Christopher Hitchens on Obama’s Grandmother
[Guest post by DRJ]
The subject of Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been hashed and rehashed but I’m linking this Christopher Hitchens’ article in part because I was intrigued by the opening paragraphs and in part because the portion I bolded made me laugh:
“It’s been more than a month since I began warning Sen. Barack Obama that he would become answerable for his revolting choice of a family priest. But never mind that; the astonishing thing is that it’s at least 11 months since he himself has known precisely the same thing. “If Barack gets past the primary,” said the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the New York Times in April of last year, “he might have to publicly distance himself from me. I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen.” Pause just for a moment, if only to admire the sheer calculating self-confidence of this. Sen. Obama has long known perfectly well, in other words, that he’d one day have to put some daylight between himself and a bigmouth Farrakhan fan. But he felt he needed his South Side Chicago “base” in the meantime. So he coldly decided to double-cross that bridge when he came to it. And now we are all supposed to marvel at the silky success of the maneuver.
You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily. (Yet why do I say I am surprised? He still gets away with absolutely everything.)”
In the following paragraphs, Hitchens gores oxes that are both black and white, Democrat and Republican. Ultimately, however, I think Hitchens’ point is that Obama’s response to the ministry of Jeremiah Wright “negates everything that Obama says he stands for by way of advocating dignity and responsibility over the sick cults of paranoia and victimhood.”
But see for yourself and read the whole thing.
— DRJ
III. THE HOPE OF THEIR RELIGION
109A good old [censored] in the slums of the town
[censored]
110Preached at a sister for her velvet gown.
111Howled at a brother for his low-down ways,
112His prowling, guzzling, sneak-thief days.
113Beat on the Bible till he wore it out
114Starting the jubilee revival shout.
115And some had visions, as they stood on chairs,
116And sang of Jacob, and the golden stairs,
117And they all repented, a thousand strong
118From their stupor and [censored] and sin and wrong
119And slammed with their hymn books till they shook the room
120With “glory, glory, glory,”
121And “Boom, boom, BOOM.”
I’ll give you a link to the whole poem if you like but just reading it will send you to prison in Canada and England and get you expelled from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
nk (34c5da) — 3/24/2008 @ 3:19 pmThat is a simply wonderful piece by Hitchens.
Bradley J. Fikes (a18ddc) — 3/24/2008 @ 3:47 pmAs my father likes to say, “that man can really write a sentence”
JD (25bb93) — 3/24/2008 @ 3:53 pmWhat is so delicious is Obama is a smoother liar than the Clintons and the Clintons are flummoxed that the MSM that gave them cover for 15 years is now covering for Obama.
Perfect Sense (b6ec8c) — 3/24/2008 @ 3:53 pmHitchens scares me. Great piece on the duplicity of Obama; but it also says he can’t be stopped. Long before any of us, Obama knew he would have to pull away from the family pastor. He made that calculating decision while still using the Chicago church base. It’s chilling. Hitchens’ take on grandma is good:
Vermont Neighbor (a8a46e) — 3/24/2008 @ 4:01 pmI read this Hitchens diatribe more as an extension of his hostile war on all religious beliefs than a true indictment of Obama.
While he focuses on the current controversy and the beliefs and theology of Wright, remember that he is eager to launch a similar blast against any religious figure connected to any political figure he wishes to attack.
He gives it away on the second page of the link: “Now, by way of which vent or orifice is this venom creeping back into our national bloodstream? Where is hatred and tribalism and ignorance most commonly incubated, and from which platform is it most commonly yelled? If you answered “the churches” and “the pulpits,” you got both answers right.” If you know Hitchens, he has kept that phrase in his pocket to use against any politician or policy that could be connected to an outspoken religious figure.
Hitchens is a gifted writer and fascinating political figure, in that you can call him a marxist atheist pro-war neo-con and sort of get it right but miss the point completely. He is better understood as someone who is virulently anti-religion, and has since been willing to support US efforts against Islamic terrorism because the Islamic militancy is just a bit worse than what he thinks is Christian informed US version.
But don’t for a minute think that if McCain (or Clinton if she becomes the likely nominee) takes a political stance he disagrees with, Hitchens won’t attack their religious beliefs and mentors with equal vehemence, with equal condemnations of homophobia, discrimination, etc. stated differently but amounting to the same basic hatred of religion.
As for Obama throwing his grandmother under the bus, I still think he made a great point that even a wonderful person who loved him and raised him could be conflicted and apprehensive over race. It’s painful to think that it affected them on both sides of the relationship when it shouldn’t be an issue. But the central lesson of his bringing this up as an example is that his grandmother didn’t love him less because of race and that he doesn’t love his grandmother less because of her perception of racial issues. Far from Hitchens’ assertion that he sold his own grandmother to suit his own interests, I saw it as using a personal touchstone as an illustration of how connection and understanding can overcome racial perceptions on either side, as a metaphor for racial conciliation nationally. It was either too subtle or too crude a metaphor for different people (maybe both in my own case), but I get what he was trying to do there.
Aplomb (770d80) — 3/24/2008 @ 4:11 pmHitchens is a fanatical anti-religion witch hunter. His I hate God ministry is tiring and really old hat. He doesn’t actually say anything new he just says it better many times than it has been written before.
edward cropper (11587f) — 3/24/2008 @ 4:23 pmI’ve been thinking that some folks are considerably puzzled by Barack Obama. I don’t think I am, and so I offer my take on who his constituents want him to be, and therefore the direction in which he has driven his ambition. It inevitably takes him across people like Wright, not because Wright is whom he is, but because he’s a liberation theologist and that is a well-known checkbox on the list of Boule prerogatives.
Obama has obviously come across the political imperative of the Talented Tenth. It’s hard to say exactly where or when but it is clear to me that this is the case. I believe that he has been drafted into black leadership in rather the same way all gifted black individuals do in this country. I cannot imagine that he didn’t get through Harvard Law without some notion that he could succeed in accomplishing the lifting of all boats in ways black predecessors had not. As Spengler says, you may find Obama in his women. That is something I do not doubt. Michelle Obama, unquestionably gets Barry the proper profile – she is Felicia Rashad to his Bill Cosby. If he was ever confused about his blackness, as callous as it sounds, Michelle is the trophy wife to get him into the right circles of the liberal black upper class where Condi Rice and Clarence Thomas have their caberet cards cancelled.
There has to be some enormous temptation for Obama to swoop in and inherit the legacies of great black leaders and continue the Struggle that lives on in utopian dreams of millions of black Americans who feel unheard in the current political system. Temptations such as these will lead one to great black political churches like Trinity.
Hitchens is absolutely right about Obama’s adoption of Trinity and Wright. Without a fire and brimstone black preacher, he’d be no more credible in certain black communities than OJ Simpson was, at first.
Cobb (995ecc) — 3/24/2008 @ 4:41 pmAplomb:
I might agree with you had Obama used his grandmother’s story in another context, such as to show how people can overcome prejudice, but he didn’t. Instead, Obama used her as one side of a coin with Jeremiah Wright on the other side.
I think Hitchens’ point is quite simple and you don’t even have to address Wright’s extreme rhetoric to make the point. On the one hand, Obama’s white grandmother overcame whatever prejudices she had and raised her bi-racial grandson. On the other hand, Jeremiah Wright presided for 20+ years over an “Unashamedly Black” church that focused on black issues, not racial harmony.
Not only did Obama equate his grandmother and Wright – and they seem more like polar opposites to me than equals – but he bills himself as the one person who can harmonize the racial divide in America. Obama couldn’t overcome the racial divide with his own pastor. Maybe his grandmother ought to run for President.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/24/2008 @ 5:08 pmObama’s “Judgment to Lead” slogan looks pretty silly when Obama has not the judgment to lead his family out of a church with a pastor whose rhetoric is unacceptable according to Obama.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/24/2008 @ 5:12 pmapplause. hitchens feels the same way about churches that i do. no, edward cropper, hitchens doesn’t hate god, he doesn’t believe in god. what atheists and pagans hate is christians using their faith in a manipulative way to achieve secular political goals. we hate the public piety/hypocrisy and the resulting cynicism.
on the same note, james carville just called bill richardson a “judas” for endorsing obama. i never understood the hatred for judas. if he hadn’t betrayed jesus, wouldn’t jesus have lived to a ripe old age, and possibly died from falling off a donkey? from the symbological perspective, a cross beats a donkey all hollow as a spiffy logo for a major religion. jesus apparently knew in advance what was going to happen and he could have ducked it if he wanted to, the whole transaction from gethsemane to calvary bears some resemblance to an oregon-style assisted suicide.
assistant devil's advocate (0c7724) — 3/24/2008 @ 6:15 pmDRJ:
I guess my point is that you can’t judge any politician by the worst impulses or statements of that politician’s grandparent or preacher, and you can’t assume that the politician agrees with the most outlandish thought or statement of his or her ancestor or religious guide.
