http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/opinion/30wed1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/opinion/30dowd.html?em&ex=1209700800&en=bcf5d601b00f5a27&ei=5087
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-campaign30apr30,0,1707691.story
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aEbwr37RE9HI&refer=home
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/04/obama_disavows.html
"It is an injustice, a legacy of the racist threads of this nation's history, but prominent African Americans are regularly called upon to explain or repudiate what other black Americans have to say, while white public figures are rarely, if ever, handed that burden."
New York Times
Editorial
April 30, 2008
All,
The bottomline reality is this:
Both Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright have foolishly allowed themselves to be used and manipulated by their mutual enemies and opponents in this entire fabricated melodrama. It's a classic 'divide and conquer' moment in American politics that does a profound disservice to the politics, reputations, values, and legacies of both men and in the end merely aids and abets the larger reactionary forces of racial division and exploitation that this country's racist and opportunist politicians as well as media routinely use to mislead and manipulate the American people.
Neither Obama nor Wright has intelligently or responsibly dealt with the political implications or consequences of their actions in this entire ridiculous episode and neither one has been completely honest and forthright about their personal/political agendas and motivations. As a result they have both burned individual bridges with each other that never should have been burned in the first place (and that can only have negative consequences for both men in the long run), and neither man has fully communicated to the other exactly why each one of them felt (justifiably AND unjustifiably) hurt, misunderstood, betrayed, and abandoned by the other. When this so-called contrived "controversy" first erupted in the media last month (planted no doubt by both the Republican Party and the Clinton Machine) Obama erroneously and rather naively assumed that Wright would simply 'understand' and 'accept' why Obama felt compelled to publicly portray Wright in his now famous 'A More Perfect Union' speech in Philadelphia March 18, 2008 as not only a man that he personally disagreed with on some political issues, but as a fundamentally irresponsible and divisive figure in general whose major views were inherently "wrong" and "destructive" to the country as a whole. While doing so Obama obviously felt that by adding that the distortions of the selected looped 30 second soundbites that the Republicans (and the Clintons) were using against Wright were a "caricature" of his pastor's overall views and his exemplary 40 year service to the African American community of Chicago he was sending a clear signal to Wright that he still loved and respected him. Thus the statement by Obama that he "could no more disown Wright than he could the black community" was perceived by Obama (as it was by many others) that while openly and severely criticizing some of his views he was not cutting himself off from Wright.
However in that same speech Obama also compared some of Wright's views to that of his white grandmother's tendency to express fear and loathing of young black men or use ugly racial slurs. This statement as well as the one made by Obama that Wright was basically wrong about the United States in many of his quoted statements no doubt infuriated Wright because he not only felt the exact opposite way to Obama about many of these same quotes, but more importantly Wright felt Obama was fundamentally disrespecting him and holding him and his overall views up to public contempt and ridicule. Thus Wright felt humiliated by some of Obama's comments and gfelt that his public reputation was being besmirshed. Wright also felt that Obama's speech was not helping him deal with the firestorm of media harassment, and persistent racist death threats on him as well as vile attacks on his character and his church by many white Americans in the wake of the airing of the soundbite videos.
As a result the month long public silence of Wright after Obama's speech on race was apparently taken by Obama and his campaign handlers as a sign that Wright was simply going to let the entire episode pass without comment. But that was not only an absurdly naive and rather dumb assumption on their part but a serious misreading of the political and ideological landscape of African American discourse vis-a-vis the Obama campaign for the Presidency. For Wright was correct to assume that he was now being made a convenient and easy media scapegoat for whatever political problems Obama had or were assumed to have with white voters. Meanwhile Wright's public reputation, historical achievements, and that of his church in Chicago was being assailed and derided in much of this country if not the world because of the constant, relentless focus of television, internet, and newspaper coverage on him, Obama, and their respective views.
Needless to say all this created a very disturbing and isolating experience and environment for Wright who was now being forced to respond by not only the dictates of his own personal pride and ego, protection of his public reputation, and sense of self but by the unrelenting pressures of endless media scrunity, as well as a dangerously reactionary lunatic fringe surveillance of him, his comments, and his personal actions. So it was inevitable that the pressure cooker would implode and Wright would decide to go on the offensive against both his real and imagined enemies. Unfortunately Obama became one of Wright's targets in his new public offensive precisely because Wright (not without some justification) obviously felt that Barack was 'dissing' him via some of his earlier and subsequent critical statements about Wright's views, and that Obama had not done enough to communicate to him DIRECTLY why he felt it was politically expedient to say his now 'former pastor' was a divisive figure to his campaign.
