What is the gravamen of this case?

Last night on YouTube I watched Wright’s April 27 NAACP speech (transcript here), and all five parts of his April 28 National Press Club appearance (though the fifth part seemed to end before the end of the question period), and all of Obama’s April 29 press conference (transcript here), and I may be a bit punch drunk at this point, or Wright-Obama drunk, but my question is, what was so much worse—shockingly, quantum-leap worse—about Wright’s National Press Club appearance than about his NAACP speech, or about any of his earlier sermons over the years, that Obama was suddenly and finally compelled to say, “this is it, this has gone too far, I can no longer be associated with this man”?

Why did the NAACP speech not push Obama to disown Wright whom he had said he would never disown, but the National Press Club appearance did?

Does it just come down to the “U.S. government caused AIDS”? But Wright had said that before.

Are we really to believe that Wright’s total, consuming, non-stop hatred of America—a hatred expressed or implied in his every sentence, a hatred that is evidently the formative force of his being—was never before seen in the 20 years Obama had known and followed this man?

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Adela G. writes:

Long story short: Wright dissed Obama.

Or as Obama himself put it, “What particularly angered me was the suggestion that my previous remarks were political posturing … ”

No doubt.

It was one thing for Wright to spout his noxious nonsense from the pulpit, and quite another when Wright specifically referred to Obama—and in terms that undermined his candidate’s candor and credibility: “Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on the polls. Preachers have a different person to whom they are accountable. I do what pastors do. He does what politicians do. I am not running for president.”

The final straw wasn’t Wright’s damning of the country (of which Obama wants to be president), it wasn’t the AIDS conspiracy theory or any of his other [loony] left pronouncements. It was Wright’s calling Obama’s motives into question by implication (and rather neatly done, I thought), which of course, had the added detriment of casting doubt on the high-flown rhetoric of Obama’s famous “race speech.”

What could be more diametrically opposed to Obama’s spoken wish to be the agent of change and healing than Wright’s cynically asserting that Obama would say whatever he thought he had to say to get elected?

I think this latest hideous fandango supports my assertion that Obama thought he had only to win over blacks and left-wing whites to win the presidency. Those two groups weren’t overly concerned with Wright’s anti-Americanism; indeed, they rather successfully recast any objections to it as racist, rather than patriotic.

It was only after Obama’s loss in Pennsylvania and his apparent realization that non-leftist whites were somewhat put off by his elitist disparaging remarks regarding both their race and their culture that Obama realized he’d have to appear more centrist and more populist. With a few carefully worded remarks, Wright undid weeks of Obama campaigning in his rolled-up shirt sleeves and messily consuming the food of the people (minus, naturally, the elitist arugula).

Oh and incidentally, Wright made Obama out to be a liar.

From my posted email, “Re: Proof that Obama is not serious” (29 April 2008)

“Mr. Auster, I can’t agree that Obama’s failure to muzzle his wife is proof he’s not serious about wanting to be president. I think it’s proof that he believes he has only to capture the black vote and the left-wing vote to win, that if he has them, the rest of the country will fall into line behind those two groups. He’s concluded this from observing how the blacks and the lefts basically determine the general direction in which this country is going, they “wag the dog.” And since he is both black (nominally) and left-wing, his task is made that much easier for him.”

LA replies:

This is also the theory of Scott of Powerline, as I discussed and quoted here. But I can’t entirely agree. While it’s true that Obama repeatedly mentioned his displeasure at Wright’s impugning his veracity, Obama also laid great stress on Wright’s message of division, which Obama said represented the opposite of everything he, Obama, stands for. Obama even said that Wright is so fixated on oppression that his whole vision of America is distorted.

But now I’ll argue against what I just said. Wright’s divisive and hateful message was not new. Wright’s dissing of Obama was new. While Obama had previously (in his March 18 Philadelphia speech) criticized Wright for his hateful message and his focus on oppression, he had pointedly refused to disown Wright over them. Obama only disowned Wright after Wright added onto his hateful message and his focus on oppression his disrespectful comments about Obama. Therefore, while Obama criticized both the hateful message and the personal dissing in his April 29 press conference, it is a reasonable theory that the dissing was the decisive factor.

Sage McLaughlin writes:

In answer to your question, why does Obama suddenly denounce Wright after the Press Club appearance and not after the NAACP appearance, I think the answer might just be the venue. Wright was warmly received by the NAACP, and was invited by them to speak there. To denounce him for what he said to that organization, I think, would have been to condemn in some indirect way the entire exercise, and thus the NAACP itself. He has indicated all along that he did not want to repudiate Wright because he did not want to repudiate the community he represents.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 02, 2008 09:28 AM | Send