April 30, 2008
Obama, Wright and judgement
It is difficult not to feel sorry for Barack Obama. The whole Jeremiah Wright thing is a complete nightmare. I doubt that Obama’s late-in-the-day repudiation of his spiritual mentor of 20 years is going to do the trick. Wright will be an issue for the rest of the campaign.
And so he should be. Obama has responded to Hillary Clinton’s assertion that she is the candidate of “experience”, by talking about his superior judgement. But what does it say about his judgement that he chose Reverend Wright as his pastor?
I don’t believe that Obama ever gave credence to Wright’s nuttier theories - such as his flirtation with the idea that AIDS might have been created by the US government as a genocidal weapon against blacks. I doubt that Obama agrees with Wright’s opinion that Louis Farrakhan is one of the great figures of 20th century history.
No, I think the “judgement” that Obama made was much more colder and more rational than that. One of his advisers once suggested to me that when Obama was looking to build a career in Chicago politics, it made sense for him to associate himself with the Rev. Wright. Someone with Obama’s middle-class and elite credentials might otherwise have struggled to build a political base in black Chicago.
That is the most plausible explanation I’ve heard for Obama’s long dalliance with Jeremiah Wright. It is understandable enough. But it is a rather calculating act for a man who claims to represent a new sort of politics. And the calculation looks rather less shrewd, now that he has made the transition to national politics
GR “One of his advisers once suggested to me that when Obama was looking to build a career in Chicago politics, it made sense for him to associate himself with the Rev. Wright”
That’s interesting that it came from his adviser…Christopher Hitchens and others on the right have written this …it makes sense considering his background, and at the end of the day, he is a politician, thus calculation must be part of his persona if he is to thrive or even survive in the world of politics…I do not see being “political” (calculated) as in conflict with his inspirational agenda of “new sort of politics.”
This is a mess..I hope it is over…I fear it is not, unless the press denies Wright a media platform…as this is what is driving Wright now…to be the new Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton…he obviously does not care about Obama…
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | April 30th, 2008 at 4:40 pm | Report this commentObama is no more than a bland politician, who was idealised by yuppy snobs and naive leftists because he is a good orator and black.
Posted by: RCS | April 30th, 2008 at 5:29 pm | Report this commentThe whole episode is indictment of the US media then it has anything to do with Mr. Obama. What possible reflection is it on Mr. Obama? They are not his words and he promptly disavowed the words. With all the real issues facing America today, the US media feels this is important? Every time I feel the US is turning the page on ridicules and impertinent discourse, I am sadly mistaken.
“No man has ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people”
–P.T. Barnum
I hope CNN, Fox News and MSNBC are raking in the money, for there is high price to pay by the American people for this coverage.
Posted by: Fred | April 30th, 2008 at 5:35 pm | Report this commentOf course Obama acted all the way up to this point through geniuly carefully calculation. What do you expect? Does anyone knowing anything about politics naively believe that Obama just achieved today’s status out of new and fresh hope as he claimed? This guy talked like a rock star and missioner. But he behaved as a cunning general mastering the accient military thought written by Sun Tzu.
Posted by: jin | April 30th, 2008 at 5:38 pm | Report this commentRCS:”Obama is no more than a bland politician, who was idealised by yuppy snobs and naive leftists because he is a good orator and black.”
That’s nonsense and even a bit racist. This DEM battle is generational mor ethan it is about race, gender or class…moreover, until Clintons went ugly, (Bill first with race) Hillary following with him coming on like mack truck …Obama’s support was younger and first time voters and independents…
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | April 30th, 2008 at 5:55 pm | Report this commentIt can’t be a ‘bit’ racist. It either is or it isn’t. It isn’t.
Posted by: RCS | April 30th, 2008 at 6:08 pm | Report this commentObama is mentored by Wright for 20 years!
Here are some options:
1) Obama did not know Wright’s point until now: This means Obama is lack of intellect and judgement since Wright has been outspoken all along and has not changed his opinion ever since.
2) Obama knew Wright’s point long ago and he did not agree with him but he pretended not knowing since he needs Wright to help him on his polical career: Obama is lying now and is a calculated, old fashion politician just as everyone else in D.C. The whole “change” is just a election slogen.
or
3) Obama knew Wright’s point long ago and he did agree with him but he pretended not knowing: Obama is as crazy as Wright. And he is also a black racist.
