Why Jeremiah Wright Is Willing To Destroy Barack Obama; This Campaign Really Is Generational
Remember when Barack first put himself forward? The Obama's not black enough kerfuffle among the old guard civil rights activists? Most of them slowly came around, driven partly by the Clintons' willingness to marginalize Barack after South Carolina but mostly because -- it was just crazy not to. After Iowa the impossible had become possible.
But still. At some level there was this feeling, and it didn't go away. A feeling of -- this isn't fair. It fell into his lucky lap. Look at him, swanning around in front of all those adoring white kids, reaping all the props. And he never paid his dues.
Jeremiah Wright is like the return of the repressed, a last desperate lunge of the undead 60s toward center stage. Wright represents a longing for enduring relevance so deep that it is willing to sabotage the very possibility of setting out on the long road that runs past race in order to preserve the claims of a certain righteousness, a certain rhetoric, a certain stance -- a familiar and heroic sense of self-in-the-world.
It's so hard to get old. It's so hard to watch history pass you by. It's so hard to look out across a public landscape in which your style of being once loomed so large and to realize that somehow -- you are suddenly yesterday.
People who say Obama needs to confront Wright are correct. But he needs to do it simply, he needs to tell the truth. He needs to say, kindly but firmly: old man, I love you and I thank you for your service -- but your day is done.
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Obama should drop out of the race. The black community is not ready to support a reformer. It would seem that they want someone more radical. Someone who will punish the white race for past injustices. That person is not Obama. Obama should just drop out of the race and say that Rev Wright proved to him that a black candidate will never reach the WH and it would be foolish to try. If that is what Wright wants( which at this point could not be more obvious), then that is what he should get.
As if you know what the black community want.
As if you know what what Rev. Wright wants.
As if you know what Barack Obama needs to do.
hopeless277, you are not only hopeless - you are CLUELESS!
Your point does not make any form of sense. If the Black Community is not ready to support a reformer like Barack Obama. The why is the Senator from Illinois getting 85% to 90% of the black vote in the democratic primary season. The bottom is that Senator Obama see America for what it can be & Rev. Wright sees America for what is has been.
Secondly, I think it is foolish to try to classify Black Political Ideology from a monolithic perspective. I support Obama because, I share is dream for a more positive America, a more united America. Rev. Wright is only reflected the realities of America that he believes are true.
The only reason why those sound bites about Rev. Wright came out in the first place was to negatively impact the Obama campaign and to give White Americans pause about supporting his candidacy. What I find funny that Obama's biggest supporters are White People yet, there is this caculated effort by some in the MSM to make Obama to a card carrying member of Black Panther Party.
From my vantage point whether Obama is elected president is irrelevant at this time, he has lite a spark about racial discord in this country. I keep on hearing that Down Scale Blue Collar Whites will not vote for Obama but, no one asks the question why???
Is all this attention to Wright and Obama because they are black? And therefore scare the white man. The white man that controls the mainstream media.
The hate filled white clergy and their politicians don't seem to be getting as much attention. The black man and the white man should both be scared of them! Oh I forgot....
Rev. Wright is a non-issue and always has been. Anybody who would cast their vote on a candidate's pastor shouldn't be voting.
I totally agree ... but, unfortunately, they WILL be voting.
Obama owes no further explanation of his relationship with Wright. He has said enough. Wright owes nothing to Obama.
I commend Barack's supporters for believing in his message of transcendence.
Barack and his supporters have opened an intellectual Coliseum. In this Coliseum we have Hillary and her "blue-collar, uneducated cum white" v. Rev. Wright and his "represssed black cum angry blacks."
I am enthralled with this primary season, soaking up every bit of news. I cannot believe that I am living history, right now, and what I'll say to my brother's children, when they ask me what it was like to grow up in the 20th, and early 21st century.
Barack is helping Hillary and Rev. Wright duke out the generational chasm. Barack will not let either side kill one another, but a good fight always leads to understanding.
"old man, I love you and I thank you for your service -- but your day is done."
can we say that to Bill Clinton too?
From your lips ....
We should say that to Bll Clinton first.