So it was not because of their different politics in some areas that Wright felt distressed and even used by Obama--after all they had always mutually disagreed with each other over certain specific political statements both had made in the past (and again presently)--but because Obama had not done enough in Wright's view to personally reassure Wright that he meant no harm to him by his remarks. Wright however was deeply offended and felt (like Obama did on tuesday) betrayed. This is what led Wright to openly state during both his interview on Bill Moyer's program last friday evening and again this past monday at the National Press Club that "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls." The glaringly obvious fact that Wright happens to be 100% correct about that (at least about 90% of the time) is of course passed over and dismissed by the general media and many others because Wright said it but in this particular instance Obama justifiably took offense to what Wright said by making the following statement in his response during tuesday's press conference: "At a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that's enough...What I think particularly angered me was his suggestion, somehow, that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing." However, Obama's disingenuous and rather insipid assertion at the press conference that he is now all of a sudden "shocked" and "appalled" by some of Wright's views and comments at this late date in their 20 year relationship strikes me and even many other supporters as the feeble stance of a scared, hack politician rapidly backtracking and parsing language in classicly sordid Clintonese style. This is not because I or many others think every single thing that Wright has said and done is politically mature, correct, progressive, or necessary--far from it--but because Wright has every right to express his views (many of which are not only not "controversial" but are patently true) completely independent and even critical of Obama's campaign and Obama also has every right--and responsibility--to express his own views and to calmly point out where he and Wright agree and disagree. But it is neither man's right or obligation to tell the other what those views should be or to try to sabotage the other in public which is what they both have essentially done--whether they intended to or not. All of this could have--and should have--been avoided by both men by approaching and dealing with this entire affair in a far more mature and mutually respectful manner. The hysteria around this inherently non-issue was created by others who clearly mean ill will to both men and Obama and Wright should have been savvy and sophisticated enough to see that they were both being used and xploited to take down the other to their mutual demise.
As a result what we now have at the end of this entire political 'dirty tricks' encounter (egged on and enabled by typically racist media) is a serious strategic and tactical undermining of Obama's campaign by both the Republican rightwing and the Clinton Machine which can only hurt Obama's chances in the long run race for the Presidency, and the serious dismissal of, and bitterness toward, Jeremiah Wright by not only many white Americans but many African Americans as well who not only see Obama's chances being negatively affected, but also Wright's once stellar reputation in Chicago's black community being openly criticized, attacked, and dishonored by what he has done and failed to do with respect to Obama's candidacy throughout the country.
As for Barack Obama himself this episode has for the first time exposed a serious weakness in Obama's campaign style and focus that needs to be honestly acknowledged and addressed--that the so-called 'racial divide' in this country--caused for the most part by institutional and systemic racism--is a major social, economic, cultural, ideological, and POLITICAL question and reality that no amount of "transcendent" rhetoric can or should obscure. The sooner Obama takes complete and unequivocal responsibility for clearly understanding and concretely dealing with that fundamental fact of American life in his campaign and his politics the better--Reverend Wright or no Reverend Wright.
Kofi
After Break With Ex-Pastor, Obama Tries to Move On
By JEFF ZELENY and ADAM NAGOURNEY
New York Times
April 30, 2008
INDIANAPOLIS — Senator Barack Obama sought on Wednesday to set aside the controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and steer the conversation in the Democratic presidential campaign back to the economy.
One day after forcefully breaking with Mr. Wright, Mr. Obama returned to Indiana for a series of events intended to highlight his proposals for tax cuts for the middle class. With six days to go before crucial primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, Mr. Obama is trying to retake control of his message, which had been overshadowed by incendiary remarks made by Mr. Wright and by Mr. Obama’s response.
Still, campaign aides conceded that the subject of Mr. Wright’s views and his relationship with Mr. Obama were hardly going away. Mr. Obama sat on a picnic table Wednesday afternoon in Garfield Park in Indianapolis, surrounded by a few dozen voters, with the idea of answering questions about the economy. The first question was about high gas prices, but the second was from a voter who wanted to know “how much of a toll” the Wright controversy had taken on Mr. Obama.
“The situation with Reverend Wright was difficult, I won’t lie to you,” Mr. Obama said, speaking slowly and solemnly. He restated his denunciation of the incendiary remarks made by Mr. Wright, calling them “unacceptable” and adding that it was “important for the American people to know who I am, what my values are.”
But Mr. Obama tried to turn the conversation back to the issues affecting voters’ lives, saying: “What we want to do now, though, is to make sure that this doesn’t continue to be a perpetual distraction.”
Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, were scheduled to be interviewed together on network and local television on Wednesday. Those appearances will be the first opportunities for Mrs. Obama, who also was close to Mr. Wright, to address what the pastor has said in a series of public appearances.
As the Obama campaign dispatched other high-profile surrogates to tamp down the potential political fallout from the controversy — Caroline Kennedy was scheduled to make appearances in Indiana, for example — both contenders in the race for the Democratic nomination continued to aggressively pursue superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders who get automatic seats at the national convention.
Representative Baron Hill, Democrat of Indiana, announced his support for Mr. Obama Wednesday morning, and Representative Bruce Braley, Democrat of Iowa, intends to do the same today, a spokesman said, while Bill George, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. in Pennsylvania, came out for his opponent, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Both candidates are campaigning in Indiana on Wednesday, with factory visits on each candidate’s itinerary.
Mr. Obama used a news conference in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Tuesday, before leaving for Indiana, to denounce the remarks that Mr. Wright made in a series of televised appearances over the last several days, in an effort to curtail a drama of race, values, patriotism and betrayal that had enveloped his candidacy at a critical juncture.
In tones sharply different from those he used on Monday, when Mr. Obama blamed the news media and his rivals for focusing on Mr. Wright, and far harsher than those he used in his speech on race in Philadelphia last month, Mr. Obama tried to cut all his ties to — and to discredit — Mr. Wright, the clergyman who presided at Mr. Obama’s wedding and baptized his two daughters.
