Who will (not should) be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008?

[Fighter of Foo]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

That's not a mistake. That's a conscious decision against better judgement.

I suppose you've never made one of those?

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Fighter of Foo

I suppose you've never made one of those?

Certainly not anywhere near the level of a crime, infidelity, or making inflammatory public statements. But I guess I'm the rare minority...........

[Deattribution]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Certainly not anywhere near the level of a crime, infidelity, or making inflammatory public statements. But I guess I'm the rare minority...........

Apparently as long as you only do it once in a while (which I assume could be a few times a year) for 20+ years, it's okay.

As if his church is going to come out and say, yes we do this kinda stuff ALL the time and it's what we're all about. Where are these arguments when Jerry Falwell says something outrageous? Think it might have anything to do with the fact he doesn't have an important political figure tied to him at the moment and Wright does?

[Fighter of Foo]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Certainly not anywhere near the level of a crime, infidelity, or making inflammatory public statements. But I guess I'm the rare minority...........

Any crime? I'd certainly say so.

If you've never made a conscious decision against better judgement, then I'd say you're the second coming of Christ. If not that, maybe a cyborg. Definitely not a human.

[Young Drachma]

Some of the buzz on Obama's speech.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Deattribution

Apparently as long as you only do it once in a while (which I assume could be a few times a year) for 20+ years, it's okay.

As if his church is going to come out and say, yes we do this kinda stuff ALL the time and it's what we're all about. Where are these arguments when Jerry Falwell says something outrageous? Think it might have anything to do with the fact he doesn't have an important political figure tied to him at the moment and Wright does?

Who, exactly is defending Wright? There are plenty of people defending Obama, but I haven't seen anyone here argue that Wright's statements aren't deplorable.

[Deattribution]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Who, exactly is defending Wright? There are plenty of people defending Obama, but I haven't seen anyone here argue that Wright's statements aren't deplorable.

There are plenty of people in this thread defending him by saying he's only done it a few times, he's just an angry black man from the segregation period, 'everyone has done it' or a few other arguments. Have you read the thread, or even Obama's words which amount to saying almost everyone knows someone who said similiar things? (which isn't true either)

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Certainly not anywhere near the level of a crime, infidelity, or making inflammatory public statements. But I guess I'm the rare minority...........

Bill Clinton has you beat. He managed to do all three at once

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Fighter of Foo

If you've never made a conscious decision against better judgement, then I'd say you're the second coming of Christ. If not that, maybe a cyborg. Definitely not a human.

Well, I certainly rented and played Madden '07 for the PS3, but that's not nearly as bad as a DWI.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Deattribution

Apparently as long as you only do it once in a while (which I assume could be a few times a year) for 20+ years, it's okay.

As if his church is going to come out and say, yes we do this kinda stuff ALL the time and it's what we're all about. Where are these arguments when Jerry Falwell says something outrageous? Think it might have anything to do with the fact he doesn't have an important political figure tied to him at the moment and Wright does?

People like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Jesse Jackson are just as bad. The difference is that none of these men have a presidential candidate citing them as an influencial person in their lives for 20+ years.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

People like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Jesse Jackson are just as bad. The difference is that none of these men have a presidential candidate citing them as an influencial person in their lives for 20+ years.

Pat Robertson or Jesse Jackson didn't claim they were influential to themselves when they were running for President?

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by cartman

Pat Robertson or Jesse Jackson didn't claim they were influential to themselves when they were running for President?

Good point. I think Jesse Jackson actually endorsed himself at a press conference.

[SuperGrover]

Originally Posted by Mac Howard

It's not the church or Wright that will make or break Obama. It is the implied hypocrisy of a man presenting himself as a force for unity while refusing to walk away over 20 years from the rhetoric of anti-American hatred that would split the community in two. At worst Obama has some concealed sympathy for these views, at best he has turned a blind eye to them.

I think only those who already see no wrong in Obama are convinced this speech has put the matter to bed. Should he make it to the Presidential contest the Republicans will tear him to shreds with this.

Well said. The pastor would be a minor issue if Obama had run a campaign based upon something other that unity.

[Fighter of Foo]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

People like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Jesse Jackson are just as bad. The difference is that none of these men have a presidential candidate citing them as an influencial person in their lives for 20+ years.

And I ask, again, how is this different from McCain and Hagee? McCain actiuvely sought Hagee's endorsement and has appeared with him publicly.

McCain is saying, I accept Hagee's endorsement but don't agree with everything he's said.

Obama is saying, I accept Wright as my pastor and friend but don't agree with everything he's said.

What is the damn difference?

[SuperGrover]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Supergrover: But there's no evidence that Obama believes any of the most offensive things that Wright has said. I still want to know how Wright's statements change Obama's positions. In the end what's truly important is what Obama will or won't do. Wright's words in and of themselves don't mean anything to me.

Because Obama has no positions. His ENTIRE fucking campaign is based upon unifying the nation. Yet, he's associated himself for 20 years with a man that is preaching racially divisive rhetoric. This undermines his message of unity at its core, don't you think?

If Obama was about anything other than unity, it wouldn't be an issue.

