To call Lanny Davis, former special counsel to President Bill Clinton, a supporter of Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy doesn't really do his role justice. He's more like an honorary member of Clinton's campaign. So when he goes for Barack Obama's jugular this morning in The Wall Street Journal over Obama's response to Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial sermons, it's hard to believe he doesn't have Clinton's official blessing:
[I]f Sen. Obama wins the nomination, he needs to understand that this issue goes well beyond Clinton partisans. Now is the time to address these questions, not later.Clearly Mr. Obama does not share the extremist views of Rev. Wright. He is a tolerant and honorable person. But that is not the issue. The questions remain: Why did he stay a member of the congregation? Why didn't he speak up earlier? And why did he reward Rev. Wright with a campaign position even after knowing of his comments?
There's one audience Davis is courting here: super-delegates.
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The Washington Times, the National Journal, the Wall St. Journal Editorial page.
Let's see, you've left out Newsmax, Little Green Footballs, and Free Republic- why not go whole hog?
If they bash Democrats, they can be sure to be found here.
Yes, I know , this man is a Democrat. But the only reason he's on the WSJ editorial page is that he is bashing another Democrat. The WSJ also printed dozens of nasty editorials on Vince Foster, which is one of the things that drove him to suicide. False witness, and they paid no price for it at all. I think that the real God-O-Meter for the WSJ is not very good on that score.
The article on Jeremiah Wright in the most recent edition of The New Yorker (which I am in the process of reading) explains the development of Wright's radicalism as an attempt to compete with the Nation of Islam and other black separatist/black nationalist movements.
Perhaps Obama's long membership in Trinity and with Wright is explained by the same desire, to establish his "street cred" by seeming to be in touch with what is seen as the authentic voices of Black America.
The problem, I would argue, is that the anger expressed at Trinity may be an attempt to respond to something authentic, but that doesn't mean that the response is authentic. I would argue that the response if based on conspiracy theories and comforting delusions that are leading the people away from an authentic expression of who they are and what they believe. I believe that what goes on at Trinity may be in some sense authentic, but in some sense it is also (IMO) as phony as a 3 dollar bill, but much more dangerous.
The carefully cherry-picked clips that the media played 24/7 are not an accurate picture.
Go to You Tube- there are 75 other clips of Wright that present a different picture, and I think a more accurate one. Keep in mind that this was a political hatchet job, and was crafted to present a very misleading picture.
It's a lot like the stories that Clinton was having people murdered. Slander is very much in vogue these days in the press, and fact- checking a distant memory.
The New Yorker is a pretty reliable source, not the sort of magazine that indulges in political hatchet jobs.
If Wright wants to say "God-Damn America," bully for him. He has that right. When he encourages his congregation to believe paranoid conspiracy theories, then he is venturing into Reverend Jim Jones territory, not Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
Many people believe and have said what Rev. Wright brought the issues up publically. Should we be paranoid? Look at the economy, look at the jobs market, look at our deficit, look at what we have done to Iraq, look at how the government monitors American's who want to express thier views, look at all of the lies coming out of Washington D.C., look at how the rest of the world views the U.S., look, look, open your eyes. How much have we lost, how much have we gained? Reverend Wright had a right to say what he did and whether right or wrong, we need to look and think about what we see and hear. You cannot bury your head in the sand and think that it will be alright tomorrow because things keep getting worse and worse.
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