In the appearances, Mr. Wright suggested that the United States was attacked because it engaged in terrorism against other people, and that the government was capable of having used the AIDS virus to commit genocide against minorities. His remarks also cast Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, in a positive light.
“His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church,” Mr. Obama said on Tuesday, his voice welling with anger. “They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs.”
The Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, less than a week away, are being closely watched by party officials as a gauge of which candidate would be the stronger nominee. With Mrs. Clinton having shown particular strength among working-class white voters in recent big-state primaries, the racial overtones of Mr. Obama’s links with Mr. Wright have been especially troublesome for the Obama campaign, calling into question his ability to unify the party.
Asked how voters would react, Mr. Obama said on Tuesday: “We’ll find out.”
At a minimum, the spectacle of Mr. Wright’s multiday media tour and Mr. Obama’s rolling response grabbed the attention of the most important constituency in politics now: the uncommitted superdelegates — party officials and elected Democrats — who hold the balance of power in the nominating battle.
Eileen Macoll, a Democratic county chairman from Washington State who has not chosen a candidate, said she was stunned at the extent of national attention the episode has drawn, and she said she believed it would give superdelegates pause.
“I’m a little surprised at how much traction it is getting, and I do believe it is beginning to reflect negatively on Senator Obama’s campaign,” Ms. Macoll said. “I think he’s handling it very well, but I think it’s almost impossible to make people feel comfortable about this.”
The derisive remarks about the United States government made by Mr. Wright, a former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, have become a fixture of cable television. Mr. Obama said that he was “shocked and surprised” to read the transcripts and watch the broadcasts of Mr. Wright’s public appearances on Monday, and he felt compelled to respond more forcefully than he had before.
“I’m outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday,” Mr. Obama said on Tuesday. He added: “I find these comments appalling. It contradicts everything that I’m about and who I am.”
Fielding questions from reporters, Mr. Obama appeared downcast and subdued as he tried to explain why he had decided to categorically denounce his minister of 20 years. It was at least the third time he had sought to deal with the issue, including his well-received speech on race last month in Philadelphia.
“The fact that Reverend Wright would think that somehow it was appropriate to command the stage for three or four consecutive days in the midst of this major debate is something that not only makes me angry, but also saddens me,” Mr. Obama said on Tuesday.
Bob Mulholland, a superdelegate from California, said the difficulties Mr. Obama had experienced put a premium on results in the remaining contests.
“We’ve got nine elections to go through June 9,” Mr. Mulholland said in an interview. “I’ve never been involved in a successful presidential race where the candidate had no trouble in the primary. It’s challenging to him. He is a young man, and this is the first time he’s run for president. I see this as a learning experience.”
Asked how he thought Mr. Obama was doing, Mr. Mulholland paused before responding. “Getting better,” he finally said.
The appearances by Mr. Wright, which began Friday and concluded Monday, were anticipated by the Obama campaign, but aides said they were taken aback by the tenor of the remarks. Mr. Wright’s first interview, with Bill Moyers on PBS, offered few hints of what he intended when he arrived at the National Press Club on Monday.
“At a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that’s enough,” Mr. Obama said at the Tuesday news conference. “That’s a show of disrespect to me. It’s also, I think, an insult to what we’ve been trying to do in this campaign.”
Mr. Obama became a Christian after hearing a 1988 sermon of Mr. Wright’s called “The Audacity to Hope.” Joining Mr. Wright’s church helped Mr. Obama, with his disparate racial and geographic background, embrace not only the African-American community but also Africa, his friends and family say.
Mr. Obama had barely known his Kenyan father; Mr. Wright made pilgrimages to Africa and incorporated its rituals into worship. Mr. Obama toted recordings of Mr. Wright’s sermons to law school. Mr. Obama titled his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention “The Audacity of Hope,” and gave his next book the same name.
As Mr. Wright’s more incendiary statements began circulating widely, Mr. Obama routinely condemned them but did not disassociate himself from Mr. Wright. In his speech in Philadelphia, Mr. Obama tried to explain his pastor through the bitter history of American race relations.
Five weeks later, the men seem finished with each another.
“Whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this,” Mr. Obama said Tuesday. “I don’t think that he showed much concern for me. More importantly, I don’t think he showed much concern for what we’re trying to do in this campaign and what we’re trying to do for the American people.”
Jodi Kantor contributed reporting from New York.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
April 30, 2008
EDITORIAL
Mr. Obama and Rev. Wright
It took more time than it should have, but on Tuesday Barack Obama firmly rejected the racism and paranoia of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and he made it clear that the preacher does not represent him, his politics or his campaign.
Senator Obama has had to struggle to explain this relationship ever since a video surfaced of Mr. Wright damning the United States from his pulpit. Last month, Mr. Obama delivered a speech in which he said he disapproved of Mr. Wright’s racially charged comments but said that the pastor still played an important role in his spiritual life.
It was a distinction we were not sure would sit well with many voters. But what mattered more was the speech’s powerful commentary on the state of race relations in this country. We hoped it would open the door to a serious, healthy and much-needed discussion on race.
Mr. Wright has not let that happen. In the last few days, in a series of shocking appearances, he embraced the Rev. Louis Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism. He said the government manufactured the AIDS virus to kill blacks. He suggested that America was guilty of “terrorism” and so had brought the 9/11 attacks on itself.
