Obama's Speech in Response to the Wright Controversy

You are still on thin ice with your logic ...

The "God Damn America" sermon is likely Wright's most controversial sermon (or we would have heard about, no?). It assumes facts not in evidence that Wright's other controversial sermons were this extreme.

Here is a little math for you. Wirght has been a pastor for 30 years and has likely preached 100 sermons a year for a total of 3000 sermons for his career. If only 1 of the 3000 was as extreme as the "God Damn America", should anyone be taken seriously condemning Wright for the one transgression. Certainly, the right wingnuts will not forgive Wright and thus Obama, but that is to be expected.

As an aside, McCain in the last few days has conflated Shiite Iran And Sunni Al Qaeda (link ). After 5 years in Iraq and close scruntiny by himslef, McCain does not have command of the facts on the ground. This is more attention worthy than Wright's extreme sermon (which Obama has condemned).

 

Read the speech. It's not what you describe here. The speech didn't address the detractors but instead he minimized them and used the detractions as a springboard for a larger and more relevant discussion.

 

Except for one thing...
He needed to appeal not to his supporters or his opponents. Obama needed to address this issue to the people that it affects the most - Independents, Women, low-income, middle class workers, White, Latinos, Jews, because of how hateful Rev Wright's words were. Obama can't be preaching to his choir. This speech was a great speech but I don't know if it will be enough to satisfy the very people that have been sitting on the fence. It was an opportunity for himself to talk about his judgments. It was a chance for him to take personal responsibility that he heard some of those racially insensitive remarks by Wright which he did. Instead he stands by Wright as a person and compares him to his somewhat racist white Grandma?

His words...

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

OK..so he's comparing the bigoted words of Wright to his own Grandma? How can you even compare the things Wright said - AIDS, 9/11, God Damn America to his own Grandma?

He needed to distance himself from Wright and he didn't. I don't think the people on the fence are going to buy this.

 

If you're a politician and all you're doing is answering the questions your opponents want answered, it means you will lose. Again, he took those questions and relegated them to the insignificance they deserve while using them to discuss much greater issues.

 

You are right, except that we won't be hearing the greater issues. Maybe once he is President but not during an election. People want him to basically say.. I denounce Pastor Wright and the Trinity Church not just his views. But, he can't do that. It would be political suicide.

 

for the same reason that you would slap at a mosquito. It's annoying, and dumb, and distracts from the larger issue. Though ultimately it may prove futile - the morons who send around "obama is a secret muslim" emails are going to snd around moronic emails regardless of what anybody says.

 

I have no idea what on earth you are talking about.

 

that is not what you want to hear him say, you want to hear him say "i'm sorry for ruining Hilary's coronation and I'm dropping out even though I've run a better campaign and am now ahead and am going to get the nomination!" It's fine that you suport hilary, but don't pretend like you are being an honest listener here.

 

His speech (The big picture) about racial discourse in this country won't be heard until he becomes President. Until then, people are going to focus on his judgments with Rev. Wright.

 

I don't support Hillary. I made a mistake voting for her thinking she would be the better of the two.

 

I must add..this whole thing makes me quite sad to be honest. I have been visiting various bulletin boards today trying to gauge the overall sentiment regarding Obama and the speech. The picture I get is somewhat disheartening.

You have those who heard the speech, agree with what was said, and hail the man as the next president. You have those who are quite angry with him and are tossing around epithets accusing him of being anti-white, anti-semetic, anti-america, etc. From that same population you have people claiming that he didnt even write the speech. You have blacks upset because they were characterized as "angry" in the speech. You have latinos getting angry that their race wasnt included in the speech and because of that they feel slighted. And you have whites upset that the issue of slavery was even brought up in the same sentence as constitution despite the obvious historical connection. This is just a broad cross section of what I have been reading..I urge all of you to take a look at the various news outlets and see for yourselves. I'm shocked and saddened by how fractured and ethno-centric we really still are as a people.

Obama, try as he might to bring the message of unity has only thus far succeded in bringing to light just how unified we are not. I do not place the blame for this entirely at his feet. I have lost a great deal of respect for Mrs. Clinton over the past months as well for having allowed all this to get out of hand becaue of her "kitchen sink" strategy. In my opinion it has damaged the democratic party all for the sake of her own political ambitions and win at all cost attitude. She has wielded racial tensions and feminism as political weapons to the detriment of her own party. I also fault the media for pandering to the lowest common denominator in american politics. I credit McCain for thus far having not gotten involved in such an obviously ugly and unfortunate back and forth between two candidates who just can't seem to play nice even at the expense of both of their voter bases (which for the record is women for Hilary and African Americans for Obama..Ferraro's comments were ignorant and the very definition of hypocrisy..not entirely incorrect).