Now which option do you prefer?
Posted by: jin | April 30th, 2008 at 6:16 pm | Report this commentor 4)
Posted by: Sade | April 30th, 2008 at 6:26 pm | Report this commentWright is correct and the american public is not ready to accept it.
(Besides for the aids thing, thats obsurd)
or 5)
The AIDS thing is correct and you’re not ready to accept it.
I’m sure you’ll come to see the light.
Posted by: RCS | April 30th, 2008 at 6:32 pm | Report this commentRCS,
no..you can be or sound a “bit” racist, a “bit” stupid, or even be a bit pretty or a bit good looking,etc…of course you appear to not be into nuances but ino indeology…so I assume you would not agree…
In any event, why do you think the Israeli press constantly misrepresents Obama and his views? at least the “Jerusalem Post” and the (english) HaAretz to a lesser degree…which admittedly is all I can read ?
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | April 30th, 2008 at 6:33 pm | Report this commentLisa-Helene,
I wouldn’t know. I don’t read the foreign-news pages in the Israeli press.
BTW, this may surprise you but the Israeli man-on-the-street is not that interested in the American elections, and probably most have no idea of what the candidates’ views are. Israelis are insular and concentrate on local issues.
Posted by: RCS | April 30th, 2008 at 6:46 pm | Report this commentSenator Obama is a cold calculating politician who will do whatever is required to further his career. It is no wonder that Gov Richardson chose to support him…they are two of a kind.
Obama didn’t really end his association with Wright..this was just a ploy for the benefit of the adoring press (read MSNBC, CNN, WPO, Politico, Newsweek, NYTimes, etc.). Wright agreed to be dissed as Obama agreed for Wright to say some mildly accusatory remarks about Obama. No, no folks…this association is not over. Just a plan to try to get middle class whites to vote for Obama. No cigar, Axelrod. They don’t trust you, Obama, or Jeremiah Wright. You’ll have to win by getting the press to pressure the ’super’ delegates.
If Obama should win the nomination and become president, this country will not survive. We’ll be just like Kenya, Darfur, and other 3rd world countries by the end of his term.
Posted by: HDM | April 30th, 2008 at 7:12 pm | Report this commentHDM that was very racist and offensive.
Posted by: Sade | April 30th, 2008 at 8:00 pm | Report this commentI am very enraged about your coments and I also beleive every obama hater here shares your racist views and should all be banned, you racist terrorist bigot.
RE: Sade’s comment, “I also beleive every obama hater here shares your racist views”
This is precisely why Obama has gotten beneficial treatment by the media throughout the primaries. Just because someone does not think Obama is the ‘right’ person for the presidency does not make them a racist. I think he would disagree (and potentially ‘disown’) your statement as racist and narrow minded. Hopefully the American public can look through all of these ’sideshows’ and see the policy issues and choose the appropriate candidate per each individual’s (one (wo)man/ one vote) preferences. Does that make every person who voted for Hillary (black, white, hispanic, etc) a racist? Shall we call every “hillary hater” a sexist? Your logic does not follow and only shows the ignorance and emotion of your argument (which weakens it considerably).
Posted by: kay | April 30th, 2008 at 8:52 pm | Report this commentand to clarify - i competely agree with sade that hdm’s comment was inappropriate, hurtful, and racist (not to mention totally nonsensical) but i take offense to sade’s blanet statement about those who do not support obama as being racists. while that may be true in some instances, it is not that all people who do support him are racists. by using this emotive generalization, it weakened the response to hdm’s wrong and inappropriate comment by just being ‘over the top.’
Posted by: kay | April 30th, 2008 at 9:07 pm | Report this commentkay my coment was in complete sarcasm and was meant to mimmick the entire democratic race because it is ridiculas and I’m glad you see that.
Posted by: Sade | April 30th, 2008 at 9:18 pm | Report this commentObama is obviously just a narcissistic character disorder (”We are the ones we have been waiting for”). Cold and calculating. Watch him with the sound off. Look up narcissism and he will jump out of the pages. These are not dependable sorts…….. He never saw Wright say these things and behave in these ways before? Bald faced lies come so easily to him.