While we have some isolated Youtube examples of Wright saying disgusting and racist things, they mostly relate to sensitive political and racial issues. And whoever is posting these clips to discredit Obama aren’t trying to convey the scope and tenor of Wright’s overall theology, they are focusing on the worst of the worst they could find.
I have no idea of what a typical Wright sermon might be, but he might usually be an inspiring and uplifting Christian preacher. Due to his long tenure at a vital Christian church I would think he has to be an effective messenger of Christ. For every minute of controversial and racist statement, there might be hours of valuable and uplifting spiritual message omitted.
That’s where I oppose this specific article from Hitchens, because he simply hates religion and will grab the most available handle to trash it and all who profess it.
Hitchen’s test is not a test I would like to see applied to any candidate for President. Let’s not get into what Romney might have had to face with Mormonism, what his Bishop might be on the record of stating. You need to be wary of any politician who is anything but an atheist or perhaps the blandest sort of Unitarian agnostic unless you want to see Hitchens go after them, too.
As for Wright, you don’t sustain a Christian congregation for that long and that successfully if you don’t focus on the theology first. I have no reason to believe he was anything but a very good and effective Christian preacher. People don’t go to a Christian church to dwell on divisive racial issues, they go there to learn about the Bible and Christ. Obama might have been there all those years to listen to an especially effective preacher, while discounting that preacher’s asides into race and politics. Most intelligent believers know how to think for themselves, and to draw the line between a theologian’s knowledge of religion and opinions on politics.
So, I think that to reduce Wright’s message over the last 20 years to a handful of intemperate and stupid political and racial observations is to erase the positive religious message he may have been conveying to Obama. Obama might have been drawing great strength and wisdom from Wright when he was hewing to the Bible, and disagreeing with and disregarding Wright when he got into politics and race.
In the same way, I think Obama might have drawn great lessons about family and values from his grandmother, while learning to disagree with some of her views of politics and race.
I don’t think Obama threw either his preacher or his grandmother under the bus. I don’t even think he falsely portrayed them as two different sides of a coin.
I think the point of Obama’s speech was, various decent people important and influential to him had good ideas and not so good ideas, some of which have conflicted, and the contrast has been good in that he has been able to try to figure out which are the better ideas that win out. And he wasn’t wrong in suggesting that the US could possibly benefit from this consideration of weighing the good from the bad from different sources, races and traditions too. People with hateful prejudices might have some good and important insights into other areas. Adults are free to figure out the good from the bad. And the absolute last person I want to tell me that a specific person is so hateful that you can never consider some of their ideas would be a person running for President.
Aplomb (770d80) — 3/24/2008 @ 6:20 pmObama has condemned another hateful thing he is shocked, SHOCKED, to find out his personal Jesus stands for.
It was cleverly hidden in a church bulletin where Obama would have no chance of seeing it:
Sen. Barack Obama says that a pro-Hamas op-ed printed in his church’s bulletin was “outrageously wrong.”
In an issue dated July 22, 2007, in a section titled “Pastor’s Page,” the Trinity United Church in Chicago reprinted an article by Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzook. The article, which originally appeared as an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, justifies the Palestinian terrorist group’s denial of Israel’s right to exist.
The church’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright Jr., who retired this year, has stirred controversy for Obama’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination with statements likening Israel to colonialists and blaming attacks on the United States in part on its support for Israel.
In slamming the Hamas piece, Obama noted that he strongly rejects some of his longtime pastor’s views.
“I have already condemned my former pastor’s views on Israel in the strongest possible terms, and I certainly wasn’t in church when that outrageously wrong Los Angeles Times piece was re-printed in the bulletin,” Obama said in a statement e-mailed to JTA late Thursday.
Bradley J. Fikes (1c6fc4) — 3/24/2008 @ 6:27 pmDid Madelyn Dunham who was a Vice President at a bank deny loans to anyone because of their race?
Matt Smith (909713) — 3/24/2008 @ 6:28 pmEven though that City prides itself as being color blind. What would be the chance he might convert to Islam, like his mother, who married 2 moslem men? I wonder if Abongo “Roy” Obama could shed any light to this? Best to buy your throw rug for the mosque before they go up in price if Obama gets elected. I know where to get them cheap.
Hitchens can get overwrought about religion but Obama lied about his grandmother. She expressed concern about an aggressive black panhandler. This will not go away soon but it will not keep him from the nomination.
Mike K (b9ce3e) — 3/24/2008 @ 6:49 pmaplomb – I will give you credit. At least you are nice. Completely in the bag for Baracky, but cvil.
JD (25bb93) — 3/24/2008 @ 7:05 pmAplomb #12:
Wouldn’t that be nice? But there’s no evidence that’s true and there’s some evidence it isn’t. Specifically, Wright and/or his church released and sold DVD copies of his sermons and apparently most of the video excerpts came from the DVD.
If you are correct, then Wright said offensive things once or twice and never said them again but, nevertheless, those extreme quotes were pulled out of obscurity and included on the DVD of his sermons. I think it’s more likely they were included on the DVD because they were his most popular sermons. If so, wouldn’t he return to these themes again and again because they resonated with him and his congregation?
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/24/2008 @ 7:31 pmThe critical point is that this church sold these DVDs as a:”best of…,” series. They selected what was shown. This was not some ambush video.
Mike K (b9ce3e) — 3/24/2008 @ 8:00 pmDRJ – Kind of like how Trinity allowed Hamas to run an editorial in their Sunday bulletin, yet another thing Baracky has seen fit to repudiate, only once it became difficult for his presidential campaign.
JD (25bb93) — 3/24/2008 @ 8:14 pmGood points, Mike K and JD. I noticed several bloggers are looking into Obama’s whereabouts on July 22, 2007, re: the Hamas sermon / bulletin. It looks like he was in Miami on the day of the sermon but it’s unknown whether he saw the bulletin.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/24/2008 @ 8:23 pmYou know DRJ, had Baracky been out in front of this, and actually repudiated Wright at the time, it would have shown some real steel in his spine. As is, after talking with Wright about how he may have to distance himself should their belief set get in the way of his messianic presidential candidacy, he came across as just like any other politician. He had so many chances to put these issues to bed for good, but at every turn, took the politican way out, which is not playing well.
JD (25bb93) — 3/24/2008 @ 8:29 pmDRJ – Whether he was there or not really makes no nevermind to me. It is incomprehensible that he did not know that his church either gave or sold space in their Sunday bulletin to Hamas, or did not become aware of it shortly thereafter. Again, waiting until it becomes an issue, and then, and only then, denouncing it, shows a typical political lean to it, rather than the uniter vibe he wants everyone to have. Much like his speech, where he denounce the statements that caused controversy, allowing everyone who heard that to apply that denunciation to any aspect that may have bothered them. Being all things to all people is tough.
JD (25bb93) — 3/24/2008 @ 8:33 pmJD #21,
I agree. I think it would have been his Sister Souljah moment and it would have been powerful, even if he had listened to the sermons for years. Americans are forgiving if you ultimately do the right thing, and I think they would have felt that way about Obama.
Now he looks weak and in the pocket of special interests. I guess we’ll see how many people care more about whether the President feels their pain than whether s/he is strong and independent.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/24/2008 @ 8:35 pmTo take Mike K’s comment a bit further, not only did the church specifically choose those sermons, they also knew they would be available to anyone who wished to purchase one, either within or outside of the church body. Knowing that there was such hate and racism on them it would seem to follow that either the church and Wright didn’t care about either the public’s reaction, or that it would possibly cause a furor because of a potential POTUS being pare of their congregation. The other possibility is that the church (and perhaps other black churches practicing liberation theology)really believe there is absolutely nothing wrong, socially or theologically, with such content.
Dana (fba430) — 3/24/2008 @ 8:36 pmBased solely on what I’ve read – so this is mostly a guess – but I think they thought there was nothing wrong with these beliefs. It might even have been part of the church’s selling point because it set them apart from other black churches in Chicago.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/24/2008 @ 8:45 pmDRJ #17:
That doesn’t really contradict my point. Even if you could boil down his 20 years at the pulpit into some DVDs, what people are complaining about and showing on youtube and talking about in the media from those DVDs are a few minutes of controversial and horrible stuff. The worst of the worst. What’s on the rest of the DVDs? It might be some really good preaching. That might be what has kept Obama going back to the pews. No one has really analyzed the whole story though, it’s just all about the obviously obnoxious stuff.
Obama has said he has disagreed with the objectionable parts, but he didn’t go so far to reject the whole message. That implies that Obama enjoyed and benefited from much of the rest of it. Is that so hard to understand? Have you never been part of a religious group where some of what you heard you didn’t agree with but you got caught up in and enjoyed the rest?
