Obama digs self deeper

Folks, I meant to leave the Obama-Wright business aside, at least for a while, with my “final summing up” posted on Thursday, really I did. But it’s not possible to do that, because Obama himself won’t put it aside. Instead he keeps coming out with comments that are more and more amazing and damning of himself.

At an appearance in North Carolina this week, the politician formerly known as the Prince of Peace spoke these words about his pastor, Jeremiah Wright:

This is somebody that was preaching three sermons at least a week for 30 years and it got boiled down … into a half-minute sound clip and just played it over and over and over again, partly because it spoke to some of the racial divisions we have in this country.

‘There are misunderstandings on both sides. We cannot solve the problems of America if every time somebody somewhere does something stupid, that everybody gets up in arms and forgets about the war in Iraq and we forget about the economy.

I’m astonished. Instead of condemning Wright, he’s condemning Wright’s critics, while dismissing Wright’s 30 year career of viciously racist and anti-American statements as 30 seconds of insignificant snippets! Which means that he’s canceling out even his strong-sounding if doubled-edged criticisms of Wright from his March 18 speech. Meaning that he is a complete liar.

This man, who was so sure-footed at bridging the racial divide, so skilled at appealing to whites, now sounds like a typical black huckster who rejects all black responsibility for black misbehavior and blames everything on those who are objecting to the black misbehavior. The transformation of Obama from post-racial icon to black racialist is complete. I am amazed.

Obama’s comments were so appalling that even Victor Hanson (a writer usually noted more for cheerleading than analytical skill) is saying penetrating things about it:

Doesn’t Obama get it? Every time he contextualizes Wright, he loses. Every time Obama impugns the motives of those who worried over the relationship, he loses. Every time Obama suggests that Wright was a healer whose words were misused by those suspect to inflame (“[it] spoke to some of the racial divisions we have”) he loses.

Wright’s clips indeed did speak to “racial divisions,” but by slurring whites, Jews, Italians, the WWII generation, and the United States. Other than radical African-Americans, Central American Marxists, Libyans and the Palestinians, almost every one else was fair game. He was not just “stupid” but cruel and uncouth. He did not misspeak “five or six” times, as did a Ferraro, a McCain, an Obama himself, or a Clinton on various topics, but systematically offered a written and spoken ideology of separatism and venom. And those who believe that are not themselves trying to do what Wright did. Would that Obama spend as much time criticizing Wright as he does the critics of Wright.

The controversy is no longer Wright (whose 20 years of slander and hatred lie like foul verbal IEDs buried deeply amid thousands of words in transcripts and texts, and go off the more the media navigates over them). Nor is the rub just Obama’s past comments on Wright or his own landmark speech on race.

No, the problem is Obama’s continual need to reply to the latest explosion, and his inability to put the issue behind him by a simple clean break. For the next 30 Sundays, someone in Trinity is either going to push the envelope (last Sunday critics of Wright were “lynchers and crucifiers”), or one of the numerous old mines of the publicity-needy Wright will suddenly go off. (Would it be too much for Obama to communicate to Rev. Moss that for the next seven months, the closely-watched Trinity sermons might stick to universal brotherhood, Christian forgiveness, unity, and healing among all of America’s races?)

As someone who wants to see Obama present his agenda, defend and debate it, and let the American people decide whether they are ready for such a change leftward, I hope that some sane person in the Obama campaign can simply end this. They need to call an outsider like Juan Williams or Shelby Steele, who have felt the wrath of the radical African-American community, and understand the complexity and the politics of race as few others do, get their blunt advice, and then sever once and for all the Wright relationship. Otherwise toadies and sycophantic insiders will continue to tell Obama what he wants to hear—and we will get a summer full of “garlic noses” and America as the klan, followed by clarifications like “five or six minutes,” “snippets,” “loops,” and “typical white person.”

I’m sorry for repeating myself. But I cannot get over the fact that Mr. So-Cool, Mr. So-On-Top-Of-Everything, has buried himself in the pile of black racist manure that is Jeremiah Wright. And it further confirms what I’ve been saying for the last two weeks. Obama, at bottom, really is a race man. He was concealing it, and now it’s come out for the whole world to see. He is exposed as one of the biggest frauds that ever was.

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Tim W. writes:

It’s truly laughable that Obama thinks we shouldn’t get all bent out of shape every time someone says something stupid, lest we lose sight of the big issues like Iraq and the economy. A conservative senator who belonged to a racist white church would not only be driven from the presidential race, but would have to resign from the Senate as well. Obama would be among the first to demand the resignation and he’d expect the entire Republican party to apologize and wear sackcloth and ashes over it.

LA replies:

Yes, it’s laughable. The man who seemed preternaturally skillful, the man who never made a foolish move, is now a laughingstock.

As I said shortly after the beginning of this affair two weeks ago: does he think he can get away with this?

Adela Gereth writes:

While I agree with every criticism you make of Obama here, I am not optimistic that this perception of him will ultimately prove harmful to his campaign.

CNN reported tonight that Obama has closed the lead Clinton had over him last week. Incredibly to those of us capable of other than a purely emotional response to the man, Obama only seems to gain support from the left when he defends himself and his hate-mongering pastor. I verily believe the left now sees him as a “victim,” a black candidate continually sniped at by racist critics who unfairly use “snippets” of his pastor’s diatribes to attack him. The fact that his explanations for both his 20 year membership in TUCC and Wright’s outrageous hate-mongering have been inconsistent and downright lame is irrelevant. He need only answer his critics to be seen as a David battling the Goliath of white bigotry. The more often he answers them (no matter how lamely), the better he looks to the left. Obama knows this—he’s dumb like a fox.

We should all have seen which way the wind was blowing when the NYT, which endorsed Hillary over him, nevertheless referred to his belated and disingenuous attempt at damage control as a “profile in courage.”

Long story short: expect Obama to get a free pass because he’s part black. His candidacy was about race the moment the public matched his name to his dark face.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 28, 2008 01:44 AM | Send