Over the last 20 years, the recently retired pastor of Barack Obama's church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has gone a little overboard - from the perspective of many Americans - in a whole hoopla of comments about the generalized and endemic racism inherent in White (Devil) America, Judiasm being an awful religion, and the plight of the Black American. Did Right Reverend Wright say this crap all the time over the several decades he preached at the church? No one knows, but the Right Wing's got about 5 clips that haven't stopped playing on FOX or talk radio for the last 3 weeks.
To make my position clear: the language and ideas used in those excerpts (and I'm serious - turn on the AM dial and you'll hear a montage in 5 minutes or less) is understandably used in an effort to evoke reactionary solidarity amongst the black population of that church, but it is misdirected and divisive and right now it's working directly against what would be one of the beautiful outcomes: get folks fired up and get an African American in the White House.
Is Rev. Wright the same person as Barack Obama? No. Just like
Televangelist Rod Parsley is not John McCain:
Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it.
Who's pitching a fit about that one? No one. Why? Because, realistically, we all realize that McCain pretty much believes the same thing.
So today, Barack Obama gave an extensive speech, primarily about race and overcoming our differences, but also to address the limited examples of these words and ideas and to denounce them. And that's what he did.
But the right wingnut radio syndicate is planting steamers in their boxers left and right because OMG he didn't denounce the man; he didn't stand up before the American people and shout at the top of his lungs "You're dead to me!" Dozens of alleged Christians, in their own words, on their own radio programs, are saying he must hate the sin
and the sinner, must denounce the words
and the man.
In all actuality, Limbaugh and Wilkow and Hannity and the rest are actually shitting themselves because they see this not sticking. And you know what? They're right. The immediate result and interviews and call-ins I heard have this result: those people who would not vote for Barack Obama before are still not going to vote for him. Everyone else is lauding the speech as brilliant and calling out the attacks as ugly politics.
And they're shitting their pants a second time because they realize that if they can't push this hard enough to stick, if they can't get anyone to believe the bullshit line I heard today that "he's falling apart," then they've got a huge problem should he become the nominee: Nothing will stick. (see: He says he denounces it? He's lying! Hussein! Michelle's an Angry Black Woman!)
And this just-about-failed attempt at race-baiting is a clear indication of just how difficult running John "them gooks" McCain against Barack Obama will be: you can only get so positive on McCain, they have no problem practically calling Hillary a "cunt" at this stage of the game, but if they're up against Obama, they're dealing with race. All the time. Because no matter what, they're dealing with an established presumption that Republicans don't like brown people, and if the attack is about race, they'll catch hell, and if it's not about race, it's coming from that direction because they really wanted to attack his race but couldn't.
Time to give up, take a breath, and regroup. Racists.
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