In large part, I'm impressed by the number of thoughtful comments on this topic so far today. (Of course, by the time I post, the provocateurs, zingmeisters and plain old terrible writers may have piled on to ruin my reverie, but....)
I'm also struck by the range of issues we're tasked with discussing vis a vis Obama and Clinton -- sexism, racism, ageism, classism and -- hopefully not the straw that breaks the camel's back -- the egomaniacal rantings of a self-serving minister (that is my take on the right Rev. Mr. Wright, which is not to say that he doesn't have a right to his opinions or the right to express them). In the messiness of it all, I'm reminded this is also the beauty of our "party" -- our willingness to struggle with these problems and awkwardly tumble forward toward solutions. Not pretty, not easy... but like they say, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
I would remind our opponents sitting comfortably in their glass houses that stones can be thrown in both directions.
Very well written!
"...our willingness to struggle with these problems..
I take back some of the comments I made. I just listened to the NAACP speech he made (in it's entirety) and I see why Obama went to his church for 20 years. He shocks you, but into reality and you learn a lot.
I don't believe he is out for self but is taking this opportunity to talk about the problems in this country while everyone is listening. Do you think CNN would have covered the NAACP meeting if Rev. Wright was not speaking? NO!!!! and that is the sad truth.
The media only pays attention to minority issues when it is Black History Month, MLK B-Day, etc.
I don't believe he will hurt Obama at all. "You meant it for evil, but GOD meant it for good." I believe some good will come from all of this.
Have you ever heard manipulation through words? It creates another picture.
In this democratic primary campaign we have heard the words "...as far as I know?" ..."He is a Politician
Then "we the people" have to discern the framing of these words by others. Through all of this obsfucation, "we the people" have to decide what these words mean. From the origin to the final distillation ... what is pure, and what is corrupted?
These words were strategically planned. The Pastor has sent a signal. It is time to disavow any further continuation of this relationship until he is retired to Elba.
He will be remembered. "God Bless his little Heart?!"
Maybe Obama will decide this is the last straw and finally throw Wright under the bus. But then he'll be criticized for tossing his pastor of 20 years to the wolves. He loses no matter what. The only thing Obama can do is hope Wright shuts up and goes away for the rest of the year.
All yesterday as i was doing my work, i could not stop thinking about this situation. Why would reverand wright do this to obama, especially now??!! why wouldnt he wait until at least until june, or to until the general election? i was FILLED with anger at reverand wright. Surely, i thought, there has got be some rational explanation for rev. wright's actions. When i got home, i watched Hardball, and Chris Matthews was so angry that the vein in his forehead was about to burst!!! i felt so sorry for Obama, he did everything he could not to throw reverand wright under the bust, and this is what he gets in return. This morning i read an article that suggested that maybe the clinton campaign was behind this. No, i thought, even they wouldnt go that low. That's when it hit me.
JEALOUSY. Jealousy in it's purest form. The type of jealousy that breeds hate. in its most simple form, rev. wright single- handedly tried to ruin barack obama'a campaign yesterday. He hates Barack Obama for doing what wright could never do. He hates obama for all the attention that obama is recieving. Jealousy and envy in its purest form is what we are seeing here folks. And it is so ugly
I couldn't agree more. I also thought about this throughout the day and night and the only conclusion I could come up with is jealousy. Nothing else makes sense.
Jealousy? I don't think so. Reverend Wright had a fabulous career. He built a church of 80 into 10,000. He has done a world of good in Chicago. Why would he be jealous of Obama?
Here's a better explanation, offered by a talk show caller I heard yesterday. And I think it makes a lot of sense. It's not jealousy that is causing him to undermine Obama, but rather a desire to have his own worldview validated. If he believes that America is so racist that it would never elect a black President, then what could be worse for his worldview but that America should elect a black President? Thus, maybe not even consciously, he wants Obama to lose because for Obama to win would tear apart the fabric of his own life, built, as it is, on the belief that America is a racist nation in which the black man must either, in the words of Franklin, "hang together or hang alone".