[SuperGrover]

Originally Posted by Fighter of Foo

And I ask, again, how is this different from McCain and Hagee? McCain actiuvely sought Hagee's endorsement and has appeared with him publicly.

McCain is saying, I accept Hagee's endorsement but don't agree with everything he's said.

Obama is saying, I accept Wright as my pastor and friend but don't agree with everything he's said.

What is the damn difference?

God dammit, because Obama's campaign is about unity. McCain's isn't. Clinton's isn't. No other candidate's campaign was. Obama, OTOH, has always been about a movement of fundamental change, not policies. THAT is why it matters.

[Fighter of Foo]

Originally Posted by SuperGrover

God dammit, because Obama's campaign is about unity. McCain's isn't. Clinton's isn't. No other candidate's campaign was. Obama, OTOH, has always been about a movement of fundamental change, not policies. THAT is why it matters.

If you're running a campaign with UNITY as the theme doesn't that mean by definition you'd have to include people who you disagree with?

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by SuperGrover

God dammit, because Obama's campaign is about unity. McCain's isn't. Clinton's isn't. No other candidate's campaign was. Obama, OTOH, has always been about a movement of fundamental change, not policies. THAT is why it matters.

But isn't a campaign built on nothing more than "hope" and "unity" and a "post-political landscape" doomed to fail? Every election cycle, we have some maverick candidate who promises to "re-invent Washington." They get some people excited; they get the New York Times to fill some column inches in the months before Iowa; and then they lose elections and fade away.

I would like to think that the leader of the free world has more than "hope" in his bag. It is a sorry state of affairs indeed if the presidental election is nothing more than a popularity contest.

Basically, I think that a good rule of thumb when deciding who to support for political office is (1) do I agree with this candidate's policies, and (2) how likely are they to actually implement those policies.

Sure, the president is also the Head of State. And charisma matters there. And part of politics is getting the people behind you. And charisma matters there. But, at the end of the day, it is a complex job with real consequences. We should demand that the people elected to that job can actually do it--and not just talk pretty.

So, I guess if one beleives that Obama is just about "sunshine and bunnies" then the Wright thing is a deal breaker. But why the hell was someone supporting Obama based on that in the first place? What a silly thing to do. If the man fails on a "policy" level, then Wright is the least of his problems as a candidate.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

So, I guess if one beleives that Obama is just about "sunshine and bunnies" then the Wright thing is a deal breaker. But why the hell was someone supporting Obama based on that in the first place? What a silly thing to do. If the man fails on a "policy" level, then Wright is the least of his problems as a candidate.

Is there where someone posts (or reposts) the Sarandon quote?

[CamEdwards]

Originally Posted by Fighter of Foo

If you're running a campaign with UNITY as the theme doesn't that mean by definition you'd have to include people who you disagree with?

Uh, no. If you're running a campaign with unity as the theme you surround include people who believe in unity. Not people who use racial division as the basis for their theology.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

I wonder how many people will listen to the speech via youtube, etc. This seems like the first major political speech in which people have the opportunity to hear it firsthand. I don't know if people will take the opportunity or not. But it seems like it is only good for Democracy if they do. Whether you agree with it or not, you are actually engaging it--instead of just listening to someone's snarky or praise-filled description of it.

Still, I am skeptical that any significant number of people are willing to take a half-hour to listen to a political speech. Patience is not in America's DNA.

OBAMA'S SPEECH MAKES YOUTUBE HISTORY..."

Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech is the most popular video in the world today, drawing an unusual 1.2 million full views in its first 24 hours on YouTube – double the views of the next most popular clips. YouTube only counts visitors who watch an entire video, so hundreds of thousands of additional visitors probably watched part of the 37-minute address.

While commentators and Democratic leaders predict that "A More Perfect Union" will ultimately be seen as a historic contribution to American race relations, it is already making history in YouTube politics. At this pace, it will be the most watched contemporary political speech in Internet history. In about a day, it is already the second most viewed item on Obama's innovative YouTube channel, which boasts 810 videos and 13 million channel views. (For comparison, that is nine times the views the Clinton channel and 21 times the views for McCain's channel.)

Obama's all-time top video, a 4-minute response to President Bush's State of the Union recorded exclusively for YouTube, ultimately drew 1.3 million views. An Obama aide tells The Nation that video took about two weeks to reach one million views -- this longer Philadelphia address broke one million views in a single day, with visitors voting it the top rated and most "favorited" video on YouTube. And over at MSNBC.com, an excerpt of Obama's speech was also the most popular clip, drawing over 360,000 views.

Obama has staked his campaign on the premise that we cannot solve the country's problems through the old, broken model of divisive politics and scandal-driven, never-ending media battles. From improving race relations to ending the war responsibly, he is offering voters honest and nuanced ideas over soundbites. And a record-breaking number of people continue to embrace this unusual political proposal -- often routing around the media filter to hear from Obama directly. "

[Grammaticus]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Some of the buzz on Obama's speech.

This one probably sums it up the best:

John Dickerson says that though it wasn't without its problems, the speech was cool, reasoned, and likely impressive to Democratic viewers.