This could not be handled by a speech about the complexities of modern life. It required a powerful, unambiguous denunciation — and Mr. Obama gave it. He said his former pastor’s “rants” were “appalling.” “They offend me,” he said. “They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced. And that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.”
He said he was angry that Mr. Wright suggested that he was insincere when he previously criticized the pastor’s views. “If Reverend Wright thinks that that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well,” Mr. Obama said. “And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought either.”
In March, Mr. Obama tried to walk a fine line — seeking to dispel any sense of a political relationship with Mr. Wright, while trying to preserve a personal tie that was clearly important to his religious development. On Tuesday, he abandoned that.
“I want to use this press conference to make people absolutely clear that obviously whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this,” he said, adding that if Mr. Wright speaks out again, he will not represent the Obama campaign.
It was the most forthright repudiation of an out-of-control supporter that we can remember. We would like to say that it will finally take the racial charge out of this campaign. We’re not that naïve.
It is an injustice, a legacy of the racist threads of this nation’s history, but prominent African-Americans are regularly called upon to explain or repudiate what other black Americans have to say, while white public figures are rarely, if ever, handed that burden.
Senator John McCain has continued to embrace a prominent white supporter, Pastor John Hagee, whose bigotry matches that of Mr. Wright. Mr. McCain has not tried hard enough to stop a race-baiting commercial — complete with video of Mr. Wright — that is being run against Mr. Obama in North Carolina.
If Mr. Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee, we fear that there will be many more such commercials. And Mr. Obama will have to repudiate Mr. Wright’s outbursts many more times.
This country needs a healthy and open discussion of race. Mr. Obama’s repudiation of Mr. Wright is part of that. His opponents also have a responsibility — to repudiate the race-baiting and make sure it stops.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Praying and Preying
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: April 30, 2008
New York Times
Barack Obama has spent his life, and campaign, trying not to be the Angry Black Man.
Early on, he wrote in “Dreams From My Father,” he discerned the benefits of playing against the ’60s stereotype of black militancy.
“I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds,” he said. “One of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved — such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time.”
Obama and his aides often brag about his Zenlike serenity. “I’ve learned that I have what I believe is the right temperament for the presidency, which is I don’t get too high when I’m high and I don’t get too low when I’m low,” he told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”
The next morning, he was hurtled into the worst political crisis of his life. On Tuesday, the Sort Of Angry Black Man appeared, reluctantly spurred into action by The Really Angry Black Man.
Speaking to reporters in the heart of tobacco country in Winston-Salem, N.C., the poor guy looked as if he were dying for a smoke. “When I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it,” Obama said. “It contradicts everything I am about and who I am.” He said that the riffs of the man he prayed with before his announcement speech give “comfort to those who prey on hate.”
Obama, of course, will only ratchet up the skepticism of those who don’t understand why he stayed in the church for 20 years if his belief system is so diametrically opposed to Wright’s.
He’s back on the tricky path he faced as a child, navigating between two racial cultures. At Trinity, he may have ignored what he should have heard because he was trying to assimilate to black culture. Now, he may be outraged by what he belatedly heard because he’s trying to relate to the white lunch-pail set.
Having been deserted at age 2 by his father, Obama has now been deserted by the father-figure in his church, the man who inspired him to become a Christian, married him, dedicated his house, baptized his children, gave him the title of his second book and theme for his presidential run and worked on his campaign.
At the very moment when his fate hangs in the balance, when he is trying to persuade white working-class voters that he is not an exotic stranger with radical ties, the vainglorious Rev. Wright kicks him in the stomach. In a narcissistic explosion that would impress Bill Clinton, the preacher dragged Obama into the ’60s maelstrom that he had pledged to be an antidote to. In two days worth of solipsistic rants, the man of faith committed at least four of the seven deadly sins — wrath, envy, pride and greed (book and lecture fees?) — while grandiosely claiming he was defending the black church.
He was certainly sore at Obama, after helping him get connected in Chicago politics, for distancing himself. But he was also clearly envious that Obama has been hailed by his flock as the halo-wearing Redeemer of America’s hope.
If Obama was going to co-opt his role as charismatic evangelist, why couldn’t he morph into a spinning politician? Obama’s anger, an unused muscle, had to be stoked by his advisers, who pressed him with drooping poll numbers and the video of Wright at the National Press Club. He again heard the preacher turning Farrakhan into an American idol, and his flame-throwing assertions that the U.S. government had infected blacks with the AIDS virus and had brought terrorist attacks on itself by practicing terrorism abroad.
But in the end, it was Wright showing “disrespect” by implying that Obama was a phony that sparked the candidate’s slow-burning temper. “What I think particularly angered me,” he said, “was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks was somehow political posturing.”
For some, Obama didn’t offer enough outrage. “He talks about Reverend Wright violating his core beliefs as if he is detailing why he doesn’t like cheesecake or cream cheese,” said one Hillary Democrat. “He’s more passionate about basketball.”
The Illinois senator doesn’t pay attention to the mythic nature of campaigns, but if he did, he would recognize the narrative of the classic hero myth: The young hero ventures out on an adventure to seek a golden fleece or an Oval Office; he has to kill monsters and face hurdles before he returns home, knocks off his father and assumes the throne.
