Obama's Speech in Response to the Wright Controversy

Because of his judgement?

 

Good analysis of the purpose of Obama's speech by Ross Douthat:

http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/obama_and_the_right.php


Andrew argues that the dismissive reactions to Obama's speech from the right are "palpably fueled by fear and racism." That's unfair and unfounded: As I suggested yesterday in detailing my own qualms about the speech, they're palpably fueled by the fact that Obama is a liberal. The conservative idea of a candidate who's "transformational" on race is someone who sounds like Bill Cosby and works with Ward Connerly, and that just isn't what Obama's doing; hence the Right's disappointment, which in many cases is curdling into dismissiveness and outright dislike. Instead, Obama's trying to be a transformational figure on the following two counts: First, as John McWhorter suggests in his response to the speech, he's trying to free African-American politics from the vise grip of grievance and resentment, breaking away not only from the Sharptons and Jacksons but from the NAACP line of Julian Bond and Kweise Mfume as well, and bringing black Americans out of racialism and radicalism and into the liberal mainstream; at the same time, he's trying to bring the country, which has heretofore tilted right, into the center-left mainstream as well. (The latter achievement, obviously, depends on the former, which is why the Wright affair is potentially so damaging: It calls into question his promise as a new kind of a black politician, without which his hope to be a new kind of American politician more or less collapses.)

It's been noted before before, but to understand the Right's mounting disappointment with his candidacy it's worth pointing out again that in his attempt to bring new voters into the Democratic tent, Obama's rightward outreach is primarily stylistic rather than substantive. He's making a bet that the country is already moving left, and that by taking an unusually respectful (by liberal standards) approach to the ideas and grievances that pushed an earlier generation to the right he can win many of them, and their children, back to the liberalism that once dominated American politics. As everyone from Rod Dreher to Mickey Kaus to Steve Sailer have noted, his practical concessions to present-day conservatism are vanishingly small. But he isn't trying to win over the gang at the Corner, or movement conservatives more generally; he's trying to win over those voters (and writers) who sometimes think that conservatives make a lot of sense, but whose ideological commitments are ultimately malleable. So of course if you're an ideological conservative you don't like what you hear from him; he's talking to everybody else, but not to you.


We'll probably see in the polls the next few days whether it had any impact or is going to be a lingering problem for Obama.

 

He's a public figure, planting toxic seeds in little kids head. Maybe they'll grow up hating America too.

Shouldn't wright and obama stop this vicious cycle of hate?

 

On the flipside, if the speech is a success, you'll hear whispers of how Obama failed to win Pennsylvania with it.

Whether he'll win the Presidency or not, this is a historic speech.

 

It's well-known that Hillary uses media contacts to leak information and then piously claim neither she nor her staff had any responsibility for what's printed and/or aired.

 

He also fell short in allaying Yao Ming's concern about Stephen Hawking's low post scoring.

 

Apparently, there are still sizable number of people think that's not enough. If it is enough, no one will talk about it any more. Because there are still people talking about it, Obama has to keep dealing with it.

As long as Wright is still in the news, the damage will continue. Sadly, Obama missed the chance to put it to rest.

 

Why don't you cite some source for that? Or is it just your pure speculation?

 

March 20, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Obama and Race
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Barack Obama this week gave the best political speech since John Kennedy talked about his Catholicism in Houston in 1960, and it derived power from something most unusual in modern politics: an acknowledgment of complexity, nuance and legitimate grievances on many sides. It was not a sound bite, but a symphony.

But the furor over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory sermons show that Mr. Obama erred in an earlier speech — the 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention that catapulted him to fame.

In that speech, Mr. Obama declared that “there is not a black America and a white America... . There’s the United States of America.” That’s a beautiful aspiration, and we’re making progress toward it. But this last week has underscored that we’re not nearly there yet.

The outrage over sermons by Mr. Wright demonstrates how desperately we as a nation need the dialogue about race that Mr. Obama tried to start with his speech on Tuesday.