I tend to agree that if you were already a staunch Obama supporter, you think he hit a home run. If you were already not an Obama supporter, you think the speech only raises more issues. Albeit it was well written and delivered with less skill than many of his other speechs.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by SuperGrover

Because Obama has no positions. His ENTIRE fucking campaign is based upon unifying the nation. Yet, he's associated himself for 20 years with a man that is preaching racially divisive rhetoric. This undermines his message of unity at its core, don't you think?

If Obama was about anything other than unity, it wouldn't be an issue.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by SuperGrover

Because Obama has no positions. His ENTIRE fucking campaign is based upon unifying the nation. Yet, he's associated himself for 20 years with a man that is preaching racially divisive rhetoric. This undermines his message of unity at its core, don't you think?

If Obama was about anything other than unity, it wouldn't be an issue.

So does McCain not knowing who's allied with whom in Iraq disqualify him because his whole campaign is about Iraq? What other positions does he have?

Obama has plenty of positions on Iraq, healthcare, NAFTA, etc. You may not agree with them, but it's disingenuous to say he has no positions. I still argue that most of the people most vocal about the Wright issue had no intention of voting for Obama anyway. This wasn't something that changed those minds, but an opening to destroy a rival politician.

As I've said over and over, vote for whomever you wish. Obama ideology won't work for a lot of you just as Bush's doesn't work for me. However, I would hope that we can at least respect that Obama is trying to discuss a very important issue, one that may get farther if he isn't the President, but one that shouldn't be tossed aside in favor of the easy partisan attack.

[Ksyrup]

If this doesn't convince you to vote for Obama, nothing will:

[Deattribution]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

As I've said over and over, vote for whomever you wish. Obama ideology won't work for a lot of you just as Bush's doesn't work for me. However, I would hope that we can at least respect that Obama is trying to discuss a very important issue, one that may get farther if he isn't the President, but one that shouldn't be tossed aside in favor of the easy partisan attack.

My problem isn't with him taking on racism with his speech, it's that the only reason he's doing it now is because he's been associated with a racist for the last 20+ years. If this whole youtube/Wright stuff never comes to light, Obama's speech never happens.

He's lecturing america for his own mistakes, the problems are no worse today than they were three or four weeks ago before any of this happened. It's just that now it helps further his agenda to talk about it and avoid explaining why he is still associated with Wright and has been for so long.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Obama has plenty of positions on Iraq, healthcare, NAFTA, etc. You may not agree with them, but it's disingenuous to say he has no positions.

I think Obama has taken general positions on most of the issues he needs to. What he hasn't done is talk about nearly any of them at any level of specificity, or at all. But you're right...I don't agree with him philosophically, so it's not going to change my opinion of him even if/when he starts talking about the issues. But that's what I hear when I listen to his speeches - nothing but "pie in the sky" optimism. That's mainly what people are reacting to. I know that I've heard more specifics about Obama's policies on Iraq and healthcare, for example, in Clinton speeches talking about their differences, than in all of Obama's speeches combined.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Deattribution

It's just that now it helps further his agenda to talk about it and avoid explaining why he is still associated with Wright and has been for so long.

I think he has explained it. It's now up to each of us to decide what we think of his explanation. He may not have explained it to your satisfaction (or mine), but he gave an explanation.

[Young Drachma]

He clearly doesn't have the policy background that Clinton does with her 8-year internship in the White House or McCain after having been in Washington since Adams. I don't know that it'd ever be a requirement for me to elect someone would be them having an acute awareness of detailed foreign policy issues. I'd prefer someone who knew how to delegate and could bring smart, effective, talented people in the fold.

What's more troubling about Obama isn't that he doesn't get into specifics, because he does. But no one on the stump wants to hear him get specific, just pundits, the media and folks who aren't voting for him want that. People like me are going to fundamentally opposed to him no matter how specific he gets. Because I already know he wants to create a federal health care system, without fixing the one we have. He wants to raise the capital gains tax back to the level it was during the Clinton era. All the specificity in the world wouldn't somehow make me want to vote for him.

But on face, it would be more troubling to me to have a President who is so sure of their own knowledge and understanding of the issues that they cannot defer to those who they've entrusted in key cabinet roles to serve them effectively and diligently.

No matter how smart or experienced the CINC is, if the people under him or her are dolts...we're just as screwed. Obama seems to defer a lot to academic and egghead types and my wonder is whether his team will just get stalled in the gridlock of Washington if he does what a lot of administrations do and get rid of the experienced types and put their own people in.

With the other two, it'd probably be what we saw in the 90s or more of the same with the lower staff.

[cartman]

But, DC, I'm confused. As someone who says it was a great speech, you MUST be a sheep, or loyal Obamist...

[st.cronin]

I still think the revwright thing will be much ado about nothing. The bigger problem for Obama/Clinton is the status of the Michigan & Florida delegates. That goes right to their legitimacy as a candidate.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

If this doesn't convince you to vote for Obama, nothing will:

You must die now.

[Buccaneer]

Glad to see no one is feeding the racist troll.