Tuesday was more than a Sister Souljah moment; it was a painful form of political patricide. “I did not vet my pastor before I decided to run for the presidency,” Obama said.
In a campaign that’s all about who’s vetted, maybe he should have.
Both Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright have foolishly allowed themselves to be used and manipulated by their mutual enemies and opponents in this entire fabricated melodrama. It's a classic 'divide and conquer' moment in American politics that does a profound disservice to the politics, reputations, values, and legacies of both men and in the end merely aids and abets the larger reactionary forces of racial division and exploitation that this country's racist and opportunist politicians as well as media routinely use to mislead and manipulate the American people.
Neither Obama nor Wright has intelligently or responsibly dealt with the political implications or consequences of their actions in this entire ridiculous episode and neither one has been completely honest and forthright about their personal/political agendas and motivations. As a result they have both burned individual bridges with each other that never should have been burned in the first place (and that can only have negative consequences for both men in the long run), and neither man has fully communicated to the other exactly why each one of them felt (justifiably AND unjustifiably) hurt, misunderstood, betrayed, and abandoned by the other. When this so-called contrived "controversy" first erupted in the media last month (planted no doubt by both the Republican Party and the Clinton Machine) Obama erroneously and rather naively assumed that Wright would simply 'understand' and 'accept' why Obama felt compelled to publicly portray Wright in his now famous 'A More Perfect Union' speech in Philadelphia March 18, 2008 as not only a man that he personally disagreed with on some political issues, but as a fundamentally irresponsible and divisive figure in general whose major views were inherently "wrong" and "destructive" to the country as a whole. While doing so Obama obviously felt that by adding that the distortions of the selected looped 30 second soundbites that the Republicans (and the Clintons) were using against Wright were a "caricature" of his pastor's overall views and his exemplary 40 year service to the African American community of Chicago he was sending a clear signal to Wright that he still loved and respected him. Thus the statement by Obama that he "could no more disown Wright than he could the black community" was perceived by Obama (as it was by many others) that while openly and severely criticizing some of his views he was not cutting himself off from Wright.
However in that same speech Obama also compared some of Wright's views to that of his white grandmother's tendency to express fear and loathing of young black men or use ugly racial slurs. This statement as well as the one made by Obama that Wright was basically wrong about the United States in many of his quoted statements no doubt infuriated Wright because he not only felt the exact opposite way to Obama about many of these same quotes, but more importantly Wright felt Obama was fundamentally disrespecting him and holding him and his overall views up to public contempt and ridicule. Thus Wright felt humiliated by some of Obama's comments and gfelt that his public reputation was being besmirshed. Wright also felt that Obama's speech was not helping him deal with the firestorm of media harassment, and persistent racist death threats on him as well as vile attacks on his character and his church by many white Americans in the wake of the airing of the soundbite videos.
As a result the month long public silence of Wright after Obama's speech on race was apparently taken by Obama and his campaign handlers as a sign that Wright was simply going to let the entire episode pass without comment. But that was not only an absurdly naive and rather dumb assumption on their part but a serious misreading of the political and ideological landscape of African American discourse vis-a-vis the Obama campaign for the Presidency. For Wright was correct to assume that he was now being made a convenient and easy media scapegoat for whatever political problems Obama had or were assumed to have with white voters. Meanwhile Wright's public reputation, historical achievements, and that of his church in Chicago was being assailed and derided in much of this country if not the world because of the constant, relentless focus of television, internet, and newspaper coverage on him, Obama, and their respective views.
Needless to say all this created a very disturbing and isolating experience and environment for Wright who was now being forced to respond by not only the dictates of his own personal pride and ego, protection of his public reputation, and sense of self but by the unrelenting pressures of endless media scrunity, as well as a dangerously reactionary lunatic fringe surveillance of him, his comments, and his personal actions. So it was inevitable that the pressure cooker would implode and Wright would decide to go on the offensive against both his real and imagined enemies. Unfortunately Obama became one of Wright's targets in his new public offensive precisely because Wright (not without some justification) obviously felt that Barack was 'dissing' him via some of his earlier and subsequent critical statements about Wright's views, and that Obama had not done enough to communicate to him DIRECTLY why he felt it was politically expedient to say his now 'former pastor' was a divisive figure to his campaign.
So it was not because of their different politics in some areas that Wright felt distressed and even used by Obama--after all they had always mutually disagreed with each other over certain specific political statements both had made in the past (and again presently)--but because Obama had not done enough in Wright's view to personally reassure Wright that he meant no harm to him by his remarks. Wright however was deeply offended and felt (like Obama did on tuesday) betrayed. This is what led Wright to openly state during both his interview on Bill Moyer's program last friday evening and again this past monday at the National Press Club that "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls." The glaringly obvious fact that Wright happens to be 100% correct about that (at least about 90% of the time) is of course passed over and dismissed by the general media and many others because Wright said it but in this particular instance Obama justifiably took offense to what Wright said by making the following statement in his response during tuesday's press conference: "At a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that's enough...What I think particularly angered me was his suggestion, somehow, that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing." However, Obama's disingenuous and rather insipid assertion at the press conference that he is now all of a sudden "shocked" and "appalled" by some of Wright's views and comments at this late date in their 20 year relationship strikes me and even many other supporters as the feeble stance of a scared, hack politician rapidly backtracking and parsing language in classicly sordid Clintonese style. This is not because I or many others think every single thing that Wright has said and done is politically mature, correct, progressive, or necessary--far from it--but because Wright has every right to express his views (many of which are not only not "controversial" but are patently true) completely independent and even critical of Obama's campaign and Obama also has every right--and responsibility--to express his own views and to calmly point out where he and Wright agree and disagree. But it is neither man's right or obligation to tell the other what those views should be or to try to sabotage the other in public which is what they both have essentially done--whether they intended to or not. All of this could have--and should have--been avoided by both men by approaching and dealing with this entire affair in a far more mature and mutually respectful manner. The hysteria around this inherently non-issue was created by others who clearly mean ill will to both men and Obama and Wright should have been savvy and sophisticated enough to see that they were both being used and xploited to take down the other to their mutual demise.
