary came up the winner.
Are you sure that Hillary's "outlook on the issues" is based on what she really believes and really will do, and not on what's necessary for her to win the nomination/election? :^D
Pyrrho, I agree he has a problem, but I think the media is making bigger deal out of this than they should, making his problem worse. Why does Rod harp on this so? Because he is a detached observer who finds it an intriguing political subject? Or because he thinks there's a problem there, when he should know there isn't?
PS.
For anyone interested in why Obama picked Trinity UCC, here's an interesting article from Noam Schreiber at The New Republic:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/04/29/why-d-obama-join-trinity-in-the-first-place.aspx
From the Norm Schrieber article on why Obama picked Trinity UCC, he takes a passage from an Obama biography by David Mendell which in part quotes Rev. Wright talking about Obama when he was first getting to know him:
"He felt comfortable asking me questions that were postmodern, post-Enlightenment and that college-educated and graduate school-trained people wrestle with when it comes to the faith."
Is Obama still into postmodernism and post-Enlightenment thought? I would find that troubling.
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