Posted by: John | April 30th, 2008 at 10:07 pm | Report this commentI suspect that Mr. Rachman’s analysis is right on point. It appears to have been a very careful calculus that has now backfired. But what is very troubling is that Mr. Obama made the choice in the first place. He is clearly a multi-racial candidate with travel credentials and exposures that few have ever had before. But at some point, perhaps when he was a teen, he decided to give all of that up.
The problem is perhaps not that he listened to Reverend Wright for twenty years, but that he did so while paying very little homage to his mother and her family and what they gave to him and his character. He can easily separate his mother from those against whom Reverend Wright inveighed. But he doesn’t talk about her or his grandparents in terms that really give me a sense of his connection to what they contributed. I was most surprised when he lumped the comments of his grandmother ( which are shared by older people of all races) with those of Reverend Wright.I just couldn’t get over the notion of giving up one’s grandmother in pursuit of an electoral office.
Posted by: gentlemanjimmy | April 30th, 2008 at 10:38 pm | Report this commentMy impression is that probably he wasn’t fully accepted by white society. Typically multi-racial children have to go through this and in the US often if you look half black, people treat you as thought you are 100%. So my guess is he was moved to where he was accepted and the rest followed. I’d imagining sadly his father’s abandonment was also part of it but agreed as it is a shame he didnt move more to the other side. I still do not believe he himself holds the extremist views of Wright. But having found acceptance in the black community (even while not having the same view on things and different upbringing/experiences), he has/had a delicate dance.
Check out Maureen Dowd’s column in the nytimes today.
Posted by: Nathalie | April 30th, 2008 at 11:23 pm | Report this commentAmerica is in a lot of trouble. I´m a pro criminal. My take on things from my perspective, is that alot of the world hates America. The Arabs, the Latin Americans, the Russians etc.
They´ve got a lot of enemies that are watching them get weaker and weaker. They´re just waiting till the times right.
All the candidates are deeply flawed, and will be incapable of reforming the FBI, Homeland defence, DEA, CIA etc. And I´ve concluded that the Americans can no longer influnce my world. So I have stopped caring.
Posted by: Franz K | April 30th, 2008 at 11:43 pm | Report this commentI think Barack Obama could have had a hundred other pastors on the South Side of Chicago, that were not as clever or fast on their feet as Reverend Wright, but who were not as controversial either.
But Reverend Wright is not just another preacher, he is a man of great charisma and of enormous credibility in his community… with the political power that carries.
Wright’s “Nihil Obstat” gave Barack Obama, a half white, Harvard man, with a distant African-African father, the community credentials that allowed him to build a credible political base in the African-American community of Illinois, from which to continue to play the role he was born to, that of “JFK meets Sydney Poitier”
My question would be, When did Obama consider running for President? Because it should have been obvious to anyone, and certainly obvious to anyone with his enormous skills, that Wright would be poison to a lot of the people whose votes he would need to ever win the presidency, when the Roves of this world would be going over him with a microscope.
He should have begun years ago to, ever so gently, ever so diplomatically, distance” himself from Wright . Publicly comparing an advocate of “black liberation theology” to his white grandmother from Kansas was probably not the most tactful way of doing that.
Wright may be many things, but I don’t think he is anyone to trifled with
When he “distanced” himself from Wright, didn’t he know that Wright might be mortally offended and that his pastor was a man of formidable verbal skills and a mighty ego?
Like the Bittergate gaffe, there is something tone deaf and dumb about all of this and if there is any label that I would not have thought applicable to Barack Obama it is the label, “dumb”.
Perhaps it is all about what I’ve been saying for months now, Obama has been brought along too fast. Impatience has spoiled a great talent… for the moment at least.
Posted by: David Seaton | May 1st, 2008 at 9:09 am | Report this commentDavid Seaton writes: “Like the Bittergate gaffe, there is something tone deaf and dumb about all of this and if there is any label that I would not have thought applicable to Barack Obama it is the label, “dumb”.
Obama is apparently not as intelligent as his intelligent looks would deceive people to think. His performance in the debates was far from stellar (Hillary, at least, certainly outclassed him by far; he may have other advantages, but intellectually he is no match for her).
Other than that, a thoughtful and interesting comment.