Many well-meaning Americans perceive Mr. Wright as fundamentally a hate-monger who preaches antagonism toward whites. But those who know his church say that is an unrecognizable caricature: He is a complex figure and sometimes a reckless speaker, but one of his central messages is not anti-white hostility but black self-reliance.

“The big thing for Wright is hope,” said Martin Marty, one of America’s foremost theologians, who has known the Rev. Wright for 35 years and attended many of his services. “You hear ‘hope, hope, hope.’ Lots of ordinary people are there, and they’re there not to blast the whites. They’re there to get hope.”

Professor Marty said that as a white person, he sticks out in the largely black congregation but is always greeted with warmth and hospitality. “It’s not anti-white,” he said. “I don’t know anybody who’s white who walks out of there not feeling affirmed.”

Mr. Wright has indeed made some outrageous statements. But he should be judged as well by his actions — including a vigorous effort to address poverty, ill health, injustice and AIDS in his ministry. Mr. Wright has been frightfully wrong on many topics, but he was right on poverty, civil rights and compassion for AIDS victims.

What should draw much more scrutiny in this campaign than any pastor’s sermons is the candidates’ positions on education, health care and poverty — and their ability to put those policies in place. Cutting off health care benefits for low-income children strikes me as much more offensive than any inflammatory sermon.

Many white Americans seem concerned that Mr. Obama, who seems so reasonable, should enjoy the company of Mr. Wright, who seems so militant, angry and threatening. To whites, for example, it has been shocking to hear Mr. Wright suggest that the AIDS virus was released as a deliberate government plot to kill black people.

That may be an absurd view in white circles, but a 1990 survey found that 30 percent of African-Americans believed this was at least plausible.

“That’s a real standard belief,” noted Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a political scientist at Princeton (and former member of Trinity church, when she lived in Chicago). “One of the things fascinating to me watching these responses to Jeremiah Wright is that white Americans find his beliefs so fringe or so extreme. When if you’ve spent time in black communities, they are not shared by everyone, but they are pretty common beliefs.”

Occasionally, we’ve had glimpses of this gulf between white and black America. Right after the O.J. Simpson murder trial, a CBS News poll found that 6 out of 10 whites thought that the jury had reached the wrong verdict, while 9 out of 10 blacks believed it had decided correctly. Many African-Americans even believe that the crack cocaine epidemic was a deliberate conspiracy by the United States government to destroy black neighborhoods.

Much of the time, blacks have a pretty good sense of what whites think, but whites are oblivious to common black perspectives.

What’s happening, I think, is that the Obama campaign has led many white Americans to listen in for the first time to some of the black conversation — and they are thunderstruck.

All of this demonstrates that a national dialogue on race is painful, awkward and essential. And that dialogue needs to focus not on clips from old sermons by Mr. Wright but on far more urgent challenges — for example, that about half of black males do not graduate from high school with their class.

Then maybe we can achieve our goal of getting, finally, to the point where there is “not a black America and not a white America... . There’s the United States of America.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/o..._r=1&oref=slogin&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

 

There's definitely a "sadly" to this situation, but I think there's a lot of disagreement on which part is sad.

I think some of the responses are incredibly sad. I think making pejoratives of required concepts like nuance and complexity leads only downhill for the nation. If you want simple topics, you're on the wrong planet, living with the wrong species, IMHO.

How many white posters have ever attended a black church? I can say I have, and if one spends any time in a different environment, of any kind, that person understands that the experience requires more than sound bites.

That may be just too uncomfortable for our modern expectations of thought and dialogue.

I still applaud the speech, even if it did not help his campaign.

 

Obama's coming to Medford, OR. I'll go check it out on Saturday.

 

Great speech, I just listend to it for the first time today. This man is ready to be president of the "United" states. It was obvious he spoke from his heart and he spoke the truth to both white and blacks.

Basso, like Obama said in his speech, everyones minister says something here and there that people in the congregation don't agree with. One issue the minister was wrong about cannot take away from all the good he has done for people black and white. Understand no man is perfect.

