Saturday, March 15, 2008

Shredding Obama’s “denunciation”

At NRO Victor Davis Hanson will have none of Obama’s “denunciation” of his long-time friend and pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, following the airing of video-tapes documenting Wright's vicious anti-Americanism and racism.

Despite the serial profession of a new politics, there is something Nixonian about Obama's recent disclaimers over his racist pastor's diatribes. At first he tried to blame the messenger:

"Here is what happens when you just cherry-pick statements from a guy who had a 40-year career as a pastor.”

The problem is not cherries, Senator, but an entire orchard.

The most egregious slurs are not from two decades past, but post 9/11 and especially in 2006. And Obama should have learned from Nixon that when there is something there, it is best to get out in front of it in a manner that anticipates more disturbing revelations.

Yet the modified hangout then followed;

"It's a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those with HIV/AIDS."

This is a de facto defense of, not a distancing from, Wright, and begs the question of why? And the AIDs evocation is especially damning since the reverend has made it clear that HIV was our own creation, apparently part and parcel of some US government conspiracy.

Is Obama now suggesting that Wright did important civic work with AIDs even though he promulgated a belief that the virus was fabricated by our own government? ….

“Judgment” is the wrong word here, because the entire Wright liaison is proof positive of terrible judgment. And the problem is not judging Sen. Obama “on the basis of what someone else said”, but on the basis of his own generous subsidies to someone who spewed forth not mere speech, but hate speech.

And when Obama announces, “The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation,” he only will prompt investigative reporters to rush to substantiate whether the Senator was there when any of this calumny was preached, or has given a hint that he was aware of it in the past.

No doubt every word he has written, interview he has given, and people he has talked with will be examined to see whether that astounding statement is in fact true. For some strange reason, Obama has now banked his entire campaign on his word and assurance that he did not hear on a single occasion any such screed.

I hope he is correct. But if one were to collate the reverend’s views on what his congregation should think of the United States, and, further, his writs against Americans as “selfish, self-centered egotists who are arrogant and ignorant” with Michelle Obama’s own astounding statements that hitherto she had no pride in the United States, and considered America “just downright mean," and Americans “guided by fear" and (in the words of the New Yorker profiler) who summed up her views as ‘we're a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents’ the echoes are eerie.

Without sounding dramatic, I think his campaign has seriously underestimated the effect of the Wright tapes on the average American voter (again, the problem is not just the transcript, but the delivery, most notably its fury and coarseness), and the senator’s own abject inability honestly and forthrightly to explain the close relationship of the Obamas to Reverend Wright, apologize for such a lapse of judgment, and move on.

His advisors are culpable here, and apparently in their spin have no clue that they are making things worse rather than better.
I hope you read the whole thing here.

7 comments:

Christian Prophet said...

It's not about the pastor. If Obama's THEOLOGY is seen for what it is the election is lost. See:
http://miraclesdaily.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

For a number of years my company owned a radio station that had a programming contract with a very prominent African-American Christian preacher. The attitudes of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. were an integral part of the Victimology mindset of every member of their staff. After making poor choices, many blacks expect the government to pick up the tab; AND for whites to apologize.

anon said...

Most people appear to focus on Obama's pastor as problematic when in fact Obama's membership in a black separatist church is the real problem. How indeed can a candidate who characterizes himself as a uniter be a member of a separatist church? It wasn't just the Rev. Wright's sermons but the response from his parishioners. Did you hear all the amens and hatred spewing forth from those who were listening? I did. They are haters and so is Michelle and Barry. Haters. It is truly absurd. But no one notices. Frightening.

mac said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Day--aaaym!

The thread at the N&O blog is still going strong after over a week. Linda Williams responds with the usual and she is once again SMACKED DOWN for her dishonesty.
Why isn't Debrah writing a regular column somehere? She's hell on wheels.

This is it.

03/15/08 at 09:45

(Debrah Correll comments)--

Ms Williams opines:

"Many people commenting here seem to be merely taking an opportunity to express their own considerable racial anxieties."

Projection.

News & Observer readers and subscribers are continually handed a dose of "racial anxieties" by its employees....who use their jobs to vent their personal prejudices. And get paid for doing so, by the way!

" It's obvious that some find the color of my skin disturbing and have concluded that my color is all the information they need to determine what I think and my motivations."

Ms. Williams, I can't speak for all commenters here, but the "color of [your] skin" is not disturbing to most normal people....despite your fetish for "otherness".

Your own exploitation of it, however, is disturbing.

Last Friday's post is a bell that has been rung. We heard it loud and clear. And adding that to the patina of your past performance when race has been a feature of a news story..........well, everyone knows how that sorry episode turned out, do we not?

Do you think you should be immune from criticism just because your employers don't hold you to a higher standard?

"It seems more important to them to address my color than my words."

Readers are never left with that task. You do it so well on your own.

Like so many floaters in society, "race" is your Bible.

"I acknowledged that one of the obstacles is a distrust of the news media in those communities."

Most communities do not distrust the news media.

There are just some who want to downplay the degree of crime in their communities and the reasons for it.

And some journalists willingly assist in this endeavor.

"Those of you who just want to continue the racial rant, have at it."

Let us all remind you, Ms. Williams, that you and you alone---with the blessing of your employers---exploited this topic all on your own.

It must be a kind of unfamiliar and fresh hell for you when people tire of this worn-out tool.

Further........

"LTC8K6"--(and I do wish everyone would use their own names!)--correctly illuminates the vast differences between these two crimes.

A love triangle gone deadly is hardly a comparison with the elements of Eve Carson's murder---a random act of opportunity in the wee hours of the morning in a quiet neighborhood which does not have the incessant crime occurring in Durham and around the NCCU campus.

Criminals in places like Durham, where a revolving door exists in their justice system and where there are "journalists" providing cover by constantly diverting attention away from the lifestyle of criminality and that community's own responsibility for it, are not challenged to be anything other than what they are.

Consequently, nothing ever changes. The enabling---both overt and covert---gives a kind of perverted justification for this culture of crime.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if KC Johnson is still proud of his presidential candidate Barack Obama. Does KC Johnson agree with Rev. Wright’s statements about America? Does he (like the rest of the Obama supporters) think over 90 percent of blacks voted for Obama just because he was a junior senator from Illinois? I wish we could hear KC Johnson’s view’s on this important topic.

Anonymous said...

4:43pm

Also, Debrah has been quiet on the subject. Since she's pretty vocal on most things it's odd that she hasn't weighed in after coming out in support of Obama, but then DIW is on hiatus.