As a result what we now have at the end of this entire political 'dirty tricks' encounter (egged on and enabled by typically racist media) is a serious strategic and tactical undermining of Obama's campaign by both the Republican rightwing and the Clinton Machine which can only hurt Obama's chances in the long run race for the Presidency, and the serious dismissal of, and bitterness toward, Jeremiah Wright by not only many white Americans but many African Americans as well who not only see Obama's chances being negatively affected, but also Wright's once stellar reputation in Chicago's black community being openly criticized, attacked, and dishonored by what he has done and failed to do with respect to Obama's candidacy throughout the country.
As for Barack Obama himself this episode has for the first time exposed a serious weakness in Obama's campaign style and focus that needs to be honestly acknowledged and addressed--that the so-called 'racial divide' in this country--caused for the most part by institutional and systemic racism--is a major social, economic, cultural, ideological, and POLITICAL question and reality that no amount of "transcendent" rhetoric can or should obscure. The sooner Obama takes complete and unequivocal responsibility for clearly understanding and concretely dealing with that fundamental fact of American life in his campaign and his politics the better--Reverend Wright or no Reverend Wright.
Kofi
After Break With Ex-Pastor, Obama Tries to Move On
By JEFF ZELENY and ADAM NAGOURNEY
New York Times
April 30, 2008
INDIANAPOLIS — Senator Barack Obama sought on Wednesday to set aside the controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and steer the conversation in the Democratic presidential campaign back to the economy.
One day after forcefully breaking with Mr. Wright, Mr. Obama returned to Indiana for a series of events intended to highlight his proposals for tax cuts for the middle class. With six days to go before crucial primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, Mr. Obama is trying to retake control of his message, which had been overshadowed by incendiary remarks made by Mr. Wright and by Mr. Obama’s response.
Still, campaign aides conceded that the subject of Mr. Wright’s views and his relationship with Mr. Obama were hardly going away. Mr. Obama sat on a picnic table Wednesday afternoon in Garfield Park in Indianapolis, surrounded by a few dozen voters, with the idea of answering questions about the economy. The first question was about high gas prices, but the second was from a voter who wanted to know “how much of a toll” the Wright controversy had taken on Mr. Obama.
“The situation with Reverend Wright was difficult, I won’t lie to you,” Mr. Obama said, speaking slowly and solemnly. He restated his denunciation of the incendiary remarks made by Mr. Wright, calling them “unacceptable” and adding that it was “important for the American people to know who I am, what my values are.”
But Mr. Obama tried to turn the conversation back to the issues affecting voters’ lives, saying: “What we want to do now, though, is to make sure that this doesn’t continue to be a perpetual distraction.”
Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, were scheduled to be interviewed together on network and local television on Wednesday. Those appearances will be the first opportunities for Mrs. Obama, who also was close to Mr. Wright, to address what the pastor has said in a series of public appearances.
As the Obama campaign dispatched other high-profile surrogates to tamp down the potential political fallout from the controversy — Caroline Kennedy was scheduled to make appearances in Indiana, for example — both contenders in the race for the Democratic nomination continued to aggressively pursue superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders who get automatic seats at the national convention.
Representative Baron Hill, Democrat of Indiana, announced his support for Mr. Obama Wednesday morning, and Representative Bruce Braley, Democrat of Iowa, intends to do the same today, a spokesman said, while Bill George, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. in Pennsylvania, came out for his opponent, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Both candidates are campaigning in Indiana on Wednesday, with factory visits on each candidate’s itinerary.
Mr. Obama used a news conference in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Tuesday, before leaving for Indiana, to denounce the remarks that Mr. Wright made in a series of televised appearances over the last several days, in an effort to curtail a drama of race, values, patriotism and betrayal that had enveloped his candidacy at a critical juncture.
In tones sharply different from those he used on Monday, when Mr. Obama blamed the news media and his rivals for focusing on Mr. Wright, and far harsher than those he used in his speech on race in Philadelphia last month, Mr. Obama tried to cut all his ties to — and to discredit — Mr. Wright, the clergyman who presided at Mr. Obama’s wedding and baptized his two daughters.
In the appearances, Mr. Wright suggested that the United States was attacked because it engaged in terrorism against other people, and that the government was capable of having used the AIDS virus to commit genocide against minorities. His remarks also cast Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, in a positive light.