If you really want to establish this precedent — that the worst thing you can find that a politician’s regular spiritual leader has ever said must be attached to the politician even when the politician explicitly denounces it — go for it. Anyone but an atheist will be caught in the trap you set. People will find all sorts of objectionable beliefs by any Christian minister, or Mormon Bishop, or Rabbi or Imam. And even the atheist politician will be hounded by texts and conceptions of what atheists believe even if the atheist politician tries to denounce parts of it.
I object to that, though. I think like everyone else, a politician can pick and choose from what
is coming from the pulpit, drawing strength from that which resonates in his spirit and rejecting that which he finds false. It is fair game to ask the politician what his beliefs are, but it is not fair to wholly attribute to him the beliefs of his sect or personal religious adviser even when the politician denounces those specific points.
Religious people do have free will and independent intellectual capabilities, you know. Not all Christians are cultists, accepting everything said by their pastors as undiluted truth and wisdom.
Wright said some crazy outrageous stuff, on occasion. Obama explicitly rejected the stuff people are complaining about.
What gets me is that people can’t wrap their head around the fact that Wright might also have said plenty of other, non-controversial stuff that Obama found comforting and intriguing enough to base his faith upon and keep him coming back over the years. Wright was not a cult leader, he was a respected Christian clergyman in a big town in the US.
Obama doesn’t strike me as a cultist. I think he took the positive he could from his church and left the rest behind. He explained that to us in denouncing the hateful stuff, and I’m still waiting for evidence that Obama was lying and truly means to lead this country into the racial hatred you could attribute to Wright’s worst statements.
Do you really think Obama is a stealth bomb to introduce Wright’s worst thoughts and impulses into the national discourse, and Obama is helpless to discern the positive and negative from his long time pastor’s message? Is there really a problem here? Or is it just an opportunity to bash a politician because of religion?
Aplomb (770d80) — 3/24/2008 @ 8:49 pmWell, if thats so (that they believe there is nothing wrong with such beliefs) it would certainly explain their and anger over the public reaction.
Assuming that it is true, it makes Obama’s choice to be a part of that congregation all the more troubling. There’s no backpedaling.
Dana (fba430) — 3/24/2008 @ 8:50 pmHitchens is also the same person who once said that David Irving was a “great historian of Fascism,” and that Hanukkah was a “celebration of tribal Jewish backwardness.” Obama’s grandma and her ethnic stereotyping of others may not be the moral equivalent of Rev. Wright, but Hitch sure is.
Steve Smith (72a7af) — 3/24/2008 @ 8:52 pmAplomb,
I’m sure David Duke has good qualities and kind moments, but that doesn’t make it a good idea to vote for one of his long-time followers.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/24/2008 @ 9:06 pmDRJ 29:
Well that is flippant and all I need to know about your level of analysis: because it is a bad idea to vote for a David Duke follower, you should not vote for a Senator who has explicitly declaimed the racist statements made by his pastor.
I’m sorry I tried to engage this site as I have in the above posts, as I did put some honest and civil effort into it. I’ve made the same mistake here before, so I should have known better.
Aplomb (770d80) — 3/24/2008 @ 9:31 pmAplomb,
I think you have mistaken brevity for flippancy.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/24/2008 @ 9:46 pmAplomb #26,
Do you want a detailed response? Fine:
And it might be that Obama only stayed around to hear the really bad stuff. Who knows? You can take Obama’s word for it or you can look at the circumstantial evidence. Feel free to do either but don’t criticize me that I find 20 years of circumstantial evidence to be more persuasive than Obama’s current, self-serving words.
Not like this. At the risk of incurring your ire – again – it would be like staying in a white power, David Duke-style church for 20 years but excusing it on the basis that some/most of the time they said nice things.
I can live with that. When someone is a member of and participates in an organization for 20 years, I think it’s fair to believe they can at least live with, and probably share, the values of that organization.
You make your decisions and I make mine. Just because I like to talk about these issues doesn’t mean I want to change your opinion.
All this talk about cults makes me nervous and I never considered Wright or Trinity Church as a cult until you brought it up. I think I’ll just let that part be.
As for whether Obama might be an open-minded, curious sort of guy intrigued by this pastor, that works for the first year or two. After that the novelty should have worn off. He stayed because he wanted to and received a spiritual and/or political benefit from the whole package.
I think Obama is a liberal socialist who picked his church affiliation to obtain credibility with blacks.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/24/2008 @ 10:05 pmAplomb has the right idea, and it is specifically the idea that the McCain campaign has taken. It’s the high road and the rest is piling on and lowering the standards of debate.
The implications of not giving Obama the benefit of the doubt are that you must agree with everything in all your charitable events. That if you decide to help Muslims, you must be Muslim.
This is, by the way, the exact same kind of prejudice that black conservatives get. It doesn’t matter who we actually support in the GOP, we become responsible for the Southern Strategy and all of the foul racism of Strom Thurmond, David Duke and against Civil Rights legislation like Goldwater. Once you have decided to tar someone by association, it doesn’t matter what you repudiate because someone will always prejudicially suggest that the most offensive aspect is not only the core belief but precisely your attraction.
cOBB (d077c2) — 3/24/2008 @ 10:23 pmI understand the concern over the “typical white person” statement and the rationalization of Reverend Wright’s statements, but why have I not hear anything about this:
So we’re all just a bunch of racists? Reagan wasn’t about a “great” America, a shining light on a hill, a nation of doers?
Tanny O'Haley (54659c) — 3/24/2008 @ 10:26 pmDRJ #32:
“I think Obama is a liberal socialist who picked his church affiliation to obtain credibility with blacks.”
I’m rendered speechless, so I guess I will see you in another thread.
Aplomb (770d80) — 3/24/2008 @ 10:28 pmI’m delighted to end this conversation, Aplomb, but my last comment was unfair and I want to elaborate.
As I said, I believe Obama picked Trinity Church because it served his political and community goals, but I also think Obama stayed in the church for 20 years because he and his wife liked it. They probably liked the pastor, the people, even the building – because when you belong to an organization for a long time, those things are familiar and comfortable.
By your reasoning, Obama was perfectly normal and right to overlook a few or even many bad moments in exchange for the comfort and familiarity of a close church relationship. I expect better judgment and strength of character from a national political leader. You focus on the personal; I focus on the principle. It’s not surprising you’re the liberal and I’m the conservative.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/24/2008 @ 10:42 pmas foreman of the internet jury, i’m voting to acquit drj of flippancy. aplomb, your problem is that you presented a long and painfully earnest argument utterly unsupported in evidence. jeremiah wright held a flock together for 20 years, so there must have been moments of good pastoral leadership interspersed with “god damn america” and “whites developed the aids virus to kill blacks”, well, i can top that. when i lived in san francisco 1977-1982, we had a guy in town named jim jones, who held a large flock together for a long time, later moving it to guyana, and achieved substantial influence in city government. no doubt you’ve heard the bad things about him that the media selectively excerpted from his record in order to smear him; feeding cyanide kool-aid to dozens of small children, the murder of congressman leo ryan, etc., but in your view there must necessarily have been a positive side to this misunderstood, maligned figure. he registered and mobilized many new voters in aid of good government, he skillfully leveraged public resources to help poor people, he was a beacon of racial unity…come back, aplomb, and give us your take on this, i believe that it would be insightful and entertaining.
assistant devil's advocate (b89f3c) — 3/24/2008 @ 11:10 pmCobb – I understand your point and agree with you. It’s the reason lawyers put a severability clause in a contract.
The problem that I have with Obama specifically, however, is that his entire platform of moving beyond racial issues and uniting people is diametrically opposite Wright’s message. You seem to conceptualize of a pastor delivering that kind of message on a DVD, added to the stated organizational goals of Trinity, and think that there is some hidden “message” that we just didn’t get to see that attracted Obama.
Wright must be quite off center to preach “love all mankind” one weekend and “God Damn America” the next, which of course doesn’t jibe with a Harvard educated Obama being comfortable with that kind of inconsistency. Because, as we know, Obama’s “message” is one of consistency in our understanding of each other.
His round message does not fit in the square hole of his associations, and it undercuts that message.
Apogee (366e8b) — 3/24/2008 @ 11:18 pmIt also doesn’t jibe with the facial expressions or body language of the crowd following Wright’s most obnoxious statements. They don’t freak out the way normal churchgoers would if their mild-mannered preachers suddenly switched gears, stopped talking about Christian love and started damning entire countries. They react like people who are used to hearing this stuff on a regular basis.
Xrlq (62cad4) — 3/25/2008 @ 2:52 amThe problem that I have with Obama specifically, however, is that his entire platform of moving beyond racial issues and uniting people is diametrically opposite Wright’s message.
Precisely. Barack the Racial Redeemer™ chose a racist hatemonger as his personal Jesus.