Posted by: RCS | May 1st, 2008 at 10:18 am | Report this commentIf Obama gets so hopelessly entangled in handling a domestic matter like the Wright affair, he’d be totally out of his depth in
Posted by: J.J. | May 1st, 2008 at 3:19 pm | Report this commentworld affairs.
He is very intelligent It is an intelligence of depth. He is very thoughtful. “Thoughtfulness” is not valued in many professions, but probably politics most of all. It certainly hinders an individual in the US political TV debate format, which by the way, is not really a “debate” in the real sense. It is a pity that “thoughfulness”, is so devalued and goes uncultivated, because we do not have enough thoughtful people around where we need them most…in education, media and public and political life.
I am more than ready for a thoughtful president of the United States of America…I believe he can still pull off winning the primary.
Rev. Wright will not be held against him by most Americans. We are many things, but we are NOT a petty people. If he wins the primary, he will be the next President of the United States.
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | May 1st, 2008 at 3:29 pm | Report this commentLisa, “If he wins the primary, he will be the next President of the United States.” Ho ho ho. That’s the best joke I’ve heard in ages! Hilarious!
Posted by: AYC | May 1st, 2008 at 4:17 pm | Report this commentIsn’t it fair to say that a president Obama will hardly be influenced at all by reverend Wright whereas a president McCain will have to pay obeisance to the obscurantist bigot, reverend Hagee?
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/29/hagee/
Isn’t the unprincipled kowtowing of McCain to the rightwing fundamentalists, and its consequences, indeed a bigger threat and a bigger story that is going unheeded because of the media bias?
Not that I care!
P
Posted by: Pacifist | May 1st, 2008 at 4:24 pm | Report this commentP: “Isn’t it fair to say that a president Obama will hardly be influenced at all by reverend Wright whereas a president McCain will have to pay obeisance to the obscurantist bigot, reverend Hagee?” No I don’t think it is. But it is what I would expect of you.
Posted by: AYC | May 1st, 2008 at 4:44 pm | Report this commentDear AYC,
I am very unlikely to be influenced by rev Hagee, or rev Wright or, for that matter, any Ayatollahs!
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | May 1st, 2008 at 4:47 pm | Report this commentAYC,”If he wins the primary, he will be the next President of the United States.” Ho ho ho. That’s the best joke I’ve heard in ages! Hilarious!”
You are not looking at numbers or money or at the disarray in the Christian right. Independents are the key and will coalesce around Obama or Clinton in the fall.
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | May 1st, 2008 at 5:48 pm | Report this commentI assume you think that 9/11 fears will be the driver/decider of 2008. Well, you are wrong.
I’m pretty sure Obama is not dumb. When the members of his law school class at Harvard speak, this is not how he is described. He is probably more pensive than most political types. He may have misstepped quite a bit with the wright situation - the delicate dance was too delicate. I can agree with the comment that perhaps he has risen more quickly than has been ideal.
Posted by: Nathalie | May 1st, 2008 at 9:04 pm | Report this commentWith all due respect, every comment I have read above, including, I am afraid, GR’s as well, is completely beside the point. It is not the ins and outs of the Wright-Obama relationship that are important, but the central issue, which is: Why are Fox News and the other right wing media doing everything in their power to keep this story alive at all costs?
In order the answer this, we need not look back during the past 20 years of Obama’s membership in a particular black church in Chicago, but only as far back as the Swift-Boat campaign against John Kerry in 2004, or even more recently, to the desperate attempts on the Fox News channel, and, I am sure, many other right wing media, to connect Obama with the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, “black liberation theology”, the Weathermen, Somali tribal elders, and whatever other demons can be conjured up from the sewers of smear, fear and character assassination.
Finally, the right wing smear machine has hit paydirt. It could not convince any thinking person that Obama was a Muslim, or that he has any connection with a former Iraqi you know who, or a still at large you know who else on the Afghanistan - Pakistan border. But now, the artists of character assassination have found someone whom Obama actually knew and, mistakenly, seems to have trusted, even there there is not the slightest evidence that Obama ever held Wright’s extreme and offensive views.
