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| Think at your own risk. |
| Friday, March 14, 2008 |
| Barack's cross to bear |
 Do a Youtube search of "Jeremiah Wright" and up pops a raft of more than 100 uploaded files, with warm, fuzzy titles like "Barack Obama's racist pastor" and "Jeremiah Wright promoting the hate." You've no doubt heard the snippets of sermons by now -- Wright saying, on the Sunday after 9/11 that America has "not batted an eye" when dropping bombs on Hiroshima, or "looked the other way" whilst genocide was committed against the Palestinian people ... it's all very shocking to white people (Joe Scarborough proclaimed himself positively fearful this morning on MSNBC -- fake fear alert, by the way... I doubt that Joe is actually afraid of either man) ... and even though Wright's words are not Barack's, and Barack has never expressed such sentiments himself, he has written in his autobiography about his ambivalent feelings on the subject of race -- something that just about every black person (mixed or not) can relate to, but which white folk cannot (the crazies have already seized on his memoir and his ties to Wright as proof that deep inside, Barack really does hate white people.) Barack has tried to walk a very fine line on race -- something again, blacks can relate to and whites cannot. Nonetheless, Barack is now lashed to Wright, and Wright to him, and therein lies the dilemma for Barack.
Because Wright is not just some religious leader glomming onto Obama (as was the case with Louis Farrakhan) -- in Wright's case, he apparently married the Obamas, baptised their children, and was the inspiration for the title of Barack's book, "The Audacity of Hope" -- the usual statement "distancing himself" from the statements, or the John McCain gambit of delcaring the statements "out of context" won't do. And because he has struggled so hard to keep his race from becoming the central "organizing principal" of his campaign, to paraphrase his recent comments about the history of race and politics in America, Barack will no doubt be required to do much more, and it will be painful.
I have no doubt that the Clinton campaign is the source of the sudden rehash of the Wright issue, which bubbled up about a year ago when Barack was merely an also-ran to the inevitable nominee, Mrs. Clinton. The Clintons have to do whatever it takes to render Barack un-nominatable, and totally unacceptable to the party leadership that will ultimately decide the primary election. To do that, she can't just out-debate him. She can't out-do him on healthcare. She can't out-spend him, for god's sake. So what's left is to utterly destroy his character -- define him down to a gnat, as was done to her fellow Democrat, John Kerry in 2004, so that when her campaign is finished with him, he probably couldn't win back his Senate seat, let alone the White House. Once that becomes clear to the remaining 313 or so superdelegates, they will bow their heads and cast their votes for Hillary, pledged delegates be damned.
And how better to do that than by seizing on the one thing about Barack that makes him potentially unacceptable to a certain kind of white voter -- the kind who maybe doesn't earn as much money; who maybe doesn't have it so good; who maybe would resent a slick looking black guy worth a million bucks who thinks that he can just waltz into the White House without paying his dues ... the kind of white person who resents the idea of "affirmative action" anything. Never mind that Barack accomplished all that he has through hard work and raw talent. He's not the artful speech-maker; the elegant, Kennedyesque figure who by his very background can unite the country. He's a black guy -- the kind of guy who probably took your job. Welcome to the Clinton end-game.
And so, Barack finds himself in the position of having to push away anything that speaks too strongly of him as a black man -- particularly as an aggrieved black man. (There's a clear double standard at work, since no one appears to hold it against Billy Graham that he tet-tetted with Richard Nixon in the White House about the insidiousness of media control by "the Jews." And the late Jerry Falwell and the crazed Pat Robertson are just two of the right wing loons who have blamed 9/11 not only on America but also on God himself (along with the ACLU). Still, like so many black men, Barack has to do twice as much, twice as well, just to stay in the game.
That should be simple Barack, after all, is half white. He was raised by a white woman (his mother.) He went to white schools, including two Ivy League institutions: Columbia University and Harvard Law School. And because he has no history of slavery in his family -- his black parent is African, and thus his DNA fell into the escape hatch of America's original sin -- he has no chip on his shoulder. Al and Jesse and other black leaders at first couldn't relate. Now that they can, they have to stand a healthy distance away from him, so as not to pass along "the taint."