Bradley J. Fikes (1c6fc4) — 3/25/2008 @ 4:37 amWell said, Bradley.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/25/2008 @ 4:52 am“I tremble for America when I think that God is just.”
Sound familiar? Not a criticism of America? Are there ANY English majors around here?
Cobb (d077c2) — 3/25/2008 @ 6:20 amI do not buy this, Cobb. This is not some guilt by association thingie with Baracky. It goes straight to the core of their Church. Black Liberation Theology is the ackowledged belief system in which they operate, and one need not use guilt by association to find that objectionable.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/25/2008 @ 7:33 amIt should come as no surprise that my favorite commenter here is drj, who is often so eloquent in my opinions, that I see no need to voice them, because I might cheapen my own stance by adding to his words.
Aplomb, I credit you for civility and honor and integrity in your stances. I applaud you for your style and manner of debating difficult issues.
But your frustration is my frustration. I simply have a very difficult time with this need to find the Higgs boson of Rev. Wright’s venom, race-baiting and hatred.
Allow me an anecdote. I was raised not far from Rev. Wright’s church. I worked just a few minutes from there. His attitude and the attitudes boiling up from that congregation are no secret. When Louis Farrakhan was frothing “just a few offhanded” comments about Judaism being a “gutter religion”…more than a few affirmative nods of the head came from the TUCC.
In fact, Black Liberation Theo-politics…is a channeling of Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan through a Christian veil. The “chickens coming home to roost” reference, is a line by Malcom X after the JFK assassination…used against America by Wright about 9/11.
The trip to see Khadafi with Farrakhan, the exaltation of Farrakhan, the Hamas Charter being compared to our Declaration of Independence are ALL clear signs of the endorsement and approval of a particular worldview.
Sen. Obama exclaims with wide-eyed innocence that he was unaware of ANY statements or sentiments of hatred, ill will, or denigration made by his pastor. This simply can’t and won’t pass the smell test, aplomb. It’s the parish equivalent of “I did not have sex with that woman”.
I lived miles north of that congregation and even I was aware of the undertones, overtones, subtle and not so subtle feelings harbored there. The ridiculous suggestion that Sen. Obama was blissfully unaware of the very cornerstone of the preachings there…is absurd.
Ah…you say…but, even if he knew of the pastor’s venom, hatred, prejudice, (and that of the replacement pastor Otis), couldn’t he simply pick and choose which parts to like and dislike?
Of course he can. And his wife can choose to dislike America or refuse to feel proud of her country…unless it elects her husband as President. She can refuse to be proud when she was accepted into an Ivy League school and given assistance to attend it. She can refuse to be proud when she was accepted into an Ivy League law school and given assistance to attend it. She can refuse to be proud that she was hired at Sidley & Austin, or given a $300,000/yr + salary.
The greatest gift we have in this country, is the right… to be wrong. Boneheaded, stubbornly, aggravatingly wrong. Michelle Obama has much to be proud of in her life in this country. ESPECIALLY her adult life.
And most of the time, all you have to do…is admit it. Sen. Obama attached himself to an ugly and mean-spirited ideology when he spent two decades under the spiritual guidance of a race-baiting demagogue. And the lessons from the pulpit have seeped out of his wife’s campaign utterances. We are a “mean, lazy, slothful” country…of which she finds little reason for pride.
Sen. Obama spent 20 years silent as a church mouse about the anti-white, anti-Jewish, anti-America ravings MET WITH SMILES, LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE by his fellow congregation members.
This was and is the same message from Farrakhan, but for those “church people” who did not want to convert from Christianity. Rev. Wright brought Mohammed to the mountain. Black Liberation Theo-politics is warmed over Nation of Islam theo-politics through the vessel of Christ’s church.
The white man is the oppressor. The white man is the devil. Judaism is a gutter religion. We live in the US of KKK America. There is nothing to be proud of here. We deserve whatever terrorists do to us, because those are “chickens coming home to roost”.
Aplomb, if Sen. Obama’s wife sees us as a mean, slothful country…of which she should not be proud, if Sen. Obama’s SPIRITUAL LEADER…his mentor, his guiding light on moral issues…sees us as deserving of murder, that we should be damned by God, sees the Hamas charter as a parallel to our Declaration of Independence…where will he lead us? And why should I follow?
He can’t even lead his own wife away from her feelings, how can he lead a nation away from its feelings?
He can’t even rid a parish of open and vile vitriol and hate, how can he heal an entire nation?
He can’t avoid the fixers in Chicago to keep from selling out his principles, how can he avoid the oil sultans from selling out our committment to our allies in the Mideast?
He makes excuses and alibis for hatred and venom when he isn’t the target, will he pick and choose which Americans he wishes to represent as our President?
He says he will speak with any foreign leader or group, but will he excuse their hatreds and alibi their murderous intents by parsing their words and looking for “root causes” as he has done with the despicable Rev. Wright’s words? We don’t need Neville Chamberlain as the leader of the free world.
Which America does he see? The one his wife sees? When they are alone together at night, which America do they whisper about? Does he embrace the notion of Rev. Wright’s America?
Because the two people we have met, with whom he shares his most intimate moments…see an America that they feel…needs payback. Is he going to give it to us? And if he can’t change them, what does he have in store to change us?
cfbleachers (4040c7) — 3/25/2008 @ 8:48 amWhat nobody has said, because everybody knows it to be patently false is that Barack Obama himself is a black supremacist who has a racially partisan agenda. They cannot say this because they know that he is both too smart and too ethically upright to buy into racial conspiracy theories that Wright and/or his church might support. So Obama actually gets no credit for resisting the temptation of racist ideology even though it’s in his face.
Secondly, which was my original complaint, the idea that Obama was a Magic Negro – a racial redeemer, a non-threatening black man who puts whitefolks at ease, is the subtext of the outsize outrage over things he actually never said. You cannot in American politics have a more clear repudiation of the repugnant than that which Obama has given. I say that Obama as Magic Negro was a projection. That’s what you wanted him to be, not what he asked to be.
Where are the racial healing bona fides attached to the other candidates? When did that become a prerequisite for the highest office? What are they for the current president? There’s the double standard staring everyone in the face.
Try googling ‘post-racial’ before this scandal. Where is it in his book? What’s the legal term for attempting to prove something immaterial to a claim?
Today Tiger Woods is just a great world class golfer. Ten years ago he was a multiracial phenomenon. Ten years from now, perhaps Obama will be just another world class politician. Much of that is in the eye of the beholder.
As I’ve said elsewhere, there are plenty of things worth discussing about the merits of church politics in general, liberation theology in particular and the specific significance of Wright’s form of it and Trinity as a better or worse exemplar of a black liberation theologist church. But ten minutes of offensive soundbites over 20 years from a retired minister does not a reasonable study make.
I know this isnt’ a geopolitical blog, but I kinda think Samantha Power is more important to an Obama campaign than Wright, who was just on an outreach committee. Anybody know who else is on his outreach committee, or do we assume that Obama’s full connection to African American voters was based on Jeremiah Wright?
Cobb (995ecc) — 3/25/2008 @ 9:04 amCobb,
Obama has a whole section at his website devoted to African-Americans, not to mention his African-American Outreach Committee and its adviser, Rep. Gwen Moore.
CFBleachers,
That was a powerful statement.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/25/2008 @ 9:36 amPure, unadulterated horse puckey.
He denounced statements that people found to be controversial. He let every individual determine what they thought was controversial, and apologized for that. It was a non-apology apology.
Baracky has paraded himself as the individual uniquely qualified to advance his agenda. He and his disciples have pushed him as some messianic figure that through his unique upbringing, can bring the respect of the world to the White House, and can address racial acrimony. Problem is, when he had the stage, he fell right into identity group / greivance group politics as usual.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/25/2008 @ 10:22 amThey cannot say this because they know that he is both too smart and too ethically upright to buy into racial conspiracy theories that Wright and/or his church might support.
If Obama were ethically upright, he wouldn’t have chosen such a hatemonger as Wright for his spiritual mentor, or remained silent for years about the hateful lies told in TUCC.
Bradley J. Fikes (1eb712) — 3/25/2008 @ 10:28 amOr let Rezko buy his yard for him.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/25/2008 @ 10:28 amVery true, JD. And just think, there’s plenty more layers of compromise with biogotry and shady deals to peel off the Obama onion.
Bradley J. Fikes (1eb712) — 3/25/2008 @ 10:35 amcfbleachers, you deserve to be in the front rowwwwww.
(Bob Uecker fans get it.)
L.N. Smithee (b048eb) — 3/25/2008 @ 11:20 amThomas Sowell today addresses several of the points cfbleachers makes, with a focus on the choice to knowingly remain at Wright’s church. Proclamations of innocence and/or ignorance will not cut it. The article is worth the read, the last two paragraphs telling.