The despicable North Carolina Republican ad conflating the images of Omama and Wright to make them into the same person reminds one of nothing less than the image of Emannuel Goldstein, the imaginary epitomy of evil whose face appears at the end of the daily “Two Minute Hate” described in Orwell’s 1984. The smear machine is not interested in elegant attempts to analyze the complexities of Obama’s connection with Wright in terms of politics, religion, culture, or even psychology; it interested only in throwing as much mud as Obama as possible and waiting to see how much will stick. The very fact that so many of us are caught up in this bread and circuses spectacle, this mega-blockbuter of entertainment, and this immense diversion from the real economic and racial injustices in American society, shows that much of the mud is sticking.
What a tragedy for this country, whose finest hope for fighting against the domination of this country by the military and industrial super-elite and transcenting the racial difference which have plagued America throughout its history, may be defeated by one of the most vicious and mendacious campaigns of character destruction ever to take place in an American political campaign. And this is only the beginning.
Posted by: algasema | May 1st, 2008 at 11:06 pm | Report this commentP: “I am very unlikely to be influenced by rev Hagee, or rev Wright or, for that matter, any Ayatollahs!” Except of course the Ayatollahs of Iranian nationalism and the left-wing socialist agenda you espouse.
Posted by: AYC | May 2nd, 2008 at 9:02 am | Report this commentCorrection: “racial difference” should have read: “racial divisions”. My apologies.
Posted by: algasema | May 2nd, 2008 at 1:02 pm | Report this commentAlgasema, you seem genuinely distressed by the level of scrutiny that Obama is undergoing. I agree that the spectacle and focus of the debate is a distraction from the real issues; but would argue that this is as it always has been and always will be.
Fatalistic perhaps, but most people are simply not interested in the finer details of policy - we all have better, more immediate, things to focus on. You bemoan the state of affairs, yet offer no solutions. How would you like to see the spectacle changed? I don’t disagree that it would be no bad thing to elevate the discussion, but how to do so, and how to do so without disenfranchising the vast majority of voters who see personality as a shortcut to policy? Intellectualising politics in some way would simply turn off the voters. Bread and circuses - you said it yourself.
The other side of the story of course, is that Obama is long overdue a through scrutinisation by the media, and his opponents. He used Wright for his own ends for 20 years and he has every right to expect that relationship to be put under the microscope.
I completely disagree that this is a moment with the potential to heal the racial divide. Wright is one of those propagating that divide. Wright is Obama’s spiritual mentor. Obama is no messiah.
Posted by: AYC | May 2nd, 2008 at 1:43 pm | Report this commentTRIANGULATION REVISITED
“Some commentators be lieve Mr Obama was initially reluctant to denounce Mr Wright, one of America’s most influential black preachers, in part because he feared alienating African-American supporters.” — Andrew Ward, FT correspondent
Posted by: RCS | May 2nd, 2008 at 1:43 pm | Report this commentOK I bang this drum once more. The sinister connection between McCain and Hagee is the real story and it is being drowned out by this nonsense about Obama.
Here is an article on the matter published only yesterday:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080501_church_state_and_campaign_08/?ln
Just read the inflammatory comments, that are quoted in this article, made by McCain’s pal on Catholics, gays, Muslims and Jews (yes RAYCS, Jews too) and decide who is more dangerous for yourselves and wonder why this is not getting any coverage. The article makes a stab at the reason:
Quote
Why has McCain gotten off so easily while Obama is being battered unmercifully?
One reason is that the Obama-Wright story is about race. The fact that Obama is the first African-American with a real chance of becoming president has made race a central part of the election story. This is especially true now, when the superdelegates and the media are carefully counting white votes, which Obama will need for victory. Wright’s words, especially when reduced to short pieces of video and sound bites, won’t help Obama.
Another reason is that the media love McCain, his war record and the access to him on the campaign, the “straight talk” reputation. These subjects have captured more attention than his support of the Iraq war, his ineffective health care proposals and his muddled economic policies
Unquote
Best,
Posted by: Pacifist | May 2nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm | Report this commentP
I know from one side of my family that deforming people’s names is a popular Moroccan recipe. Is it Iranian, RezaP, too?
Posted by: RCS | May 2nd, 2008 at 3:53 pm | Report this commentP: “…and decide who is more dangerous for yourselves”. Or reading the subtext, more dangerous for Iran, preza?
Posted by: AYC | May 2nd, 2008 at 4:01 pm | Report this commentRezaP is actually meaningful to some as short for Reza Pahlavi the son of th former Shah and the pretender to the throne of Iran
I didn’tr mangle your “names”, I just combined your initials.