I respectfully disagree. Rev. Wright said he has become the target of hate and implied that his family (not to mention himself) may be in danger as a result. I do not think jealousy has anything to do with it. It was appropriate and timely for the pastor to speak out about the media's attack upon him. It was correct to have the creator of the sermons that were sliced apart for hateful sound bites point out what the sermons were really about. You miss the point concerning him giving these interviews and speeches to Moyers and the NAACP (and the Dallas speech, before that). I can imagine that this was this case. When you've been a public speaker, like Rev. Wright, for so long (although retired, now) it must be very hard to have hatemongers put words in your mouth you never said and define you. Somewhere you have to take a stand and speak out against it. I support Clinton for president (and I'm Black) for the precise reason that the media will never let Obama or any Black man get to the whitehouse -- even if the media has to create lies and false controversies, e.g. Rev. Wright's sermons and philosophy. I want these Bush Republicans out. Senator Obama can not win a general election. If he is the democratic nominee, we will lose, period. The flap about Rev. Wright is kid's play compared to what the media will do to him in a general election.
"...This morning i read an article that suggested that maybe the clinton campaign was behind this. No, i thought, even they wouldnt go that low."
You know, I'm not really a conspiratist (sp?), but I had the exact same thought and while I tried very hard to erase that thought from my mind, I could helpt but think -- YES, they WOULD go that low.
I disagree. I think Wright just doesn't know when to stop clowning-pure and simple. It works in a sermon, but the one place it didn't work is the q&a of the press club.
You must watch the Moyers interview, the NAACP speech in its entirety, and the you tube sermon where "goddamn America" came from. Wright is really very inspirational and perceptive when he is under control. Of course, that's the problem. I don't know if he just gets full of himself, and thus is flawed, or just can stop riffing, which is just a self-control issue.
I was thinking $$$$ and wanting his own 15 seconds of fame......
Jealous...
He is a leader wanna be. He really needs to be put out to pasture.
I think it is fairly obvious that Reverend Wright is a man who time has past, as this article puts forth. This is a point Obama has already made, however. But when the heck did speaking out against the government become a bad thing. Oh yeah that was when Tim Mcvay blew up a building in Oklahoma city. I don't recall any outrage leading up to this event. I wonder if that might be because the state militia's were arguing for smaller government which somehow coincided with republican ideology. The problem here is that Reverend Wright, in my opinion, is speaking out and challenging the government, which should be the media's job. I saw the guy yesterday and I found, as white guy from Ohio, nothing objectionable. Look the Pope, whose feet the media was kissing a week ago, condemns the war and by extion America's role in it. Where is the freakin outrage against the America bashing Pope. It becomes incredibly hard not to look at this as a racist thing. Reverend Hagee's comments should be far more objectionable because they target specific Americans, but there is no Hagee watch and he is free to repeat his homphobic remarks. The media pisses all over itself to explain the gun-toting, homo-hating, flag wearing, racist, white working class vote. Two of the candidates pander endlessly to these voters in their rhetoric, while the other is criticized for being elitist.
Most recently, speaking out against the government became a bad thing because it made you an un-American terrorist-lover.
Hate and fear... hate and fear.
on Monday Rev Wright said if Obama is elected president he will be coming after him as the leader of the government.
How many people do you think want to be listening to Rev Wright for the next 4 years constantly calling out Obama on policy issues?
This is not a small issue to many people. I got a phone call from a neighbor as i was watching the ABC debate prior to PA. When I told the neighbor I couldn't talk then because I wanted to watch the debate his only question was whether the moderators would ask Obama about whether he supports "reparations" for blacks.
This idea of Wright's inner motivation has some merit, and may be true. Reverend Wright's recent comments to Bill Moyers about Obama saying what he said because he is a politician insinuates Obama is lying. Wasn't Obama the one who said to us that he would tell the truth? I would believe Obama any day over Rev. Wright. Wright seems to be enjoying this new media spotlight, and is certainly not helping his long-time friend and parishioner. Obama needs to denounce Wright's comments forcefully. Otherwise, Obama appears weak, and that is one quality Americans tend to not like in their presidents. As the old saying goes, "with friends like these, who needs enemies."
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