“While many whites may be annoyed by Jeremiah Wright’s words, a year from now most of them will probably have forgotten about him. But many blacks who absorb his toxic message can still be paying for it, big-time, for decades to come.
Why should young blacks be expected to work to meet educational standards, or even behavioral standards, if they believe the message that all their problems are caused by whites, that the deck is stacked against them? That is ultimately a message of hopelessness, however much audacity it may have. “
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/post_25.html
Dana (fba430) — 3/25/2008 @ 11:34 am#11,
ada: You’re essentially attacking the Founding Fathers.
Vermont Neighbor (a8a46e) — 3/25/2008 @ 12:11 pm“our allies in the Mideast”
– cfbleachers (italics mine)
Be honest, cfbleachers: use the singular form of the word. Hell, go ahead and capitalize it while you’re at it.
Leviticus (ed6d31) — 3/25/2008 @ 12:30 pmUm, no. I can find you any number of Catholic priests who haven’t uttered an objectionable word in their sermons in their entire careers…unless you’re a fan of abortion.
Pablo (99243e) — 3/25/2008 @ 12:37 pmAplomb,
No, but I think that a guy who would sit and listen to that crap for 20 and express reverence for the shitbag who uttered it is not someone I want to be my president.
Pablo (99243e) — 3/25/2008 @ 12:40 pm20 years, that is.
Pablo (99243e) — 3/25/2008 @ 12:40 pmHmm. OK. I’ll try to remember this as the zero-tolerance crowd. Do you think that you all can be consistent on that point? Or at the very least, do you think I could count on you to hold elected officials to a higher standard of behavior?
Because there’s this guy named James Payton Philip who has a pretty bad reputation as a race baiter in Illinois politics. And you know.. I’d hate to see more chickens come home to roost.
Cobb (995ecc) — 3/25/2008 @ 12:46 pmOh, by the way, what’s the standard line around here about Bob Jones University?
Cobb (995ecc) — 3/25/2008 @ 12:48 pmHere’s a snack pack portable lunch with bite-size quotes and photos of Barack. Essentially, the life and times of a not very great man.
Vermont Neighbor (a8a46e) — 3/25/2008 @ 12:56 pmhttp://www.slickbarry.com/
If I may be so bold as to answer that, they’re nutballs. So, which POTUS candidate is a graduate of BJU?
Pablo (99243e) — 3/25/2008 @ 12:57 pmThat’s exactly what you’re seeing. Consider it Presidential Zero Tolerance, if you like.
Pablo (99243e) — 3/25/2008 @ 12:58 pmGraduate? That’s hardly the point. The point is that Republicans send candidates to BJU to solicit their votes. Starting with Strom Thurmond to Ronald Reagan all the way to GWBush. BJU is active in South Carolina politics. How can the Republican party stand to seek the imprimatur of BJU for over 20 years?
Cobb (995ecc) — 3/25/2008 @ 1:12 pmC’mon, Cobb, Boob Jones isn’t running for President, and neither is anyone anywhere nearly as closely associated with him as Obama is with Wright. Tarring Republicans with the Jones label makes about as much sense as attacking Hillary Clinton and John McCain for being members of the same religion as Jeremiah Wright.
Xrlq (b71926) — 3/25/2008 @ 1:18 pmCobb – When Pate Philip decides to run for President, his race baiting should be held against him.
When McCain has attnded BJU for 20 years, gets married there, and has his kids baptized there, let us know.
Until then, this is just classic – Look over there! Something shiny!
JD (5f0e11) — 3/25/2008 @ 2:05 pmCobb, if I may…if you were lumping me in with the zero tolerance crowd…I freely admit it. How much tolerance for hatred should I have? I have zero tolerance for David Duke and I have zero tolerance for Louis Farrakhan. Should I have more for one than the other? Right is right, fair is fair, hatred is hatred.
Today is my day for anecdotal evidence, perhaps, but if you will permit me, I’ll share with you another one.
I was a rather gifted athlete as a young boy. I was known throughout my town for baseball, football and basketball in my youth.
I attended a Catholic grammar school that had been the doormat in each sport for all of its existence, about 15 years. It was a K-8 school, and in 7th grade, I played on the 7-8th grade “varsity” team…raising our success to the top portion of our conference in that year.
The entire parish couldn’t wait for me to become an 8th grader, we would finally be favorites to win the conference in all three sports. Baseball and football especially.
Yet, every Sunday…after Mass…I would hear the members of the congregation right on the church steps, hurling common epithets about Jews and blacks.
I went home to my father, one day after a late summer scrimmage against the team favored to challenge us for the football title that year. I had scored twice, once on offense and once on defense. We won and there was a lot of buzz about it.
And I told my father that I couldn’t allow us to “win” because of me. I didn’t feel part of that community, I didn’t want to reward them. I asked him if I could transfer to the public school for that very reason. The fully integrated…public junior high school.
Upon graduation from junior high, I received an offer for a full ride to attend and play football and baseball in the Catholic League school nearest my home.
I turned them down. I went to the fully integrated public high school and played football and baseball. This was in the late 60’s.
I had zero tolerance in 8th grade for blind hatred and I have zero tolerance for it now, 40 years later. I wouldn’t ask anything of any man, that I am not willing to commit to myself.
I walked away from my church, because I didn’t feel comfortable with those folks in the congregation. I never went back.
My little exploits on a grammar school level playing field are nothing…nothing…in contrast to becoming a US Senator or the President of the United States.
But I didn’t want them to embrace me because I sure as hell wasn’t going to embrace them.
Zero tolerance? How much more than zero should I have given them? Some of them did great works in our community, gave to orphans around the world, held fund raisers for the poor, and often did great deeds for friends in need. Should I have parsed their words? Sought “root causes” for their prejudices and hatred?
If I should have, I failed. I voted with my feet. I took from them, what all I could take. They finished last again…and they weren’t nice guys.
cfbleachers (4040c7) — 3/25/2008 @ 2:37 pmThat is a very moving story, cfbleachers. That’s true moral courage to stand against hatred — the kind of courage Obama has conspicuously failed to show.
Bradley J. Fikes (1eb712) — 3/25/2008 @ 2:46 pmWell done, CF.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/25/2008 @ 2:58 pmI’m sure all of us have a great story. With no intent to disrespect or sell anyone’s short, it seems like an odd moment to begin telling them, but that’s what we’ve got – this opportunity for all of these stories to come out of the woodwork. I’ve been hearing a number over the past few days.
I insist that the affinity between Wright and Obama is overstated and that Obama has been held to a standard which is nearly impossible to uphold by any politician involved with a substantial number of black community activists. I think the ease with which black liberation theology has essentially been called a ‘gutter religion’ in so many words, is striking, and that this character assassination far outweighs that done to Romney.
The net effect is that for the political purposes of discrediting Obama, a cause I find worthy, we have lowered the standard of debate. Furthermore, without much consideration to the evolution of various ethnic churches in America (I actually prefer Hitchens’ blanket condemnation) we have suggested that Wright and his church are indeed the black equivalent of Matt Hale and the Church of the Creator.
Our benchmark has been nothing more than offensive speech. In all of the screeds against Obama’s character, and Wright’s haterade, nobody has showed the damage. The problem with zero-tolerance is always the same, it enables hacks and tinfoil hat people. Who’s more realistic, a manic minister who has zero tolerance for American wars, or an offended electorate with zero tolerance for loudmouth preachers?
What I’m saying is that there is no distinction here between racism and BLOODY RACISM and this lack of subtlety always favors mindless interpretation. I’m not going to pursue the Bob Jones analogy, I hope you see the point I’m trying to make. I can recognize the damage and the difference between the racism of Obama’s grandmother, and Obama’s priest. It’s all racism and it’s all a moral error. But if nobody is willing to assess what the relative weights of all that, you give the political correct all the ammunition they need to destroy free speech.
Cobb (995ecc) — 3/25/2008 @ 3:47 pmOne of the sick things about Obama’s embrace of Wright and his twisted church is how it’s portrayed as a noble effort by Obama to reach out. But his reaching out only extended to one side of the political spectrum, as Sowell noted:
There is no evidence that Obama ever sought to educate himself on the views of people on the other end of the political spectrum, much less reach out to them. He reached out from the left to the far left. That’s bringing us all together?
Bradley J. Fikes (1eb712) — 3/25/2008 @ 3:53 pm““I tremble for America when I think that God is just.”
Sound familiar? Not a criticism of America? Are there ANY English majors around here?
Comment by Cobb”
The quote is a little off but maybe you’re weak on history.
“”I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
That was slave owner Thomas Jefferson predicting the future. Unlike George Washington, another slave owner, he did not free his slaves in his will. He was too deeply in debt. He was a Democrat.