Does Saban mean soap, btw (in Farsi it is “saboon”?
P
Posted by: Pacifist | May 2nd, 2008 at 4:26 pm | Report this commentEnglish ’soap’, French ’savon’, Hebrew ’sabon’, Moroccan Arabic ’seban’. Cleanliness unites humanity.
Posted by: RCS | May 2nd, 2008 at 4:46 pm | Report this commentIs Saban th same as “sabon”?!
P (curious!)
Posted by: Pacifist | May 2nd, 2008 at 5:00 pm | Report this commentAYC, with regard to Bread and Circuses, look what happened to democracy (such as it was) in ancient Rome. With regard to the rest of your post, I refer you to Pacifist’s above comments about race, which I fully endorse.
I would only add that it is inaccurate to say that Obama “used Wright for his own ends”. In fact, Obama joined Wright’s highly influential church, at least in part, for networking puporses to further his career, as did many other people on Chicago’s South Side, including that church’s large white membership. This is no secret. It is in Obama’s autobiography. What is wrong with that?
If Obama had had two white parents, instead of one, no one would care in the least which church he had joined or what his preacher said. No one cares about McCain’s preacher. No one cared when Bush spoke at the racist Bob Jones University in 2000.
No one cares about the homophobia that has became standard fare among American preachers and politicians of all races (including Reverend Wright himself). No one cares about the anti-Latino immigrant hate which Lou Dobbs speads on CNN every night, and which we also hear constantly on Fox New, talk radio, and among many (though not all) Congressional Republicans.
These attitudes in America are what Obama is trying to change. It should be no surprise to anyone that any attempt to change our racial double standard in all areas of life, not just religious affiliation, will meet with intense resistance. This has always been the case in America. Obama may have his faults of judgment, and what politician does not, but there is not the slightest evidence that he has ever spoken out for anything other than racial tolerance and reconciliation, in contrast to Wright’s meglomaniac ravings (which, incidentally, did not prevent him from being invited to the White House by Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky scandal).
Posted by: algasema | May 2nd, 2008 at 5:16 pm | Report this commentI meant: “Fox News”.
Posted by: algasema | May 2nd, 2008 at 5:19 pm | Report this commentI also meant “spreads”, not “speads”. Apologies.
Posted by: algasema | May 2nd, 2008 at 5:25 pm | Report this commentP,
As far as I know it’s akin to صابون
But since we’re dealing with a non-written dialect, there may be many variants as to how it’s pronounced.
Posted by: RCS | May 2nd, 2008 at 5:48 pm | Report this commentAbout Bread and Circuses…isn’t part of the problem that the bread is being taken away (economic downturn / credit crunch / deflation in the US) and the circus (i.e. Iraq / Afghanistan and general aggressive posturing around the world) is becoming increasingly violent, dangerous and expensive for the American audience?
P
Posted by: Pacifist | May 2nd, 2008 at 5:57 pm | Report this commentHi RCS,
I guessed that would be the case. I remember the Syrian football teams had a goalkeeper (and captain) who was called Sabanchi (chi being a turkish suffix, meaning “seller”).
Well, so much for popular linguistics!
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | May 2nd, 2008 at 5:59 pm | Report this commentPacifist, this just goes to show that, from whatever perspective, bread is not healthy food nor circuses safe excersize for the preservation of democracy.
Posted by: algasema | May 2nd, 2008 at 7:24 pm | Report this commentCORRECTION: ‘Soap’ in Darija (Moroccan Arabic) is صابون — the same as in MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) and not as I mistakenly noted above. That is, it is pronounced ’ssaboon’ as in MSA.
