The Chicago Sun Times’ Lynn Sweet predicts that Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s forthcoming flurry of public appearances–he’s a guest on Bill Moyers Journal on PBS tomorrow and is making public speeches in Detroit and Washington, DC in the days following–bodes ill for the Obama campaign, regardless of what Wright has to say:
Fresh material from Wright — no matter how well-intended — is not what Obama needs.
God-o-Meter agrees. Wright can say much that hurts Obama further (count on the news media hanging in his every syllable) but what can he say that would help Obama other than completely disavowing his most explosive sermons? It’s impossible to imagine Wright doing that. Any explanation he gives over these next few days just gives the media another chance to revisit the controversy. That’s one more day the news cyle follows Obama’s pastor problems rather than Obama’s message.
Interestingly, Sweet notes that the PR firm that was helping Wright and his church respond to the controversy (at the Obama camp’s behest) was not consulted about Wright’s Washington speech:
When the uproar over Wright started, Obama chief strategist David Axelrod asked his friends at Jasculca Terman — a public affairs firm — to advise Trinity on how to handle the crush of media coverage, and they did, pro bono. Jim Terman, the president of the firm, said, “We were not asked to provide our advice about the reported speech of Rev. Wright in Washington” and did not know about it until it was scheduled.
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