“His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church,” Mr. Obama said on Tuesday, his voice welling with anger. “They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs.”
The Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, less than a week away, are being closely watched by party officials as a gauge of which candidate would be the stronger nominee. With Mrs. Clinton having shown particular strength among working-class white voters in recent big-state primaries, the racial overtones of Mr. Obama’s links with Mr. Wright have been especially troublesome for the Obama campaign, calling into question his ability to unify the party.
Asked how voters would react, Mr. Obama said on Tuesday: “We’ll find out.”
At a minimum, the spectacle of Mr. Wright’s multiday media tour and Mr. Obama’s rolling response grabbed the attention of the most important constituency in politics now: the uncommitted superdelegates — party officials and elected Democrats — who hold the balance of power in the nominating battle.
Eileen Macoll, a Democratic county chairman from Washington State who has not chosen a candidate, said she was stunned at the extent of national attention the episode has drawn, and she said she believed it would give superdelegates pause.
“I’m a little surprised at how much traction it is getting, and I do believe it is beginning to reflect negatively on Senator Obama’s campaign,” Ms. Macoll said. “I think he’s handling it very well, but I think it’s almost impossible to make people feel comfortable about this.”
The derisive remarks about the United States government made by Mr. Wright, a former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, have become a fixture of cable television. Mr. Obama said that he was “shocked and surprised” to read the transcripts and watch the broadcasts of Mr. Wright’s public appearances on Monday, and he felt compelled to respond more forcefully than he had before.
“I’m outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday,” Mr. Obama said on Tuesday. He added: “I find these comments appalling. It contradicts everything that I’m about and who I am.”
Fielding questions from reporters, Mr. Obama appeared downcast and subdued as he tried to explain why he had decided to categorically denounce his minister of 20 years. It was at least the third time he had sought to deal with the issue, including his well-received speech on race last month in Philadelphia.
“The fact that Reverend Wright would think that somehow it was appropriate to command the stage for three or four consecutive days in the midst of this major debate is something that not only makes me angry, but also saddens me,” Mr. Obama said on Tuesday.
Bob Mulholland, a superdelegate from California, said the difficulties Mr. Obama had experienced put a premium on results in the remaining contests.
“We’ve got nine elections to go through June 9,” Mr. Mulholland said in an interview. “I’ve never been involved in a successful presidential race where the candidate had no trouble in the primary. It’s challenging to him. He is a young man, and this is the first time he’s run for president. I see this as a learning experience.”
Asked how he thought Mr. Obama was doing, Mr. Mulholland paused before responding. “Getting better,” he finally said.
The appearances by Mr. Wright, which began Friday and concluded Monday, were anticipated by the Obama campaign, but aides said they were taken aback by the tenor of the remarks. Mr. Wright’s first interview, with Bill Moyers on PBS, offered few hints of what he intended when he arrived at the National Press Club on Monday.
“At a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that’s enough,” Mr. Obama said at the Tuesday news conference. “That’s a show of disrespect to me. It’s also, I think, an insult to what we’ve been trying to do in this campaign.”
Mr. Obama became a Christian after hearing a 1988 sermon of Mr. Wright’s called “The Audacity to Hope.” Joining Mr. Wright’s church helped Mr. Obama, with his disparate racial and geographic background, embrace not only the African-American community but also Africa, his friends and family say.
Mr. Obama had barely known his Kenyan father; Mr. Wright made pilgrimages to Africa and incorporated its rituals into worship. Mr. Obama toted recordings of Mr. Wright’s sermons to law school. Mr. Obama titled his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention “The Audacity of Hope,” and gave his next book the same name.
As Mr. Wright’s more incendiary statements began circulating widely, Mr. Obama routinely condemned them but did not disassociate himself from Mr. Wright. In his speech in Philadelphia, Mr. Obama tried to explain his pastor through the bitter history of American race relations.
Five weeks later, the men seem finished with each another.
“Whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this,” Mr. Obama said Tuesday. “I don’t think that he showed much concern for me. More importantly, I don’t think he showed much concern for what we’re trying to do in this campaign and what we’re trying to do for the American people.”
Jodi Kantor contributed reporting from New York.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
April 30, 2008
EDITORIAL
Mr. Obama and Rev. Wright
It took more time than it should have, but on Tuesday Barack Obama firmly rejected the racism and paranoia of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and he made it clear that the preacher does not represent him, his politics or his campaign.
Senator Obama has had to struggle to explain this relationship ever since a video surfaced of Mr. Wright damning the United States from his pulpit. Last month, Mr. Obama delivered a speech in which he said he disapproved of Mr. Wright’s racially charged comments but said that the pastor still played an important role in his spiritual life.
It was a distinction we were not sure would sit well with many voters. But what mattered more was the speech’s powerful commentary on the state of race relations in this country. We hoped it would open the door to a serious, healthy and much-needed discussion on race.
Mr. Wright has not let that happen. In the last few days, in a series of shocking appearances, he embraced the Rev. Louis Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism. He said the government manufactured the AIDS virus to kill blacks. He suggested that America was guilty of “terrorism” and so had brought the 9/11 attacks on itself.
This could not be handled by a speech about the complexities of modern life. It required a powerful, unambiguous denunciation — and Mr. Obama gave it. He said his former pastor’s “rants” were “appalling.” “They offend me,” he said. “They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced. And that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.”