Posted by: RCS | May 3rd, 2008 at 8:26 am | Report this commentGideon Rachman: I respect your judgment on everything you write about — except Obama, on which subject your conclusions seem based on a failure to engage fully with his speeches (re your flimsy case for their vapidity), his writings or his background. In this case, you are giving credence to one of the most ill-founded right-wing attack lines: that Obama’s conversion and longtime adherence to Wright and his church were based on expedience. There is ample evidence to the contrary. First, here’s Wright himself, from a March ‘07 interview (at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1028/interview.html ):
I am not your typical garden-variety African-American clergy person, and because I’m not — he was talking about organizing the churches in those early days. I said, man, you don’t know who you’re talking to. They don’t like me. I’m not well liked in the city of Chicago, so you tell them you’re a member of Trinity, you’re going to turn off preachers before they ever get to know you, ’cause they’re going to associate you with me, and just that association could be a negative in terms of how you are perceived in their eyes before you open your mouth — “Oh, you go to Jeremiah’s church.” That kind of negative imaging I said might be harmful to him in terms of what he was trying to do in building coalitions and getting other churches to do things, again, for the benefit of the people. That would never happen just because they’re going to associate your name with mine. That could be detrimental, I told him back then. It holds just as true, even more so, now.
Even more telling is Obama’s nuanced, multi-stage and not particularly self-flattering account of his conversion in Dreams from My Father. There he chronicles the pressures, chronicles his doubts, chronicles much of Wright’s doctrine and his and others’ reaction, chronicles even how his own wariness of yielding to expedience delayed his commitment. Then, finally, chronicles a fully credible conversion experience that conjoins the content of the sermon that prompted it (in fact a beautiful, nonpolitical sermon of Wright’s about the power of hope in people who had suffered greatly), the experience of the parishioners and the community in which Obama had immersed himself, and the associations aroused in his own mind. Wright’s Audacity of Hope speech, btw, is available at http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/03/for-the-record.html If you read it, you’ll see that the man is not a total crackpot or fraud.
My own sense is that Obama drew important nourishment in many senses from his relationship w/ Wright and Trinity United — and therefore wilfully blinded himself to the toxic elements in Wright’s world view. That is an error of judgment, but one that I can easily forgive.
Posted by: Asp | May 3rd, 2008 at 4:48 pm | Report this commentIt seems to me, as an European, that your country cannot understand the fact that politics and religion are two separate matters. Nobobdy here in Europe cares about a political candidate’s religion. Religious beliefs are rightly perceived as a private matter. The fact that your candidates are almost obliged to present some of theirs speeches in churches is simply appalling. No wonder that the media waste so much time discussing these issues which should have no relevance. If anything, your debate about religion and racism indicates that religion does not unify people and racism is not defeated. On the contrary, they exacerbate further divisions. Mr. Obama has understood this: it is unfortunate, for him and his country, that the media and some components of the American society do not grasp his truly innovative message. Please, listen again to the speech he delivered not later than one month ago. It would be a big mistake to forget those words.
Posted by: federico busonero | May 3rd, 2008 at 8:17 pm | Report this commentFor a numbe of weeks, I have stepped away from this blog. Given the turn of Obama’s fate around his pastor and indirect/direct links to the Farrkhan organisation, I return with a qualified apology. Gideon’s doubts on Obama the Word Child (attribution to Iris Murdoch) align with those of an 83 year-old lady I know, who shares my dismay at the Democratic and Republican field and stated her unease with the eloquent rhetoric at the outset.
Federico–As we are likely sharing the same continent and strict adherence to separation of church and state principles, permit me to suggest that Obama strategically chose the black church as a key venue. He wasn’t forced into it; the comments above by ASP suggest some unfinished, and very political spiritual business.
Posted by: WCM | May 4th, 2008 at 5:38 pm | Report this commentWCM “permit me to suggest that Obama strategically chose the black church as a key venue. He wasn’t forced into it;..”
ALL DEM politicians of every color gender and religion appear, attend Black churches during campaigns…why? it is a chance to reach out to a captured audience of a very important constituency in the Dem party…The Republicans are doing it with the Christian fundalmentalist churches…It is smart politicing …just like reaching out to unions, Vets etc… Politicians are not FORCED to be religious JUST show tolerance and respect for those that are religious…
AMERICANS understand PERFECTLY the separation of church and state …and if some don’t …our courts do!
We also have a healthy respect, love for our churches, mosques and synagogues and temples…they are important community organizing arenas and many provide much needed social services…
There are some real bad apples among religious leaders of all faiths…Wright does not represent the black church OR Obama…he is representative of Rev Wright…this guilt by association is totally off the chart this election year…if it is allowed to continue …it is very bad omen for American politics in general.
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | May 4th, 2008 at 8:55 pm | Report this comment