As far this latest controversy, I believe it will hurt Obama, much like scandals that hit Guliani. It's all about perception and most people now, right or wrong or indifferent, have in mind that Obama is truly a black candidate, not simply a candidate who happens to be black. That will not play well with some Latino voters, most of the Asian voters and a sizable segment of white voters, esp. women. Will it cause enough a difference in the "impossible" delegates math? I don't know, I don't think so but it will cause the voters and delegates to get more entrenched.

[Noop]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Glad to see no one is feeding the racist troll.

As far this latest controversy, I believe it will hurt Obama, much like scandals that hit Guliani. It's all about perception and most people now, right or wrong or indifferent, have in mind that Obama is truly a black candidate, not simply a candidate who happens to be black. That will not play well with some Latino voters, most of the Asian voters and a sizable segment of white voters, esp. women. Will it cause enough a difference in the "impossible" delegates math? I don't know, I don't think so but it will cause the voters and delegates to get more entrenched.

I am assuming you mean me. Please show me where in this thread I mentioned anything about race you fucking piece of shit.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Deattribution

My problem isn't with him taking on racism with his speech, it's that the only reason he's doing it now is because he's been associated with a racist for the last 20+ years. If this whole youtube/Wright stuff never comes to light, Obama's speech never happens.

He's lecturing america for his own mistakes, the problems are no worse today than they were three or four weeks ago before any of this happened. It's just that now it helps further his agenda to talk about it and avoid explaining why he is still associated with Wright and has been for so long.

So, what you're basically saying, is that Obama is a politician?

[Buccaneer]

I think what someone said earlier is right, that this is a good time for it to happen. The perceptions have been solidified and will remain but Clinton's negatives have not gone down. I predict that while she is likely to win Penn. in the same manner as Ohio, the delegates count will not make up the difference, esp. with NC following.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Deattribution

My problem isn't with him taking on racism with his speech, it's that the only reason he's doing it now is because he's been associated with a racist for the last 20+ years. If this whole youtube/Wright stuff never comes to light, Obama's speech never happens.

He's lecturing america for his own mistakes, the problems are no worse today than they were three or four weeks ago before any of this happened. It's just that now it helps further his agenda to talk about it and avoid explaining why he is still associated with Wright and has been for so long.

I'm sorry, but I find the timing argument to generally be tedious, not just about this but any scandal, revelation, apology, whatever. When is the timing right? Should Obama have given this speech to announce his candidacy? Wouldn't that have just been about running for President? Maybe after Iowa, but why wait until he's won a primary? Maybe when he was a state senator, but why did he have to wait until he was an elected official? When exactly would it have been acceptable to make this speech? The same people that have problem with it now would have found a problem with it at any time.

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I'm sorry, but I find the timing argument to generally be tedious, not just about this but any scandal, revelation, apology, whatever. When is the timing right? Should Obama have given this speech to announce his candidacy? Wouldn't that have just been about running for President? Maybe after Iowa, but why wait until he's won a primary? Maybe when he was a state senator, but why did he have to wait until he was an elected official? When exactly would it have been acceptable to make this speech? The same people that have problem with it now would have found a problem with it at any time.

In fact, he'd have been ripped for trying to make race an issue. Shrug. I don't see why you can't just give him points for the content of the speech without trying to make a judgement on why he needed to make it.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

In fact, he'd have been ripped for trying to make race an issue. Shrug. I don't see why you can't just give him points for the content of the speech without trying to make a judgement on why he needed to make it.

I agree. This was a speech to address a current event, much like Bush's speech he made at the National Cathedral the weekend after 9/11. Some of the lines of discussion in this thread would seem make it valid to ask if Bush would have given that same speech if 9/11 never happened.

[Grammaticus]

Originally Posted by cartman

I agree. This was a speech to address a current event, much like Bush's speech he made at the National Cathedral the weekend after 9/11. Some of the lines of discussion in this thread would seem make it valid to ask if Bush would have given that same speech if 9/11 never happened.

Sure, neither one would have made a speech if the event(s) never occurred. But that does not say much. Obama made a speech based on the need for political survival about an event or events (Wright association) of which he had active control. Bush made a speech about uniting a nation after an attack by foreign interests, of which he did not have active control.

Obama was smoked out and had to give the speech. The way things are shaping up, this will surge again in the general (if it is Obama) as the opposition party uses it to question his judgment as a potential leader of the United States.

I think another down side for Obama is the fact that so many Democrats and black Americans are urging to make this "open" discussion of race in America an ongoing topic during the campaign. For Obama, it is probably best in the general election to not be perceived as a black man that is lecturing about racial problems in America. He wants to be president of all the people. Talk about racial troubles always leads to divisiveness. Whether that is right or wrong is not the point.

His best bet would be to leave that heavy discussion until after he is elected president.

I also think he should have taken a page from Sun Tzu and fought the Wright battle on a field of his own choosing. For example, if he had issued a statement about Wright at the time he dis-invited him from the announcement he was running for President, he would have greatly mitigated the effect. Much like he did with his Cocaine use. He put that out in his book and it has been a non starter.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Originally Posted by Deattribution

There are plenty of people in this thread defending him by saying he's only done it a few times, he's just an angry black man from the segregation period, 'everyone has done it' or a few other arguments. Have you read the thread, or even Obama's words which amount to saying almost everyone knows someone who said similiar things? (which isn't true either)

Not surprisingly, a complete misrepresentation of what was stated in the thread and by Obama.

