Trent Lott watched a lifetime of public service go up in smoke after saying kind things about his friend, Strom Thurmond, who, decades previously, had been a staunch segregationist. Barack Obama spent the last 20 years in the pews of Rev. Wright's church, donated over $20,000 to him in 2006, listened to the man scream racist insanity, made a speech suggesting that it's all OK and now wants us to elect him president.
Trent Lott was punished for his actions in the most draconian way. Barack Obama should be rewarded with the highest office in the land. There's no combination of phonemes on the planet that can reconcile that dichotomy.
Anyway, on with the summary. As usual, Dick Morris has the most pragmatic analysis.
Wright's rantings are not reflective of Obama's views on anything. Why did he stay in the church? Because he's a black Chicago politician who comes from a mixed marriage and went to Columbia and Harvard. Suspected of not being black enough or sufficiently tied to the minority community, he needed the networking opportunities Wright afforded him in his church to get elected.Meanwhile, Victor Davis Hanson elegantly eviscerates the speech.
The Obama apologia was a “conversation” about moral equivalence. So the Wright hatred must be contextualized and understood in several ways that only the unusually gifted Obama can instruct us about:...This was the analysis closest to my own. The moral relativism that I find to be one of the greatest problems with the modern Democratic party was on full display here. Equating his grandmother's private racial epithets with a lunatic who sells videotapes of his incendiary sermons to all and sundry is symptomatic of a group who has lost the capacity for reasonable judgment. To Barack and his followers, then, a speck of evil is equal to a mountain of it. If you carry this logic to its end, Barack is placing himself above both of them, since it is only the pure who can pass judgment on anyone. As I listened to the speech, the arrogance and pride oozed out at me as Obama analyzed his pastor as you would a house pet.
2) We are all at times racists and the uniquely qualified Obama is our valuable mirror of that ugliness: Wright may say things like “God damn America” or “Dirty Word” Israel or “Clarence Colon,” but then it must be balanced by other truths like Obama’s own grandmother who also expresses fear of black males (his grandmother’s private angst is thus of the same magnitude as Wright’s outbursts broadcast to tens of thousands)...
The message? Some of us are never quite responsible for what we say. And Obama has no responsibility to explain the inexplicable of how he closely tied himself to someone of such repugnant and racist views.
Over at Michelle Malkin's joint, Allahpundit provides one of the most brutal analyses of all.
If the last 20 years count for anything, the best estimates of his “fundamental beliefs” are that the United States is a racist hegemon begging to have jets flown into office towers to teach it a thing or two about imperialism. He’s a gutless, opportunistic coward who was afraid to say an unkind word to one of the power brokers in the black community on whom he counted for votes as an Illinois politician, and now that he’s a national figure he’s throwing the same guy under the bus to preserve the illusion that he’s a “post-racial” politician. And you’re sitting there cheering him on because you don’t care what sort of idiocy or anti-American vitriol you have to swallow to put a Democrat back into the White House. Does that about sum it up? Have I missed any “nuance” in the “U.S. government created the AIDS virus” rant that Obama never, ever heard anything about and that you’re now willing to wave away?That just about does it. There were lots more, of course, but those seem to sum my thoughts up pretty well.
Elections in the US, which always seem to devolved into a game of "Oh yeah? Well, *my* candidate is less reprehensible than *your* candidate!" remind me of something I read when I was a kid:
ReplyDelete"If a man ain't ruined before he gets into office, he's ruined by the time he comes out. And there ain't no sense in ruinin' a good man."
Maybe we should just take it as a given that all the candiates have had their characters asassinated already, and move on to actually discussing the merits of their policies (or the lack thereof).
tim, thank you so much for yout comment, but you're going right back to moral relativism.
ReplyDeleteNo, they aren't all the same. Mitt Romney waltzing through Europe instructing people about the glories of Cureloms and Lost Tribes of Israel is not the same as John McCain being tortured by the Vietnamese Communists and then refusing to get out of prison early and giving his spot to someone else.
You can't point to this or that indiscretion by John McCain and tell me the two are equal. They just aren't.