I only hope that all rational Americans who plan to vote in the coming election, take this speech to understand where Obama stands on the races. Whites shold not fear this man because he is black. As well Blacks should not expect this man to issue handouts to them, because he is Black. Obama touched on a subject that the majority of politicians would run from. Or say what the majority makeup of his audience wanted to hear. That speach was fair and balance IMO.

Great job Obama, you have just earned my vote.....

 

In the song "Roses", Kanye West raps about his grandmother's struggle against AIDS and expresses his outrage at the availability of treatment: "If Magic Johnson got a cure for AIDS / And all the broke motha****as passed away / You telling me if my grandma was in the NBA / Right now she would be okay?". This is also a reference to Johnson's unlikely recovery and highly publicized battle with the HIV virus. In the song "Heard 'Em Say", West raps, "And I know the government administered AIDS/So I guess we just pray like the minister say."(wikipedia.org)

I think Huckabee had a point. "MIKE HUCKABEE: There are two different stories -- one is Obama’s reaction, the other one is the Rev. Wright’s speech itself. And I think that, you know, Obama has handled this about as well as anybody could. And I agree, it’s a very historic speech. I think that it was an important one and one that he had to deliver, and he couldn’t wait. The sooner he made it, maybe the quicker that this becomes less of the issue. Otherwise, it was the only thing that was the issue in his entire campaign. And I thought he handled it very, very well.

And he made the point, and I think it's a valid one, that you can't hold the candidate responsible for everything that people around him may say or do. You just can't -- whether it's me, whether it's Obama, anybody else. But he did distance himself from the very vitriolic statements.

Now, the second story. It's interesting to me that there are some people on the left that are having to be very uncomfortable with what Louis Wright said, when they all were all over a Jerry Falwell or anyone on the right who said things that they found very awkward and uncomfortable years ago. Many times those were statements lifted out of the context of a larger sermon.

Sermons, after all, are rarely written word-for-word by pastors like Rev. Wright, who are delivering them extemporaneously, and caught up in the emotion of the moment. There are things that sometimes get said, that if you put them on paper and looked at them in print, you'd say, "Well, I didn't mean to say it quite like that."


Too bad the GOPtards didn't nominate Huckabee rather than John "Jim Crow Era" McCain.

 

That is totally wrong. Right now you've got about half the democratic party who is against Obama. You've also got virtually all of the Republican party that is against Obama. You are telling me that this is the time for him to get attacked? Wrong, wrong and wrong. The best time for something like this would be after the convention, when at least he wouldn't be taking incoming fire from his own fellow democrats. He's fighting a two-front war right now and he's getting smoked. Look at those poll numbers. Americans have rejected him based on his poor judgment and hateful, ignorant church.

 

If he wins the nomination most of those Hillary voters will vote for the democrat anyway...I think the smart thing for him to do now is put Hillary on the ticket....If the party unit around him whites, blacks, and all other important democrat delegates and politicians they can finally make this about the issues again.This speech has stopped the bleeding so far, but the right is trying to milk it for what it's worth.

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/obamas_pastor_and_populism_fos.html

March 20, 2008
Obama's Pastor -- and Populism -- Foster Disunity
By Mort Kondracke

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is absolutely right, as he said in his Philadelphia speech on Tuesday, that Americans are "hungry" for his "message of unity."

But his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- and not only that, but his whole liberal-populist agenda -- raises profound questions whether he is capable of delivering on it.

By choosing -- and sticking with -- the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as his spiritual adviser, Obama has damaged his ability to heal the nation's racial wounds. And his agenda offers nothing that will attract Republicans and end political polarization.

In the 1960s, black Americans had a choice whether to side with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X -- the healer who sought to fulfill America's highest ideals through nonviolent struggle, or the raging polarizer who tried to mobilize blacks out of resentment of whites.

Jeremiah Wright -- not just back then, but to this day -- took the Malcolm X route. And Barrack Obama chose the Rev. Wright as his pastor.