Enter Rev. Jeremiah Wright; one of those artifacts of America's checkered racial history -- the light-skinned black guy who's angrier at the white man than the blackest black man. Select his most fiery speeches -- the one where he essentially says what Ron Paul says (that "blowback" produced 9/11) -- but who says it with that fire and brimstone syncopation that terrifies white folk. Barack has a Jeremiah Wright problem. And to solve it, he will have to dis his "spiritual mentor," and dis him good.
How can he do it and not hate himself in the morning? He can give a speech. That is not to be facetious. I really mean it. Barack gives a speech better than any politician in public life today, and his speeches have the power to move people in a profound way. He will look presidential, standing before the American people and sharing his views, and it will get such wide media coverage, he will guarantee himself an uninterrupted hour or so to make his case for president. In that speech, Barack should do four things:
1) He can talk frankly about his religious faith and beliefs. I know it makes most of us queasy, because there is supposed to be no religious test for the presidency, but in Barack's case, with 13 percent of respondents in the most recent NBC News/WSJ poll believing that he's a Muslim, the time has come.
2) He can put forth, and hopeful put to bed, his views on race, patriotism, and 9/11. In that speech, he can, in the elegant way Barack does, that while many blacks carry heavy burdens of grievance and anger against the United States because of the history of slavery and segregation, that he does not -- and he believes that it is time for the nation to heal.
3) He should talk about his mother. Barack's late mother can and should be a bridge between him and nervous white folks, who relate more to half-white Bob Marley than to Peter Tosh, and who feel more comfortable with Barack than they did with Jesse Jackson when he ran for president. It makes me ill to even talk about this, but white people are incredibly insecure when it comes to race. They need constant reassurance that we aren't mad at them. It seems rather silly, but Barack will have to talk about his mixed heritage. By doing so, he'll turn off the hard-bitten racists who rage at the thought of "race mixing" but then again, he never would have had them anyway (they vote Republican, if at all.)
4) Finally, Barack must denounce any rhetoric in the public discourse, whether in church or on talk radio or in a presidential campaign -- that divides America by race, including those by Rev. Wright. He can do so making clear that he continues to love Rev. Wright, but that it must be clear that some of the views Wright has expressed contradict his own.
That's the only course. Otherwise, he will walk right into the bear trap that the Clinton campaign has set for him. He will go down in flames with working class white voters. He will hand Rush Limbaugh a daily talking point to bludgeon him with should he become the nominee. Brace yourself for the right wing comparisons between Wright's sermons and those of militant Islamic clerics, because it's coming. And that treasure trove of Wright sermons will just keep coming, too. Barack will become the "black candidate" -- worse, the "angry black candidate." And once you go black, you never go back.
Update: Barack responds ... on the Huffpo??? The bottom line:
The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.
Let me repeat what I've said earlier. All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn. They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country.
With Rev. Wright's retirement and the ascension of my new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss, III, Michelle and I look forward to continuing a relationship with a church that has done so much good. And while Rev. Wright's statements have pained and angered me, I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in; on my values, judgment and experience to be President of the United States. It's unfortunate that Barack's statement, as good as it is, will not likely close this issue. In any event, he'll be on with Anderson Cooper tonight on CNN.
Update: Obama did Olbermann's show first. He said that he repudiated the comments, but would not repudiate the man. Phrase of the day: "guilt by association." Also, the campaign quickly reversed itself tonight, and Wright has been dismissed from a religious advisory committee he had served on for the Obama campaign.
Meanwhile, National Review offers some campaign advice to Hillary Clinton ... as if her team hasn't already plumbed the depths... and The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder offers some words of caution to John McCain ... as if HIS campaign hasn't been doing some plumbing of its own...Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, presidential candidates, race in America |
posted by JReid @ 3:10 PM   |
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