I liked the quote, it sounds like Will Rogers. Having said that, I just don't agree with it.
More to the point of this story, Barack's grandmother, who raised him after his father abandoned the family, is not the same as Rev. Wright no matter how often she referred to black thugs with the n word.
Granted, I mostly was joking, there obviously really *are* some candidates that are more reprehensible than others - although I think that most of the time, the most obviously evil cases get weeded out fairly early on (Romney *is* gone, after all).
ReplyDeleteWhat mainly prompted this, though, is that in recent weeks I've seen a number of people who have been ragging on McCain for the various evangelical pastors who have been endorsing him (some of whom are evidently widely considered to be dangerous loons). I think that trying to tar Obama with this particular "wacko preachers he associates with" brush has a serious likelihood of getting tar on McCain, too.
Tim, good point. That link between some of the nutjobs supporting McCain and Rev. Wright is going to be made, no question about it.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes right down to it, that preacher is a flat out racist. You can call it reverse racism, but he and Farrakhan, and others, and Obama and his wife for sitting there and accepting it are racists.
ReplyDeleteWhile they say it is because they are black and downtrodden, they refuse to acknowledge the vast sea change that has led us all away from racist attitudes towards them, as evidenced by the huge crowds coming to see Obama, and people who loved him for himself, his vision, and his oratory transcending skin color.
America was ready. These guys aren't.
And why is it that when I hear the defenders talk, I get the feeling that were they to suddenly rise to power, and be in the majority, there would be no more pretense of compassion and tolerance - in reverse. It's weird, but it is like Mexican immigrants wanting rights that we would not be given if we were in Mexico. We want to bend over backwards to be nice and give in, but no such quarter is given in return.
Sorry if it sounds harsh. It's just the reaction that has solidified after listening this last week.
KT, I think the big difference between McCain and Obama in this regard is that Obama dissociated himself from Rev. Wright. McCain, on the contrary, got up on stage with John Hagee a well known anti-catholic bigot, and accepted his endorsement.
ReplyDeleteWould you prefer for president a man who removes himself from someone who lets his flights of fancy carry him away or one who openly accepts the endorsement of a man who calls the Catholic Church ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system’?
As Wright was an ex-navy man I can see why he did what he did to help get Lt. Robert O. Goodman back in the 80s.
So, are you for McCain or for the Catholics and the Navy?
aon, thanks for stopping by again!
ReplyDeleteYep, Senator McCain got on stage with a bigoted nutjob who hates people like me. I wish he hadn't. However, I would bet that every major presidential candidate since the first election has accepted the endorsement of some nut or other. Looking into the beliefs of the kinds of people who give such endorsements, most of whom are fanatics in one way or another, is probably like looking into three week old garbage. Unpleasant at best.
Among other insane ideas, Rev. Wright believes that the US government developed the AIDS virus to kill off colored people. Barack Obama attended his church for 20 years and endorsed him, not the other way around, for those 20 years by donating tens of thousands of dollars per year.
I might have missed it, but how much money did John McCain donate to this whack job's church? I would bet zero or some sum close to that.
I enthusiastically support John McCain for president.
A few months ago, you and I came to an agreement that the budget deficit was critically important. While I do not believe in the Republican Party as a whole when it comes to solving this problem, I do believe in John McCain being the best alternative in this area of the three major nominees by far.
KT,
ReplyDeleteI guess I am more in the Dick Morris camp on this one. I think the Rev. Wright is a loon who should be mocked, not treated seriously, same with John Hagee. Seriously, I look forward to a youtube with somebody doing the Rev. Wright in black face, no wait, they wouldn't have to go that far. Until I heard him, I couldn't tell the guy was African-American. Maybe there's an explanation for his absurd sermons in there somewhere.
Meanwhile, I wonder why there are so many whackos attracted to the preachin' profession. Then I look at my own pastor, who can wax eloquent on the role of Christianity in the founding of Western Civilization (a favorite theme of the current pope as well) or our personal responsibilities in response to God's forgiveness and think that there is hope after all.
I am glad for the publicity surrounding Rev. Wright and note he hasn't tried to defend himself in public. I can only assume he is finally embarassed.