He said he was angry that Mr. Wright suggested that he was insincere when he previously criticized the pastor’s views. “If Reverend Wright thinks that that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well,” Mr. Obama said. “And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought either.”
In March, Mr. Obama tried to walk a fine line — seeking to dispel any sense of a political relationship with Mr. Wright, while trying to preserve a personal tie that was clearly important to his religious development. On Tuesday, he abandoned that.
“I want to use this press conference to make people absolutely clear that obviously whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this,” he said, adding that if Mr. Wright speaks out again, he will not represent the Obama campaign.
It was the most forthright repudiation of an out-of-control supporter that we can remember. We would like to say that it will finally take the racial charge out of this campaign. We’re not that naïve.
It is an injustice, a legacy of the racist threads of this nation’s history, but prominent African-Americans are regularly called upon to explain or repudiate what other black Americans have to say, while white public figures are rarely, if ever, handed that burden.
Senator John McCain has continued to embrace a prominent white supporter, Pastor John Hagee, whose bigotry matches that of Mr. Wright. Mr. McCain has not tried hard enough to stop a race-baiting commercial — complete with video of Mr. Wright — that is being run against Mr. Obama in North Carolina.
If Mr. Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee, we fear that there will be many more such commercials. And Mr. Obama will have to repudiate Mr. Wright’s outbursts many more times.
This country needs a healthy and open discussion of race. Mr. Obama’s repudiation of Mr. Wright is part of that. His opponents also have a responsibility — to repudiate the race-baiting and make sure it stops.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Praying and Preying
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: April 30, 2008
New York Times
Barack Obama has spent his life, and campaign, trying not to be the Angry Black Man.
Early on, he wrote in “Dreams From My Father,” he discerned the benefits of playing against the ’60s stereotype of black militancy.
“I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds,” he said. “One of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved — such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time.”
Obama and his aides often brag about his Zenlike serenity. “I’ve learned that I have what I believe is the right temperament for the presidency, which is I don’t get too high when I’m high and I don’t get too low when I’m low,” he told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”
The next morning, he was hurtled into the worst political crisis of his life. On Tuesday, the Sort Of Angry Black Man appeared, reluctantly spurred into action by The Really Angry Black Man.
Speaking to reporters in the heart of tobacco country in Winston-Salem, N.C., the poor guy looked as if he were dying for a smoke. “When I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it,” Obama said. “It contradicts everything I am about and who I am.” He said that the riffs of the man he prayed with before his announcement speech give “comfort to those who prey on hate.”
Obama, of course, will only ratchet up the skepticism of those who don’t understand why he stayed in the church for 20 years if his belief system is so diametrically opposed to Wright’s.
He’s back on the tricky path he faced as a child, navigating between two racial cultures. At Trinity, he may have ignored what he should have heard because he was trying to assimilate to black culture. Now, he may be outraged by what he belatedly heard because he’s trying to relate to the white lunch-pail set.
Having been deserted at age 2 by his father, Obama has now been deserted by the father-figure in his church, the man who inspired him to become a Christian, married him, dedicated his house, baptized his children, gave him the title of his second book and theme for his presidential run and worked on his campaign.
At the very moment when his fate hangs in the balance, when he is trying to persuade white working-class voters that he is not an exotic stranger with radical ties, the vainglorious Rev. Wright kicks him in the stomach. In a narcissistic explosion that would impress Bill Clinton, the preacher dragged Obama into the ’60s maelstrom that he had pledged to be an antidote to. In two days worth of solipsistic rants, the man of faith committed at least four of the seven deadly sins — wrath, envy, pride and greed (book and lecture fees?) — while grandiosely claiming he was defending the black church.
He was certainly sore at Obama, after helping him get connected in Chicago politics, for distancing himself. But he was also clearly envious that Obama has been hailed by his flock as the halo-wearing Redeemer of America’s hope.
If Obama was going to co-opt his role as charismatic evangelist, why couldn’t he morph into a spinning politician? Obama’s anger, an unused muscle, had to be stoked by his advisers, who pressed him with drooping poll numbers and the video of Wright at the National Press Club. He again heard the preacher turning Farrakhan into an American idol, and his flame-throwing assertions that the U.S. government had infected blacks with the AIDS virus and had brought terrorist attacks on itself by practicing terrorism abroad.
But in the end, it was Wright showing “disrespect” by implying that Obama was a phony that sparked the candidate’s slow-burning temper. “What I think particularly angered me,” he said, “was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks was somehow political posturing.”
For some, Obama didn’t offer enough outrage. “He talks about Reverend Wright violating his core beliefs as if he is detailing why he doesn’t like cheesecake or cream cheese,” said one Hillary Democrat. “He’s more passionate about basketball.”
The Illinois senator doesn’t pay attention to the mythic nature of campaigns, but if he did, he would recognize the narrative of the classic hero myth: The young hero ventures out on an adventure to seek a golden fleece or an Oval Office; he has to kill monsters and face hurdles before he returns home, knocks off his father and assumes the throne.
Tuesday was more than a Sister Souljah moment; it was a painful form of political patricide. “I did not vet my pastor before I decided to run for the presidency,” Obama said.
In a campaign that’s all about who’s vetted, maybe he should have.