Mike K (b9ce3e) — 3/25/2008 @ 4:06 pmI’m sure all of us have a great story. With no intent to disrespect or sell anyone’s short, it seems like an odd moment to begin telling them, but that’s what we’ve got – this opportunity for all of these stories to come out of the woodwork. I’ve been hearing a number over the past few days.
Well, Cobb…I’m not sure if anyone else has told a story, but mine comes not out of any woodwork, but out of my personal history.
And I suppose it came out now, because I thought it was illustrative of how I behaved in the face of ugly sentiments with which I was not comfortable. Why would the timing of that be odd? It would be much more odd, I would think…had I relayed that incident without any contrast or context.
I insist that the affinity between Wright and Obama is overstated and that Obama has been held to a standard which is nearly impossible to uphold by any politician involved with a substantial number of black community activists.
Your insistence has taken on a life of its own, I’m afraid. You seem to be twisting yourself into a pretzel to denigrate anyone else’s “story” that has been used in contrast and you struggle mightily to diminish his association with Wright as the same as “any” black activist with “any politician”.
Perhaps we are two ships passing in the night here, but that is NOT how Sen. Obama has portrayed his own relationship with Rev. Wright. Maybe you know their relationship better and maybe Sen. Obama has overstated it.
I think the ease with which black liberation theology has essentially been called a ‘gutter religion’ in so many words, is striking, and that this character assassination far outweighs that done to Romney.
The term “gutter religion” was a direct quote from Louis Farrakhan about Judaism. Is “black activism” and “black liberation”…about suggesting that white people are devils? Is it about suggesting that white society has created the AIDS virus to target blacks for death?
What greater character assasination is there than that has been cast upon Rev. Wright? And why is it unfair to ask Sen. Obama why he sought out such a man, who holds such beliefs…other than he agreed with them?
If the question itself becomes unfair…simply because it requires an inquiry into potential racism and hatred coming back at white people from “black activists” or black “liberators”, then in essence we are being told to buy into the notion that racism really only travels down a one way street. Do you buy that?
Our benchmark has been nothing more than offensive speech. In all of the screeds against Obama’s character, and Wright’s haterade, nobody has showed the damage.
The damage, Cobb…is inherent in the message. To tell people that white people invented AIDS to kill black people is not just a “free speech” issue. It’s a vile and disgusting lie about an entire race.
More importantly, the anti-Jewish sentiments, with which Sen. Obama has consistently surrounded himself factor into a voting issue. McPeak, Brezinski, Power, Malley…and Rev Wright all seem to have a very healthy disrespect for American-Israeli alliance. Is he a Jimmy Carter redux?
Can you see no damage stemming from such a stance?
The problem with zero-tolerance is always the same, it enables hacks and tinfoil hat people. Who’s more realistic, a manic minister who has zero tolerance for American wars, or an offended electorate with zero tolerance for loudmouth preachers?
Well, we can water down Rev. Wright to a loudmouth preacher who has zero tolerance for American wars, or we can be honest about his positions about white people, US of KKKAmerica, Hamas, Louis Farrakhan. If you need to build strawmen and paper tigers to knock down, then dealing with these issues upfront is probably not the best tactic.
What I’m saying is that there is no distinction here between racism and BLOODY RACISM and this lack of subtlety always favors mindless interpretation.
Please, enlighten us. From what I have gathered so far, it sounds to me as sort of like Mel Brooks’ definition of the difference between comedy and tragedy. Comedy is when you fall down the stairs and break your neck. Tragedy is when I get a hangnail.
I can recognize the damage and the difference between the racism of Obama’s grandmother, and Obama’s priest.
Really? I would love to hear it.
It’s all racism and it’s all a moral error. But if nobody is willing to assess what the relative weights of all that, you give the political correct all the ammunition they need to destroy free speech.
Destroy free speech in what way? Who is confined to say politically correct things in this scenario? Asking someone not to lie about starting the AIDS virus is a violation of free speech? Asking a Presidential candidate about his views on the subject is a violation of free speech?
Your attempted defense of Sen. Obama’s connection to hate incitement against a race of people by suggesting that it does no damage, and he isn’t connected and if he was everyone else is just as bad…is a circular argument on a bad path.
cfbleachers (4040c7) — 3/25/2008 @ 4:42 pmCobb – Why is it such a strange time to tell a personal story. Your boy Baracky wants his people to share their personal journey to conversion rather than talk about issues.
Well, since you insist, let me rethink my position … Nope. Insisting didn’t work.
Bullshite. This is a debate that originated with Baracky’s decades long association with a Preacher and a theology that are overtly racist. This is Baracky’s “difficult discussion”, and he has failed, miserably.
Now, I am just going from memory here, but Baracky really mischaracterized that whole “my grandma is a racist” thing, no? Didn’t his grandmother express specific concern about a specific overly-aggressive panhandler? If you have the audacity to hope that is racist, or in any way comparable to Wright, you are delusional.
JD (25bb93) — 3/25/2008 @ 4:57 pmCobb likely wouldn’t want a potential candidate to explore race relations with say, the assistance of a David Duke. Yet Jeremiah Wright gets a free pass.
Geraldine Ferraro brought up a pretty benign and obvious observation about race this election, as 99.9% of Barry’s platform is about race. No one extended the olive branch to Ms. Ferraro. To overcompensate for Rev. Wright and Obama is the same as endorsing hate speech and radical black theology (bloody or not). …It will not unite people.
Vermont Neighbor (a8a46e) — 3/25/2008 @ 7:14 pmSo, Obama doesn’t really know how much he cares for this guy he calls “like family” and you do? Mmmmm….no. Sorry. That dog won’t hunt.
Pablo (99243e) — 3/25/2008 @ 7:35 pmVermont neighbor #74,
Geraldine Ferraro brought up a pretty benign and obvious observation about race this election
Geraldine Ferraro is no one to talk about race. Linked video contains profanity and racist language.
nk (34c5da) — 3/25/2008 @ 8:02 pm“As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children.”
See? They hardly even knew each other!
Bradley J. Fikes (1c6fc4) — 3/25/2008 @ 8:51 pmnk: Don’t you think her comment was a fair analysis on the progression of politics? Whether he cries foul or not, Obama brings up race an awful lot for a guy who claims he can unite the country. Just defending Jeremiah Wright is race-based. BHO is sort of keeping him around… but sorta not.
The clip was interesting, I missed that one at the movies. I think though that her observation wasn’t dependent on her bloodline.
Vermont Neighbor (a8a46e) — 3/25/2008 @ 9:29 pmYour insistence has taken on a life of its own, I’m afraid. You seem to be twisting yourself into a pretzel to denigrate anyone else’s “story” that has been used in contrast and you struggle mightily to diminish his association with Wright as the same as “any” black activist with “any politician”.
Perhaps we are two ships passing in the night here, but that is NOT how Sen. Obama has portrayed his own relationship with Rev. Wright. Maybe you know their relationship better and maybe Sen. Obama has overstated it.
Hold that thought. I tend to forget what I have said where, since I am engaging the issue in several different places. But yes, I think the relationship is marketing.
The term “gutter religion” was a direct quote from Louis Farrakhan about Judaism. Is “black activism” and “black liberation”…about suggesting that white people are devils? Is it about suggesting that white society has created the AIDS virus to target blacks for death?
No the suggestion that white society has created the AIDS virus to target blacks is sheer lunacy. Only a crackpot would say so seriously, and only a fool would believe it. So what is the difference between that, and black activism and black liberation one should take more seriously? This is the territory I believe you are having difficulty negotiating. Which is why I find it astounding that anyone is willing to believe Barack Obama, who clearly wants black activists in his camp, would take such nonsense literally.
What greater character assasination is there than that has been cast upon Rev. Wright? And why is it unfair to ask Sen. Obama why he sought out such a man, who holds such beliefs…other than he agreed with them?
Except that he explicitly said that he doesn’t. I suppose you would have him disclaim Santa and the Easter Bunny too, with his hand on a stack of Bibles.
If the question itself becomes unfair…simply because it requires an inquiry into potential racism and hatred coming back at white people from “black activists” or black “liberators”, then in essence we are being told to buy into the notion that racism really only travels down a one way street. Do you buy that?
Of course not, but as a Republican I understand the difficulty many on the Right have in distinguishing between real and imagined slights of the black electorate with which their relations are fairly slim. I would ask the simple question, how many black political churches are hostile to republicans, and how many are hostile to white people in general, and the honest answer I would expect to hear is “I don’t know, I never bothered to count.” So your introduction to the subject is Wright and Trinity, and I think it prejudices you against Obama’s appeals to black activists. Which is to say I’m afraid you believe that Obama and black activists are not capable of resisting racist appeals – that you are willing to accept the notion that deep down black activism is really all about hating whitefolks.
The damage, Cobb…is inherent in the message. To tell people that white people invented AIDS to kill black people is not just a “free speech” issue. It’s a vile and disgusting lie about an entire race.