And Obama stuck with him. Whether Obama was in church the day that Wright declared "******* America" for systematically infecting blacks with drugs and HIV, or when he said that America's "chickens were coming home to roost" on Sept. 11, 2001, surely Obama had to have heard about it.

Surely, he heard about Wright's pilgrimage to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and his "lifetime achievement award" for Louis Farrakhan.

Now, Obama says, he rejects and abhors what Wright said and did. No doubt, he does. But, he could cite no instance when he ever intervened with Wright to protest his hateful nonsense. Reportedly, Oprah Winfrey quietly left Wright's church. Obama did not.

Obama aspires to be America's "post-racial" unifier, the political equivalent of Oprah Winfrey or Tiger Woods. In the political realm, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a retired general and a Republican, could perform that function. Maybe Secretary of State Condi Rice could.

But, can Barack Obama, now burdened by the record of his association with Jeremiah Wright? I doubt it.

Obama's speech on Tuesday was eloquent and sophisticated, full of history, hope and calls for healing. It got rave reviews from liberals in the media.

But what will its effect be among white voters in the Democratic party, and among white Independents in the general election?

Obama's leading problem as a candidate -- also, to some extent, his advantage -- is that he is new on the national scene, largely an unknown. He has become the Democratic frontrunner by filling the data void with soaring rhetoric and promises to end the political polarization that prevents action to solve America's problems.

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) has been loudly protesting that Obama lacks the experience to be president and hasn't been "vetted," as she has. Her "vetting," not incidentally, leads nearly half of all voters to say they'd never support her.

In desperation, the Clinton campaign decided to use Obama's race against him, evidently figuring that -- when all is said and done -- there are more whites in the Democratic party than blacks.

Whether a memo ever was written instructing her minions to play the "race card," lots of them did it: Sen. Clinton, her husband, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro.

If Obama was trying to be Tiger Woods, the Clinton campaign has been stirring up the Fuzzy Zoellers. (Golf pro Zoeller infamously jibed that Woods would ask that watermelon and collard greens be served at the Masters champions dinner.)

And, the Clintons have succeeded -- as witness widening support for Clinton among whites, especially working-class whites, and African-Americans.

The Jeremiah Wright controversy will not dampen that trend. Maybe Obama's recitation of the wrongs done blacks that led to Wright's "anger and bitterness" will peel a few white liberals away from Clinton. But it will harden resistance to Obama among more conservative whites.

If Obama still wins the nomination, Wright will be an (unasked for) gift that keeps on giving to Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Obama and McCain will be in a battle for white Independents, and Obama's connection to Wright surely will repel them.

His relationship with Wright -- and also with indicted Illinois political fixer Tony Rezko -- also raise questions about Obama's judgment. He may have been correct to judge the Iraq War a mistake from the distance of the Illinois state Senate. But, up close to Wright and Rezko, his judgment was lousy.

But this isn't all that's dubious about Obama's claimed hope to bring about national unity. His method of reaching out to working-class whites was to find common enemies -- "a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices and short-term greed, a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests, economic policies that favor the few over the many."

Were he to be elected, if he truly wanted to foster unity and end polarization, he would have to reach out to Republicans to reach a series of "grand bargains" on entitlement reform, health care, education funding and energy and environmental policy.

Yet, there is nothing in Obama's agenda that a Republican could remotely be attracted to. It is liberal from top to bottom. His proposal for Social Security reform, for instance, is to raise taxes -- period. No shaving benefits, no private accounts -- no "bargain."

By one GOP estimate, Obama's new spending ("investment") proposals total $1.2 trillion over five years.

Rolling back President Bush's tax cuts for every family earning more than $250,000 a year would raise a little more than half that -- meaning that taxes would have to go up even more.

Some funds would be saved by pulling out of Iraq -- $9 billion a month is the figure Obama cites -- but that, too, would be rejected by Republicans.

Obama could do what he proposes by means other than "bridging differences" with Republicans. He could assemble what he called on Feb. 19 "a working majority for change." "That's how we win elections, that's how we will govern."