Nobody defended Wright. Those you speak of plainly stated they disagreed with the comments and found them deplorable. People defended Obama for not utterly abandoning a dear friend for things he said, when over 20 years he saw a lot of good in the man. The comparisons were drawn to show that Obama did not throw Wright under the bus, just like others who had heard similar racist statements from family/friends had not abandoned those family members and friends. The topic was Obama, not Wright. Obama is running for president. Wright is not. All that was stated was it was understandable to see where the hate in Wright's speech was coming from, not that it was logical or made any sense.

However, go along and hear what you want to hear, even when it isn't what was spoken.

[Mac Howard]

Originally Posted by SuperGrover

Well said. The pastor would be a minor issue if Obama had run a campaign based upon something other that unity.

Or if he'd distanced himself from Wright or had shown that he had fiercely opposed Wright over his views.

Wright has not been arguing with a couple of mates in a bar about a football match. He's making rabid anti-American speeches, in public, to an audience that hangs on his every word. He equates the US with the evil Al Quaeda. He accuses America of attempted genocide by introducing aids into the black community. He says America deserved 9/11. And so on.

This is rabid anti-American rhetoric that most Americans find obnoxious.

Any politician that has any political ambition at all, let alone put himself up for President (of Wright's hated state) on the basis of bringing unity, would sensibly get as far away from Wright as he can. It has been naive of Obama to continue his relationship with Wright, it is ludicrous to describe him as his "spiritual mentor" with all the approval that that entails. His loyalty may be admirable but severely misplaced and reveals very poor political judgement.

It may have been a great speech as speeches go but it does not justify Obama's continued association and approval of Wright and the polls are now showing that only those who have previously supported Obama see his speech as justifying his position. They continue their "see no evil" stance. But the independants are joining the opposers and moving away from him as quickly as they can.

I personally think the writing is on the wall for Obama. Clinton may well now cut into his delegate lead and make it easier for the super-delegates to go for the candidate with less chance of further skeletons being unearthed in the Presidential campaign. Obama, whose background hasn't yet been significantly investigated, was always going to be a risk. That risk just took on a more solid form.

[Young Drachma]

Of National Lies and Racial Amnesia:
Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, and the Unacceptability of Truth

By Tim Wise

March 18, 2008

For most white folks, indignation just doesn't wear well. Once affected or conjured up, it reminds one of a pudgy man, wearing a tie that may well have fit him when he was fifty pounds lighter, but which now cuts off somewhere above his navel and makes him look like an idiot.

Indignation doesn't work for most whites, because having remained sanguine about, silent during, indeed often supportive of so much injustice over the years in this country--the theft of native land and genocide of indigenous persons, and the enslavement of Africans being only two of the best examples--we are just a bit late to get into the game of moral rectitude. And once we enter it, our efforts at righteousness tend to fail the test of sincerity.

But here we are, in 2008, fuming at the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago--occasionally Barack Obama's pastor, and the man whom Obama credits with having brought him to Christianity--for merely reminding us of those evils about which we have remained so quiet, so dismissive, so unconcerned. It is not the crime that bothers us, but the remembrance of it, the unwillingness to let it go--these last words being the first ones uttered by most whites it seems whenever anyone, least of all an "angry black man" like Jeremiah Wright, foists upon us the bill of particulars for several centuries of white supremacy.

But our collective indignation, no matter how loudly we announce it, cannot drown out the truth. And as much as white America may not be able to hear it (and as much as politics may require Obama to condemn it) let us be clear, Jeremiah Wright fundamentally told the truth.

Oh I know that for some such a comment will seem shocking. After all, didn't he say that America "got what it deserved" on 9/11? And didn't he say that black people should be singing "God Damn America" because of its treatment of the African American community throughout the years?

Well actually, no he didn't.

Wright said not that the attacks of September 11th were justified, but that they were, in effect, predictable. Deploying the imagery of chickens coming home to roost is not to give thanks for the return of the poultry or to endorse such feathered homecoming as a positive good; rather, it is merely to note two things: first, that what goes around, indeed, comes around--a notion with longstanding theological grounding--and secondly, that the U.S. has indeed engaged in more than enough violence against innocent people to make it just a tad bit hypocritical for us to then evince shock and outrage about an attack on ourselves, as if the latter were unprecedented.

He noted that we killed far more people, far more innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki than were killed on 9/11 and "never batted an eye." That this statement is true is inarguable, at least amongst sane people. He is correct on the math, he is correct on the innocence of the dead (neither city was a military target), and he is most definitely correct on the lack of remorse or even self-doubt about the act: sixty-plus years later most Americans still believe those attacks were justified, that they were needed to end the war and "save American lives."