Yes, and it’s typical bullcrap that I expect from people like Khalid Muhammad, instantly dismissible. Just like the Democrat suggestions that Dick Cheney got us into the war in Iraq so he could make extra money from Haliburton. Tell me how long that lie lasted, and I will show you the credulousness of deluded Americans. Do you think James Carville actually believes that to be true or do you think he doesn’t care so long as people who do vote for his candidate? I’m saying to think Obama believes that kind of crap and that he’s not just playing his audience is to completely misread what kind of politician he is.
More importantly, the anti-Jewish sentiments, with which Sen. Obama has consistently surrounded himself factor into a voting issue. McPeak, Brezinski, Power, Malley…and Rev Wright all seem to have a very healthy disrespect for American-Israeli alliance. Is he a Jimmy Carter redux?
Can you see no damage stemming from such a stance?
I don’t happen to be one of those people who mistakes anti-israeli sentiment with anti-semitism, just as I don’t expect to be confused, as anti-illegal immigrant with racists, and anti-immigrant. It doesn’t much matter because I dismiss all of Obama’s foreign policy as naive and dangerous. But I don’t see any way to connect his church life to his foreign policy any more than I believe George W. Bush to be a ‘crusader’ in a clash of civilizations.
Well, we can water down Rev. Wright to a loudmouth preacher who has zero tolerance for American wars, or we can be honest about his positions about white people, US of KKKAmerica, Hamas, Louis Farrakhan. If you need to build strawmen and paper tigers to knock down, then dealing with these issues upfront is probably not the best tactic.
It’s easy to call Wright a crackpot for saying those things. It’s not so easy to say that Obama believes a word of it.
—
It’s all racism and it’s all a moral error. But if nobody is willing to assess what the relative weights of all that, you give the political correct all the ammunition they need to destroy free speech.
Destroy free speech in what way? Who is confined to say politically correct things in this scenario? Asking someone not to lie about starting the AIDS virus is a violation of free speech? Asking a Presidential candidate about his views on the subject is a violation of free speech?
The lie is that Obama believes it. Nobody is asking Obama anything. It doesn’t matter what Obama believes any longer. It’s about what you are willing to believe that he believes. Consider the speech codes at Antioch University. That’s where zero tolerance leads.
Your attempted defense of Sen. Obama’s connection to hate incitement against a race of people by suggesting that it does no damage, and he isn’t connected and if he was everyone else is just as bad…is a circular argument on a bad path.
I’m merely shocked that the FBI doesn’t have Wright on their most wanted list and that Morris Dees hasn’t begun a civil suit against the insidious, clear and present danger of the Trinity United Church of Christ.
But hey, you say Wright’s a vicious hatemonger whose virulence has corrupted Barack Obama at a deep psychological level, I say he’s a loudmouth asshole with a bunch of crackpot rhetoric who’s about as dangerous as Don Imus. You play the race card, I’ll play the asshole card. I’m sure it’ll come out even the next time around.
Perhaps we are two ships passing in the night. I think it is very difficult for Obama to be a racist and not be a racist at the same time. Which is to say I don’t believe ‘Obama Doesn’t Care About White Poeple’.(tm) But Obama’s fate doesn’t concern me half as much as the ability of the Right to properly interpret the history, intent and direction of black politics in all of its manifestations. What the significant effects of racism and hate speech are would be a good starting point of agreement, but that’s obviously going to take a lot of work.
Cobb (d077c2) — 3/25/2008 @ 10:52 pmHold that thought. I tend to forget what I have said where, since I am engaging the issue in several different places. But yes, I think the relationship is marketing.
Ok, Cobb. After reading your entire answer to me, I see your launching point for your point of view. We still have work to do, if you’re willing and, I’ll tell you that I am…because where we separate is now clearer to me. And I would like it to be clearer to both of us.
You see Sen. Obama’s relationship with Rev. Wright as a marketing ploy. He’s playing to a voting bloc. I believe there is some of that at work, but it does not define the extent of his relationship with a vile, nasty and dangerous worldview. Nor does it explain his comfort with it.
No the suggestion that white society has created the AIDS virus to target blacks is sheer lunacy. Only a crackpot would say so seriously, and only a fool would believe it. So what is the difference between that, and black activism and black liberation one should take more seriously? This is the territory I believe you are having difficulty negotiating. Which is why I find it astounding that anyone is willing to believe Barack Obama, who clearly wants black activists in his camp, would take such nonsense literally.
The difference between black activism and black liberation that should be taken more seriously and the brand foisted upon the flock at TUCC, given that they are so apparently different…seemed to have eluded Sen. Obama for two decades. Given the choice between lunacy and seriousness…he chose lunacy.
Except that he explicitly said that he doesn’t. I suppose you would have him disclaim Santa and the Easter Bunny too, with his hand on a stack of Bibles.
He said he doesn’t…you mean a politician said one thing and believes another? Horrors! I didn’t realize I should accept Sen. Obama at his word for everything he says. Should I apply this same standard to Sen. Clinton and Sen. McCain in this race as well? Do you?
He said that he was against NAFTA, and his economic advisor from the U of Chicago told the Canadians that was just campaign fluff. Which should I believe?
He said his votes in the Senate which make him the furthest left Senator don’t reflect his views, he is much more centrist. Which should I believe?
His wife says that she is not proud of this country, that we are a mean, slothful nation.
He chose his wife, and he chose his pastor for whom he holds the highest possible regard, …and he should have the freedom to do so.
But are you suggesting that all his choices for his most intimate relationships are calculated for a marketing purpose? Or could it be when we make choices with whom we most closely associate, it might show a comfort with their worldview?
Would you even consider the possibility?
Of course not, but as a Republican I understand the difficulty many on the Right have in distinguishing between real and imagined slights of the black electorate with which their relations are fairly slim.
Well, I don’t consider myself on the Right, most certainly not on the Left and I have had relations with the black electorate which I don’t consider fairly slim. Yet, I suppose…from your perspective, I still may be having difficulty separating between real and “imagined” slights toward anyone outside the Democratic party by 90% of the black electorate.
Because, honestly…Cobb…I see a real problem and a substantial amount of cognitive dissonance when I see Colin Powell being called an Uncle Tom.
My understanding of the vicious label of Uncle Tom’ism against anyone who DARES to break from the leftist stranglehold on the black electorate, is that it implies he or she is a “sellout”. That he or she is “denying his own association with his own people”. That he or she is a sniveling toadie for the “enemy”. Yet, I look at Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice and I don’t see that…at all. I would LOVE for Sen. McCain to select Colin Powell as a running mate. Now…not waiting to see if Sen. Obama wins the nomination.
And, Cobb…you know…it’s ironic in some ways. Because I see leftism in this country, which is primarily an elitist, white enclave…as having the very same attributes that are assigned to blacks who have the courage to break from the stranglehold. I think the Uncle Tom label against those black men and women…is vile and unfair.
But, if the definition holds…and as long as leftists feel it is fair to apply it…then I think they fit the description.
If the definition of a “White Uncle Tom” is indeed available…then people who are sniveling toadies for the enemy sure seems to fit. People who go out of their way to curry favor with those who stand against us and to engage in a constant berating and loathing of their own, sure seems to fit. “Sellout” against our principles and what we stand for as a nation… sure seems to fit.
I would ask the simple question, how many black political churches are hostile to republicans, and how many are hostile to white people in general, and the honest answer I would expect to hear is “I don’t know, I never bothered to count.”
Black political churches? Hostile to Republicans? Damn near all of them. I think the Republican party has been dismal in its efforts to deliver a message. I believe they feel the black electorate is hostile territory in general.
I believe they feel that the propaganda wing of the leftists in this country…the MetaStasisMedia…would go to work immediately to damage any inroads the Republicans made in the black electorate.
How many black political churches are hostile to white people in general? I would say half, maybe a little less than half. Hostile is a difficult word, because it comes in degrees. I think there is a complete lack of understanding that travels in both directions. However, I believe that leftists and especially their propaganda arm in the MetaStasisMedia, university intelligentsia, Hollywood…need to feed the class warfare angle to bolster the Socialist agenda.
Getting to really know each other isn’t in their best interests. Fueling the “us” vs. “them” is in their best interests.
So your introduction to the subject is Wright and Trinity, and I think it prejudices you against Obama’s appeals to black activists. Which is to say I’m afraid you believe that Obama and black activists are not capable of resisting racist appeals – that you are willing to accept the notion that deep down black activism is really all about hating whitefolks.
LOL. My introduction…came 40 years ago. My father donated …for free…half of his medical practice to an inner city, all black, school for handicapped children. He thought they were being ignored. He believed that wasn’t fair or right. And he was a conservative. And not particularly religious. Go figure.