He said, "I want to reach out to everybody." But, if Obama could win a smashing victory in November and bring in five or six Democratic Senators and 15-plus new Democratic House Members, conceivably he could claim a 1964-style mandate and push through his program with next to no Republican votes.

This would not be "reaching out to everybody." It would be a repeat of the George Bush/Karl Rove strategy of 50 percent plus one -- a very polarizing way to govern.

But that possibility probably has been spoiled by Jeremiah Wright -- unless the economy and the Iraq War are truly wretched in November or if McCain badly stumbles. If he's elected, Obama will have to show a capacity for reaching out that he hasn't shown up to now -- except rhetorically. He is very good at rhetoric.

Mort Kondracke is the Executive Editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill since 1955. © 2007 Roll Call, Inc.

 

^^^ Quite the hit job on the Democratic candidates, Dirt. Dirt found some dirt... and it's clear as mud.



Impeach Bush. Give the Nation a Bath.

 

Time for me to weigh in on Obama's speech-
One of the best political speeches I have ever heard. It was very well spoken.

As political damage control Mr. Obama was flawless; as a representation of Christianity and Christ's testimony he failed.

For the same reason I do not feel the religious right serves the heart and purpose of Jesus, I also believe that the church as represented on their website has moved away from the the most significant message of Jesus- Full Unconditional Forgiveness.

It seems from reading through their website this church is doing much the same as the Religious Right movement, they add their particular 'grievance' to the Jesus message. It is adding these little 'crudades' that trouble me personally.

Forgiveness is the central message of Christ, not eradication.

After reading this thread I went to the church website to read up. I have thought alot about the association of Barack Obama and Rev. Wright. I do not feel that any inflammatory sermon or comment by Rev. Wright is a problem at all. He could have burned the flag and spit on the Constitution and I wouldn't blink. But I believe it is churches that take up crusades for Christ that often do the most damage to the message of forgiveness and reconciliation in Christ.

I believe the sin (yep, sin) of racism is a horrible problem for black Americans.
I believe those who have any prejudice or racism in the heart will not inherit God's kingdom. If you can't love your brother you can't possibly love God. (my opinion)

For me the beliefs of this church speak to much deeper issues than Mr. Obama addressed. There are troubling spiritual issues going on.

Someone may have already posted the church's mission statement off the website but that is where I begin to lose the Jesus mission statement.

Here is the mission statement I read on their website-
"Trinity United Church of Christ has been called by God to be a congregation that is not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that does not apologize for its African roots! As a congregation of baptized believers, we are called to be agents of liberation not only for the oppressed, but for all of God’s family. We, as a church family, acknowledge, that we will, building on this affirmation of "who we are" and "whose we are," call men, women, boys and girls to the liberating love of Jesus Christ, inviting them to become a part of the church universal, responding to Jesus’ command that we go into all the world and make disciples!
We are called out to be "a chosen people" that pays no attention to socio-economic or educational backgrounds. We are made up of the highly educated and the uneducated. Our congregation is a combination of the haves and the have-nots; the economically disadvantaged, the under-class, the unemployed and the employable.
The fortunate who are among us combine forces with the less fortunate to become agents of change for God who is not pleased with America’s economic mal-distribution!
W.E.B. DuBois indicated that the problem in the 20th century was going to be the problem of the color line. He was absolutely correct. Our job as servants of God is to address that problem and eradicate it in the name of Him who came for the whole world by calling all men, women, boys and girls to Christ."

Like so many churches today that are "reaching people for Christ" to me many churches start crusades not so different than the crusades fought in the Holy Land.

Not that many churches preach and emphasize forgiveness as much as Jesus made it the purpose of His suffering and death on the cross.

Whereas the injustice of abortion and racism are clearly important to God and should hold a place in the prayers and actions of Christians, forgiveness must come first. Without forgiveness the issues of evil in the world can fast become misguided crusades for retribution and eradication; whether it is homosexuality, abortion or racism.