But not only does such a calculus suggest that American lives are inherently worth more than the lives of Japanese civilians (or, one supposes, Vietnamese, Iraqi or Afghan civilians too), but it also ignores the long-declassified documents, and President Truman's own war diaries, all of which indicate clearly that Japan had already signaled its desire to end the war, and that we knew they were going to surrender, even without the dropping of atomic weapons. The conclusion to which these truths then attest is simple, both in its basic veracity and it monstrousness: namely, that in those places we committed premeditated and deliberate mass murder, with no justification whatsoever; and yet for saying that I will receive more hate mail, more hostility, more dismissive and contemptuous responses than will those who suggest that no body count is too high when we're the ones doing the killing. Jeremiah Wright becomes a pariah, because, you see, we much prefer the logic of George Bush the First, who once said that as President he would "never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are."

And Wright didn't say blacks should be singing "God Damn America." He was suggesting that blacks owe little moral allegiance to a nation that has treated so many of them for so long as animals, as persons undeserving of dignity and respect, and which even now locks up hundreds of thousands of non-violent offenders (especially for drug possession), even while whites who do the same crimes (and according to the data, when it comes to drugs, more often in fact), are walking around free. His reference to God in that sermon was more about what God will do to such a nation, than it was about what should or shouldn't happen. It was a comment derived from, and fully in keeping with, the black prophetic tradition, and although one can surely disagree with the theology (I do, actually, and don't believe that any God either blesses or condemns nation states for their actions), the statement itself was no call for blacks to turn on America. If anything, it was a demand that America earn the respect of black people, something the evidence and history suggests it has yet to do.

Finally, although one can certainly disagree with Wright about his suggestion that the government created AIDS to get rid of black folks--and I do, for instance--it is worth pointing out that Wright isn't the only one who has said this. In fact, none other than Bill Cosby (oh yes, that Bill Cosby, the one white folks love because of his recent moral crusade against the black poor) proffered his belief in the very same thing back in the early '90s in an interview on CNN, when he said that AIDS may well have been created to get rid of people whom the government deemed "undesirable" including gays and racial minorities.

So that's the truth of the matter: Wright made one comment that is highly arguable, but which has also been voiced by white America's favorite black man, another that was horribly misinterpreted and stripped of all context, and then another that was demonstrably accurate. And for this, he is pilloried and made into a virtual enemy of the state; for this, Barack Obama may lose the support of just enough white folks to cost him the Democratic nomination, and/or the Presidency; all of it, because Jeremiah Wright, unlike most preachers opted for truth. If he had been one of those "prosperity ministers" who says Jesus wants nothing so much as for you to be rich, like Joel Osteen, that would have been fine. Had he been a retread bigot like Falwell was, or Pat Robertson is, he might have been criticized, but he would have remained in good standing and surely not have damaged a Presidential candidate in this way. But unlike Osteen, and Falwell, and Robertson, Jeremiah Wright refused to feed his parishioners lies.

What Jeremiah Wright knows, and told his flock--though make no mistake, they already knew it--is that 9/11 was neither the first, nor worst act of terrorism on American soil. The history of this nation for folks of color, was for generations, nothing less than an intergenerational hate crime, one in which 9/11s were woven into the fabric of everyday life: hundreds of thousands of the enslaved who died from the conditions of their bondage; thousands more who were lynched (as many as 10,000 in the first few years after the Civil War, according to testimony in the Congressional Record at the time); millions of indigenous persons wiped off the face of the Earth. No, to some, the horror of 9/11 was not new. To some it was not on that day that "everything changed." To some, everything changed four hundred years ago, when that first ship landed at what would become Jamestown. To some, everything changed when their ancestors were forced into the hulls of slave ships at Goree Island and brought to a strange land as chattel. To some, everything changed when they were run out of Northern Mexico, only to watch it become the Southwest United States, thanks to a war of annihilation initiated by the U.S. government. To some, being on the receiving end of terrorism has been a way of life. Until recently it was absolutely normal in fact.

But white folks have a hard time hearing these simple truths. We find it almost impossible to listen to an alternative version of reality. Indeed, what seems to bother white people more than anything, whether in the recent episode, or at any other time, is being confronted with the recognition that black people do not, by and large, see the world like we do; that black people, by and large, do not view America as white people view it. We are, in fact, shocked that this should be so, having come to believe, apparently, that the falsehoods to which we cling like a kidney patient clings to a dialysis machine, are equally shared by our darker-skinned compatriots.

This is what James Baldwin was talking about in his classic 1972 work, No Name in the Street, wherein he noted:

"White children, in the main, and whether they are rich or poor, grow up with a grasp of reality so feeble that they can very accurately be described as deluded--about themselves and the world they live in. White people have managed to get through their entire lifetimes in this euphoric state, but black people have not been so lucky: a black man who sees the world the way John Wayne, for example, sees it would not be an eccentric patriot, but a raving maniac."

And so we were shocked in 1987, when Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall declined to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution, because, as he noted, most of that history had been one of overt racism and injustice, and to his way of thinking, the only history worth celebrating had been that of the past three or four decades.

We were shocked to learn that black people actually believed that a white cop who was a documented racist might frame a black man; and we're shocked to learn that lots of black folks still perceive the U.S. as a racist nation--we're literally stunned that people who say they experience discrimination regularly (and who have the social science research to back them up) actually think that those experiences and that data might actually say something about the nation in which they reside. Imagine.