LOL. Trying on labels for size doesn’t fit me, my history or my late father very well, so it can be a bit confusing for those who don’t know us. We are a strange breed of cat. We are kind of sappy and romantic. We believe in old time, old school heroes. Right is right, wrong is wrong, fair is fair. In ANY direction.
I don’t mean to shatter your point, I suppose it’s a good one, if we were aiming to lump in individuals…but my personal history is just not very typical. My high school was in the black part of town. My junior high school was in the black part of town. I chose those schools.
My father moved us, when I was three years old into a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. I mean, 300 homes…299 Jewish households…and us.
That meant…I went to synagogues as a little boy and black churches as a pre-teen…with my friends. My introduction to all this…came early. We’ve come a long way in this country, Cobb. We may not be all the way there yet…but, we aren’t all as ignorant as you may think.
There are a million stories out there, Cobb. And the problem, I think…stems from the propaganda we are fed about each other…that makes us believe that we fit neatly into one label or another. We don’t…unless we choose to do so. I believe those LOOKING for identity politically…especially on the left…live in an echo chamber of their choosing.
I think non-leftists, don’t fall as neatly into an echo chamber…because our commonality is not one of our choosing. We are not leftist…but, that doesn’t make us automatically “something” else. My politics arise…issue by issue, stand by stand. I think groupthink politics are for fools and lemmings. I would rather dissect an issue and come to a conclusion myself, than to be spoonfed my opinions like leftists in this country.
My biggest beef with them, is that their propaganda arm tries to cheat the game. It’s rigged. It’s fixed. And they call everyone who disagrees with them stupid or evil. I start smack dab in the centerpoint on each and every issue, but their actions are pushing me to dig my heels in against them and align to the right of center.
I think our information stream has been corrupted and is diseased, Cobb. And that impacts our ability to understand what is happening, has happened and infects our ability to come to conclusions about how to self-govern this republic of ours. This is most especially true when it comes to race relations.
Having said all that, I think playing to racism in order to get votes…is a cheap and dirty crass political maneuver. And do I believe that ANY person could individually resist racist appeals? Of course. Feeding or fueling racial tensions does damage though, Cobb. Pandering to racist idealogues does damage. Exalting racists does damage. There is a more honorable path.
Yes, and it’s typical bullcrap that I expect from people like Khalid Muhammad, instantly dismissible.
Instantly dismissed by whom? Have you seen the polls taken in the black community about what they believe concerning our government? Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan…and yes, guys like Rev Wright…have a following.
Whites and blacks in this country still see things through a different prism. We saw the differences come to light through those prisms in the OJ trial. But it was the Duke Lacrosse players case, in which the leftists’ influence was more vivid.
Just like the Democrat suggestions that Dick Cheney got us into the war in Iraq so he could make extra money from Haliburton. Tell me how long that lie lasted, and I will show you the credulousness of deluded Americans. Do you think James Carville actually believes that to be true or do you think he doesn’t care so long as people who do vote for his candidate?
Blood for oil? It’s STILL out there. The whole reporting on the military response to state sponsored terrorism…has been diseased from the outset. First, it was going to be a quagmire in Afghanistan. Then, we would get bogged down ON THE GROUND…in Iraq. Neither of those things happened…but the propaganda arm of the Socialist wing in this country, kept up the relentless pounding against the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. To this day.
The propagandists won the hearts and minds because non-leftists are not organized or powerful enough yet to win the war. They can only win battles against fauxtography, smear campaigns, forged documents…on an isolated bunker by bunker basis. The wire services, the alphabet studios, Hollywood, university intelligentsia are too well entrenched, too rich, too powerful…to overcome in one fell swoop.
The blogosphere, talk radio, Fox news…give a counterpoint…but you are talking about overcoming 40 years of entrenched, diseased, propaganda. And politically, on the campaign trail or in press conferences from the podium…non-leftists are feeble at getting out any counter message. Less than feeble.
The information stream is diseased, Cobb. It’s infected and their is sepsis in the bloodstream. I will NEVER call these propagandists “mainstream media”…because that honors them when they deserve none. Dummying up photographs, forging documents, fabricating stories, intentionally misleading the public, giving out strategic military secrets, taking sides with the enemy…these are acts that lack honor. They are seditious and traitorous. Right is right, fair is fair, wrong is wrong.
I’m saying to think Obama believes that kind of crap and that he’s not just playing his audience is to completely misread what kind of politician he is.
Does Obama believe that white government officials started the AIDS virus to kill blacks? Nah, that’s so far out there, it got caught up in Jupiter’s gravitational pull. Does he believe that we are a mean, slothful country as his wife does? I don’t know. Does he believe that the “typical white person” is a racist? I don’t know. Does he believe that 9/11 was “chickens coming home to roost”? I don’t know.
But if the President and the First Lady believe we are mean, slothful, and we “deserved” 9/11…”because, you know”….that’s a perspective that is bound to have an impact on how they feel we ought to be treated.
Have you seen anything to suggest that Sen. Obama doesn’t share his wife’s feelings? Oh, right…he SAYS he doesn’t. So…I should ignore his crass political affiliations because he is only doing and saying things to get votes…but I should not ignore his after the fact denunciations…because he isn’t doing THAT…just to get votes. Have I got that down to its basic tenets?
cfbleachers (4040c7) — 3/26/2008 @ 5:21 amGood post. You make some great points that most people do not fully understand.
“In the following paragraphs, Hitchens gores oxes that are both black and white, Democrat and Republican. Ultimately, however, I think Hitchens’ point is that Obama’s response to the ministry of Jeremiah Wright “negates everything that Obama says he stands for by way of advocating dignity and responsibility over the sick cults of paranoia and victimhood.””
I like how you explained that. Very helpful. Thanks.
chiz (07622e) — 3/26/2008 @ 5:59 amNow we’re getting somewhere. In fact I think we have gotten quite far enough, because I am pretty exhausted on this subject. (second and third winds at my blog to come inevitably..)
I am convinced that Obama is pursuing a sort of liberal radical chic acceptance. That this half-black Harvard grad has gone all Patty Hearst on us. That he deliberately chose the most distressed blackfolks in his ambit to align himself with their desperate hopes in a paternalistic way in order to develop the kind of credibility and ‘authenticity’ he believes that he needs as a politician.
Both he and Michelle are very clueless as to what their privileges in America mean, and the fact that they keep bringing up the “He could have had a Wall Street job but instead came to work in the projects” is their story and they’re sticking to it, like missionaries in the jungle trying to convince themselves of the righteousness of their mission. They expect to be respected as long suffering souls who have made their sacrifices for the most noble of causes, and believe me they want the rest of us to sacrifice too – they’re after that tax.
Black politicians have accused Obama of cherry picking, and that is what I take to be his career. He was made by an old school first generation black pol, and took all the glory.
Yes, there is a fraction of the desperate black electorate who are in a strange psychological state and who need ‘get whitey’ to get through their day. I think Obama has taken 20 years to ‘feel their pain’ and speak their language and understand their frustration and that this is very deeply his connection to his blackness – that ultimately he is alienated from both communities he straddles and does not truly believe in either.
You know in black upper middle class circles, there are parents who grew up in the ‘hood who despair that their kids are growing soft. I’ve heard the confessions that they want to send their kids back to grandma in the South to toughen them up on grits and okra, or back to the ghetto to get ‘real’. I happen to be one of those who finds little ennobling in poverty itself, I don’t believe that the poor in spirit will inherit the earth. I’m not down with this sort of immersion program, but I recognize that there are millions of Americans who have no idea how wealth and privilege can be moral in its own right. Surely the Obamas haven’t done the hard work of meeting a payroll, what with board memberships paying their bills – they are strangers to all but academic hard work. They actually needed to see what the meritocracy of Wall Street was all about. Oh but they’re making sure that their kids don’t grow up overprivileged. They are professionally slumming.
Half-white, growing up in Hawaii, Harvard Law, light skin, non-jive talking Barry would be absolutely devastated by the label of Uncle Tom. His relationship with black demagoguery is absolutely crucial, but does he believe it? About as much as Oxfam volunteers believe in the witch doctors in Africa they feed. If Barack Obama had married Shaniqua instead of Michelle, I’d take his attraction a lot more seriously, but now I think he’s managing his obsession quite well.
more later..
Cobb (d077c2) — 3/26/2008 @ 7:48 amAnd Sowell concurs
Cobb (995ecc) — 3/26/2008 @ 9:53 amEveryone who is participating in this conversation should read the article published in today’s Honolulu Advertiser about Obama’s grandmother and her phenomenal success and reputation in business community. Co-workers finally speak out about a woman whose very life belies the characterization created by her grandson. There is also another article about his Kenyan father and a false linkage to the Kennedy family. i strongly urge all of you including Mr. Hitchens, to read these articles.
ellen (5bf9d7) — 3/30/2008 @ 12:09 pm