As I read the church's website I got more of a sense of righting the world, not forgiveness; forgiveness breeds humble serving of the world, a blessing of those who persecute you. Anger, retribution and injustice often elevate the humble servant to the status of righteous crusader, even if it is only in the self-conscience. If the Christian does not release the injustice in the full forgiveness of Christ, his oppression holds on to his heart even if laws are changed for vindication.

Focusing on economic mal-distribution, and making it's mission to eradicate the problem of the color line does not work for me in the context of Jesus.

Yes, I agree the oppression and prejudice in America is a major problem and I also believe God is not pleased with that type of hate and pride. But the Jesus response to racism and oppression is complete and unconditional forgiveness formost. Only through forgiveness can we remove the log out of our own eye and see the speck in our brother's eye. Through forgiveness we can make positive changes in the world because we already love our enemies and we bless and serve them.

Eradicating abortion, homosexuality, p*rnography and child abuse, has thrown the religious right into a politcal movement.

Both Barack Obama and his pastor have given me the impression that down deep theirs is a passionate crusade to avenge injustices. This is exactly what Christ will do one day; but for now He asks us to offers forgiveness, freedom and love- sacrificial love. Self dying love.

Jesus fought no crusades, He patiently suffered under His own injustice- He trusted Himself to Him who judges righteously; when reviled he opened not His mouth. Like a lamb led to slaughter he was silent before those who abused Him.

This is not a political issue at all. Sorry to disappoint.

It is a issue within the church of Jesus.

Let us forgive the sins of the past and bless those who persecute us. Let everyone who has found Christ, allow Christ's forgiveness to wash away the pain and suffering of discrimination and prejudice.

Forgive. Serve. Love your enemies. The Jesus message.

Please don't misunderstand we the church must take action to help the oppressed, feed the hungry, visit those in prison, clothe the naked. Love drives us to do these things. But we act out of and because of full forgiveness.

A genuine Christian will give everyone equal opportunity and repent of racism and prejudice. And a genuine Christian will stand and act to help others acheive equal opportunity- love your neighbor.

But where we cannot acheive these things through love, forgiveness and courage- let us trust God who will judge the hearts of men and women. Forget about making things right. Live right. Shine as a light in a dark world. Reach out to one another not with laws, but with forgiveness.

I personally believe the religious right is full of 'good' crusades for good causes, born out of haughtiness, pride, anger and unforgiveness.

For me what I read so far about Rev. Wright is he is a good man, who also bears a crusade for justice in his heart. That is my opinion. Forgiveness must come first.

I would first go volunteer at an AIDS clinic before I would preach 'against' homosexuality. And I believe it is a sin. (never have preached 'against' it)

I would first forgive everyone who called me a spic, greaser and wetback growing up because of my Mexican mother; before I would crusade for Hispanic rights. Note- fully forgive them first.

Forgiveness first, then prayer, then serving others for positive change; suffering if necessary for Christ's sake. There is nothing wrong with being oppressed and suffering for Christ's message.

I think what Mr. Obama fails to see is that if he doesn't agree with the basic principles of this church then he has been dishonest with himself and his pastor. Politically I think he was brilliant.

I am waiting for the humble forgiveness to flow in a speech. The forgiveness that would say to the racists, I forgive you, you know not what you do. The forgiveness that says I will help my fellow man not because we all deserve it, but because I love my fellow man. I am waiting for the speech that has no other cause, crusade or motive than simple pure unconditional love.

This situtation is great politics, but from a spiritual perspective I pray that forgiveness as far as the east is from the west will wash all over these missions so many churches are adopting.

Yes they are good causes. But Christ's forgiveness is the primal cause, the one crusade that reconciles, restores and can heal a nation.

My opinion.

 

And I believe this is where the thread has "jumped the shark".

 

Yeah, I guess I am confused as to what else he was supposed to do. Heck, I'd argue by bringing up so many issues usually avoided like the plague by politicians, he went above and beyond any necessary dialogue.