Whites are easily shocked by what we see and hear from Pastor Wright and Trinity Church, because what we see and hear so thoroughly challenges our understanding of who we are as a nation. But black people have never, for the most part, believed in the imagery of the "shining city on a hill," for they have never had the option of looking at their nation and ignoring the mountain-sized warts still dotting its face when it comes to race. Black people do not, in the main, get misty eyed at the sight of the flag the way white people do--and this is true even for millions of black veterans--for they understand that the nation for whom that flag waves is still not fully committed to their own equality. They have a harder time singing those tunes that white people seem so eager to belt out, like "God Bless America," for they know that whites sang those words loudly and proudly even as they were enforcing Jim Crow segregation, rioting against blacks who dared move into previously white neighborhoods, throwing rocks at Dr. King and then cheering, as so many did, when they heard the news that he had been assassinated.

Whites refuse to remember (or perhaps have never learned) that which black folks cannot afford to forget. I've seen white people stunned to the point of paralysis when they learn the truth about lynchings in this country--when they discover that such events were not just a couple of good old boys with a truck and a rope hauling some black guy out to the tree, hanging him, and letting him swing there. They were never told the truth: that lynchings were often community events, advertised in papers as "Negro Barbecues," involving hundreds or even thousands of whites, who would join in the fun, eat chicken salad and drink sweet tea, all while the black victims of their depravity were being hung, then shot, then burned, and then having their body parts cut off, to be handed out to onlookers. They are stunned to learn that postcards of the events were traded as souvenirs, and that very few whites, including members of their own families did or said anything to stop it.

Rather than knowing about and confronting the ugliness of our past, whites take steps to excise the less flattering aspects of our history so that we need not be bothered with them. So, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for example, site of an orgy of violence against the black community in 1921, city officials literally went into the town library and removed all reference to the mass killings in the Greenwood district from the papers with a razor blade--an excising of truth and an assault on memory that would remain unchanged for over seventy years.

Most white people desire, or perhaps even require the propagation of lies when it comes to our history. Surely we prefer the lies to anything resembling, even remotely, the truth. Our version of history, of our national past, simply cannot allow for the intrusion of fact into a worldview so thoroughly identified with fiction. But that white version of America is not only extraordinarily incomplete, in that it so favors the white experience to the exclusion of others; it is more than that; it is actually a slap in the face to people of color, a re-injury, a reminder that they are essentially irrelevant, their concerns trivial, their lives unworthy of being taken seriously. In that sense, and what few if any white Americans appear capable of grasping at present, is that "Leave it Beaver" and "Father Knows Best," portray an America so divorced from the reality of the times in which they were produced, as to raise serious questions about the sanity of those who found them so moving, so accurate, so real. These iconographic representations of life in the U.S. are worse than selective, worse than false, they are assaults to the humanity and memory of black people, who were being savagely oppressed even as June Cleaver did housework in heels and laughed about the hilarious hijinks of Beaver and Larry Mondello.

These portraits of America are certifiable evidence of how disconnected white folks were--and to the extent we still love them and view them as representations of the "good old days" to which we wish we could return, still are--from those men and women of color with whom we have long shared a nation. Just two months before "Leave it to Beaver" debuted, proposed civil rights legislation was killed thanks to Strom Thurmond's 24-hour filibuster speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. One month prior, Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus called out the National Guard to block black students from entering Little Rock Central High; and nine days before America was introduced to the Cleavers, and the comforting image of national life they represented, those black students were finally allowed to enter, amid the screams of enraged, unhinged, viciously bigoted white people, who saw nothing wrong with calling children niggers in front of cameras. That was America of the 1950s: not the sanitized version into which so many escape thanks to the miracle of syndication, which merely allows white people to relive a lie, year after year after year.

No, it is not the pastor who distorts history; Nick at Nite and your teenager's textbooks do that. It is not he who casts aspersions upon "this great country" as Barack Obama put it in his public denunciations of him; it is the historic leadership of the nation that has cast aspersions upon it; it is they who have cheapened it, who have made gaudy and vile the promise of American democracy by defiling it with lies. They engage in a patriotism that is pathological in its implications, that asks of those who adhere to it not merely a love of country but the turning of one's nation into an idol to be worshipped, it not literally, then at least in terms of consequence.

It is they--the flag-lapel-pin wearing leaders of this land--who bring shame to the country with their nonsensical suggestions that we are always noble in warfare, always well-intended, and although we occasionally make mistakes, we are never the ones to blame for anything. Nothing that happens to us has anything to do with us at all. It is always about them. They are evil, crazy, fanatical, hate our freedoms, and are jealous of our prosperity. When individuals prattle on in this manner we diagnose them as narcissistic, as deluded. When nations do it--when our nation does--we celebrate it as though it were the very model of rational and informed citizenship.

So what can we say about a nation that values lies more than it loves truth? A place where adherence to sincerely believed and internalized fictions allows one to rise to the highest offices in the land, and to earn the respect of millions, while a willingness to challenge those fictions and offer a more accurate counter-narrative earns one nothing but contempt, derision, indeed outright hatred? What we can say is that such a place is signing its own death warrant. What we can say is that such a place is missing the only and last opportunity it may ever have to make things right, to live up to its professed ideals. What we can say is that such a place can never move forward, because we have yet to fully address and come to terms with that which lay behind.

