MSNBC and their regular contributors from the print media are in full lather over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's appearances on PBS, in front of the Detroit branch of the NAACP over the weekend (transcript here), and at the National Press Club this morning. "Why doesn't he just stay away!" moaned Chris Matthews. "How much does this hurt Barack Obama!?" quizzed Andrea Mitchell, and the morning anchors have been filling in the angst gap all morning and afternoon long. He's unrepentant! they're saying. And it burns... He's making more sound bytes to use against Obama! Hooray!!!
Will someone phone the media and inform them that Rev. Wright is not on the ballot in November, nor is he controllable by the Obama campaign? The worst thing about Wright's reemergence, while it has shown him to be a full human being, and a thoughtful, intelligent one at that (who also served in the military for six years, during the same period when Dick Cheney was chalking up six draft deferments to get out of going to Vietnam) and in that way has be rehabilitative, is that it has given the annoying chattering classes yet another chance to bray at Obama that he must, once and for all, distance himself from Wright, eject him from the island, and wrap himself in the biggest goddamned ... ooh ... let's try that again ... God Bless America flag he can find at Costco.
Clearly, the media will never walk away from the Wright sideshow. They're just enjoying it too much. But Obama must find away to walk away, and to make it clear that it is his name, and his beliefs, that will be on the ballot in November.
The good news for Barack is that Camp Clinton doesn't dare touch this one, given their side's already diminishing reputation with Black voters. It will be left to right wing talk radio and the GOP to join the media in keeping this dog of a story alive.
The bad news is that the story will stay alive. It just taps too deeply into white America's most primal fear about black people, and particularly black men: that they haven't gotten over those 400 odd years of slavery, Jim Crow and lynching ... and they want revenge. That's why the John Stewart joke about enslaving white people was so poignant. It's why white pundits are all but foaming at the mouth demanding that Obama begin mouthing the safe platitudes about the greatness of America that they are used to. And it's why Rush Limbaugh on his show today was sputtering about blacks demanding "100 years of payback!" and reparations! if the U.S. were to apologize for slavery. Even in Jefferson's time, white people feared that one day, blacks would exact their revenge on them, perhaps violently. That's why the repression of blacks after the civil war, including their right to vote, was so urgent, and why the most vicious, official violence against blacks dragged on into the latter part of the 20th century. (The same fears coursed through South Africa in the waning days of apartheid in South Africa.) Only now, the fear is economic -- reparations, economic advantage via affirmative action, etc., and it is psychic -- "they'll just hold it over my head forever!"
It's also irrational. And it suggests that perhaps African-Americans aren't the only ones walking around with a chip on their shoulder regarding race.
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