Whether you intend to vote for the man or not is irrelevant in my eyes as far as the larger issue is here. Race. In my humble opinion what the man said needed to be said. You can give a myriad of reasons WHY he said it..and those can be argued either way. But the base premise of his arguement stands as incontrovertible. There is a great deal of racial tension in this country. The one good that may have come of this mess is that the race issue has finally reared its ugly head. It was only a matter of time before the old evils came out to fracture our people once again along the fault line of race.

 

swooh


great post

 

I'd like to see data backing up that assertion. Outside of a few wingnuts I'd wager most people find the accusations about as concerning as McCain's spiritual guy proclaiming that america was founded to destroy islam.

 

Here is your data

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...e_favorable_opinion_of_pastor_jeremiah_wright

Pastor Jeremiah Wright, who has become part of the national political dialogue in recent days, is viewed favorably by 8% of voters nationwide.
Seventy-three percent (73%) of voters say that Wright’s comments are racially divisive. That opinion is held by 77% of White voters and 58% of African-American voters.

Overall, voters are evenly divided as to whether Obama should resign his membership in the Church—42% say that he should while 40% disagree. White voters, by a 46% to 33% margin, say that Obama should leave the Church. African-American voters, by a 68% to 16% margin, say he should not. Wright retired last month as Pastor of the Church.

White voters basically want Obama to say he denounces Wright and his Church.

I'm sure we will see more polls/data later today focusing on his judgments with Rev. Wright instead of his message of Race in this country.

 

Who are these people on the fence of which you speak?

Many independents look at McCain and see Bush Lite. McCain certainly has more character/substance than Bush, but their policy differences do not exist. Independents who see a bad economy and a quagmire in Iraq will not want to vote for four more years of the same policy. They will vote for change, which means the Democratic nominee, Obama or Clinton.

 

*shrugs* fine, I guess some polling data indicates it's a potential issue. But I'd wager the rest of you logic (quoted above) is wrong.

 

Umm, he didn't compare the words of the two. He compared his relationship with the two.

 

Here are where the Independents stand as of sunday. I'm sure after today's speech that will change.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...ressional_ballot/generic_congressional_ballot

Republicans now enjoy a slight edge among unaffiliated voters—37% say they’ll vote for a Republican, 31% for a Democrat, 7% for a third-party option, and 25% remain undecided. A month ago, the parties essentially split the unaffiliated vote. Three months ago, the Democrats enjoyed a twenty-point advantage.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...ial_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

Barack Obama delivered a major speech in Philadelphia today in an effort to move beyond the controversy swirling around his former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright (see Obama’s speech).The Illinois Senator is viewed favorably today by just 48% of voters nationwide (see recent daily results). The number with an unfavorable view of Obama has grown to 49%. Obama’s overall favorable ratings peaked at 56% on February 21 and have declined modestly since that time. While Obama tries to move beyond discussions of race, he is viewed favorably by 83% of African-Americans and by 42% among White voters.

 

OK..I'll say that the focus will be more on Wright than on the speech itself. Only until after the election will the majority of the American public focus on his speech if they remember. But for now, its all about the Reverand and Obama.

 

i read, but didn't see (or hear) the speech, so i can only imagine what it must've sounded like in person. i found portions of it very moving, and on point (but remember, i've said the same about the speeches of GWB). by the end however i was left troubled by a couple of things.

first, he again reiterated his class-ist, anti-corporate mantra, and seemed to say in this case that corporations are not only (amorally) greedy, but racist as well.

second, he drew a parallel between the reagan coalition and racist white southerners, implying that reagan exploited racist fears of the black man.

third, although he eloquently noted wright's hate-filled sermons, and explained in some limited measure why he continued to attend his church, he never explained how he could continue to subject his children to such hate filled screeds.

and lastly, i thought the parallel between wright and his grandmother was cheap. i too have sat around a kitchen table (in nacogdoches) and heard my grandmother, born in 1895, utter things that i couldn't believe came out of the mouth of this small, frail, devoutly christian woman. but (as others have noted) you can't choose your grandmother. Obama not only chose wright, he stayed with him for 20 years, asked him to officiate at his wedding, and baptise his kids. encouraged him to teach his children...

...well, Obama's actions in this regard say far more about who he is, and isn't, than his lofty rhetoric ever will.