What can we say about a nation where white preachers can lie every week from their pulpits without so much as having to worry that their lies might be noticed by the shiny white faces in their pews, while black preachers who tell one after another essential truth are demonized, not only for the stridency of their tone--which needless to say scares white folks, who have long preferred a style of praise and worship resembling nothing so much as a coma--but for merely calling bullshit on those whose lies are swallowed whole?

And oh yes, I said it: white preachers lie. In fact, they lie with a skill, fluidity, and precision unparalleled in the history of either preaching or lying, both of which histories stretch back a ways and have often overlapped. They lie every Sunday, as they talk about a Savior they have chosen to represent dishonestly as a white man, in every picture to be found of him in their tabernacles, every children's story book in their Sunday Schools, every Christmas card they'll send to relatives and friends this December. But to lie about Jesus, about the one they consider God--to bear false witness as to who this man was and what he looked like--is no cause for concern.

Nor is it a problem for these preachers to teach and preach that those who don't believe as they believe are going to hell. Despite the fact that such a belief casts aspersions upon God that are so profound as to defy belief--after all, they imply that God is so fundamentally evil that he would burn non-believers in a lake of eternal fire--many of the white folks who now condemn Jeremiah Wright welcome that theology of hate. Indeed, back when President Bush was the Governor of Texas, he endorsed this kind of thinking, responding to a question about whether Jews were going to go to hell, by saying that unless one accepted Jesus as one's personal savior, the Bible made it pretty clear that indeed, hell was where you'd be heading.

So you can curse God in this way--and to imply such hate on God's part is surely to curse him--and in effect, curse those who aren't Christians, and no one says anything. That isn't considered bigoted. That isn't considered beyond the pale of polite society. One is not disqualified from becoming President in the minds of millions because they go to a church that says that shit every single week, or because they believe it themselves. And millions do believe it, and see nothing wrong with it whatsoever.

So white folks are mad at Jeremiah Wright because he challenges their views about their country. Meanwhile, those same white folks, and their ministers and priests, every week put forth a false image of the God Jeremiah Wright serves, and yet it is whites who feel we have the right to be offended.

Pardon me, but something is wrong here, and whatever it is, is not to be found at Trinity United Church of Christ.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by cartman

But, DC, I'm confused. As someone who says it was a great speech, you MUST be a sheep, or loyal Obamist...

Or one of those Obamacans he speaks of.

If the Clinton camp didn't manage to kill him off by now, it's not like they're just going to be able to blot him out of the landscape. He's a neophyte politically, but they're still running a very good campaign and given the margin of error for them to be able to lose this whole deal, have taken their hand and played it pretty well.

Oh and they still raise an insane sum of money.

The Clintons were the juggernaut team with the money, the team and the experience and his team was a scrappy squad of inexperienced kids who have heart, backed by an athletic department and alumni who believe in the program.

For this to even be a contest at this point, signals the fact that the Clintons have lost. Blame it on the media all you want and delude yourselves into believing that McCain will somehow wipe the floor with him -- the same John McCain that couldn't beat George Bush eight years ago -- and you clearly prove why America is in the shape it's in. Because too many of her people are clearly missing the point and are too delusional to wake up and smell the reality.

And nope, still not sipping on the Kool-Aid of hope.

[Toddzilla]

[Vegas Vic]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

For this to even be a contest at this point, signals the fact that the Clintons have lost. Blame it on the media all you want and delude yourselves into believing that McCain will somehow wipe the floor with him -- the same John McCain that couldn't beat George Bush eight years ago -- and you clearly prove why America is in the shape it's in.

You're right. The fact that this is even a contest at this point is truly amazing. Historically, (Plug in name of democratic candidate) should be 10 to 15 points ahead of John McCain at this point in the election cycle, but it's a dead heat.

[JPhillips]

Mac: On the 9/11 stuff, it's fairly common to hear conservative evangelicals blame 9/11 on America's lack of morals and/or faith. Why is that not out of bounds but drawing ties between foriegn policy and 9/11 is?

[Fighter of Foo]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Who, exactly is defending Wright? There are plenty of people defending Obama, but I haven't seen anyone here argue that Wright's statements aren't deplorable.

Mike Huckabee

http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkans...as_pastor.aspx

"And one other thing I think we’ve gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say “That’s a terrible statement!”…I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack — and I’m gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who’s gonna say something like this, but I’m just tellin’ you — we’ve gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told “you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus…” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me."

[CamEdwards]

Kinda looks like Tim Wise is defending Wright as well. And frankly, I think this campaign season needs more lectures about white privilege. THAT'S sure to unite the Democrat party!

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by CamEdwards

Kinda looks like Tim Wise is defending Wright as well. And frankly, I think this campaign season needs more lectures about white privilege. THAT'S sure to unite the Democrat party!

Well Tim Wise has been doing that for ages, that's his shtick. Nothing to do with the election season. He spends his time preaching to the choir who believe in what he's talking about more than anything.