Did Reverend Wright Derail Obama?
One thing that everyone can recognize is an idiot with an open microphone. In the past several days Reverend Wright has done his best to pretty much kill the chances of an African American like Barack Obama ever becoming the Democrat nominee for President. What the good reverend has done is isolate in fear what every African American is and that does not bode well for a political candidate running on a platform for one American people no longer divided, no longer separated but united as one for one single purpose. Rebuilding a broken America.
Barack Obama declared his total separation from Reverend Jeremiah Wright today, now retired from the pulpit at Trinity Church because of his outrageous statements picked up all over the main stream media. Over at the Washington Post they have this on the event…
By Peter Slevin
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Sen. Barack Obama today strongly criticized the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor, saying that Wright's comments about the United States in recent days have been "destructive" and "outrageous."
Using his sharpest language yet to describe a series of Wright performances that he said left him angry and sad, Obama accused Wright of exploiting racial divisions at the same time the Illinois senator is aiming to bring the nation together.
"When I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it," Obama told reporters in firm and somber tones. "It contradicts everything that I'm about and who I am. And anybody who has worked with me, who knows my life, who has read my books, who has seen what this campaign is about I think will understand that it is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country."
SNIP
"I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people. That's in my DNA, trying to promote mutual understanding," Obama said. "To insist that we all share common hopes and common dreams as Americans and as human beings. That's who I am. That's what I believe. That's what this campaign has been about."
"Yesterday, we saw a very different vision of America," Obama went on. "I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday."
- Washington Post
Reverend Wright in his mission to make life better for his congregation has grandstanded and used his bully pulpit for his own personal grandeur. In doing so he has drawn the line in the sand that white Americans and black Americans can never be united as one people. For the first time in his own life his pulpit reached beyond Trinity Church and across America simply because he has a black mans opinion and was the pastor of a Presidential candidate. He saw the limelight on Barack Obama and rather than let the new hope for our nation shine he turned the light on himself and the mistakes and ignorance of the past.
It will not be easy for the Obama campaign to overcome the Wright controversy. Even with his announcement today to separate himself from the Reverend, it still sticks in some circles. It raises the question of whether Obama can or will be able to coast through the rest of the election process and simply win because the numbers seemed to look that way. Did Reverend Wright put the nail in the coffin of the Obama campaign?
No matter what thought process or political theory you follow the only winner in the whole mess that Jeremiah Wright instigated is Senator John McCain. Hillary Clinton can not capitalize on this issue because it is a personal matter between a pastor and one man in his congregation. Paint it any single way you want and it just does not spin well as a political weapon against Obama as a Democrat opponent in the rest of the election process.
All of this post leads to beg the question if African Americans would ever forgive Reverend Wright for handing the nomination process to Hillary Clinton simply because he was so angry to be an African American that was wronged over and over in his own life? Then again, Obama and his campaign isn’t about the past, it’s about the future and that is very different than what Reverend Wright could ever have experienced.
Papamoka
Barack Obama declared his total separation from Reverend Jeremiah Wright today, now retired from the pulpit at Trinity Church because of his outrageous statements picked up all over the main stream media. Over at the Washington Post they have this on the event…
By Peter Slevin
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Sen. Barack Obama today strongly criticized the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor, saying that Wright's comments about the United States in recent days have been "destructive" and "outrageous."
Using his sharpest language yet to describe a series of Wright performances that he said left him angry and sad, Obama accused Wright of exploiting racial divisions at the same time the Illinois senator is aiming to bring the nation together.
"When I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it," Obama told reporters in firm and somber tones. "It contradicts everything that I'm about and who I am. And anybody who has worked with me, who knows my life, who has read my books, who has seen what this campaign is about I think will understand that it is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country."
SNIP
"I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people. That's in my DNA, trying to promote mutual understanding," Obama said. "To insist that we all share common hopes and common dreams as Americans and as human beings. That's who I am. That's what I believe. That's what this campaign has been about."
"Yesterday, we saw a very different vision of America," Obama went on. "I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday."
- Washington Post
Reverend Wright in his mission to make life better for his congregation has grandstanded and used his bully pulpit for his own personal grandeur. In doing so he has drawn the line in the sand that white Americans and black Americans can never be united as one people. For the first time in his own life his pulpit reached beyond Trinity Church and across America simply because he has a black mans opinion and was the pastor of a Presidential candidate. He saw the limelight on Barack Obama and rather than let the new hope for our nation shine he turned the light on himself and the mistakes and ignorance of the past.
It will not be easy for the Obama campaign to overcome the Wright controversy. Even with his announcement today to separate himself from the Reverend, it still sticks in some circles. It raises the question of whether Obama can or will be able to coast through the rest of the election process and simply win because the numbers seemed to look that way. Did Reverend Wright put the nail in the coffin of the Obama campaign?
No matter what thought process or political theory you follow the only winner in the whole mess that Jeremiah Wright instigated is Senator John McCain. Hillary Clinton can not capitalize on this issue because it is a personal matter between a pastor and one man in his congregation. Paint it any single way you want and it just does not spin well as a political weapon against Obama as a Democrat opponent in the rest of the election process.
All of this post leads to beg the question if African Americans would ever forgive Reverend Wright for handing the nomination process to Hillary Clinton simply because he was so angry to be an African American that was wronged over and over in his own life? Then again, Obama and his campaign isn’t about the past, it’s about the future and that is very different than what Reverend Wright could ever have experienced.
Papamoka
Interesting reads on this topic: Pissed on Politics
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Labels: Barack Obama, Democrat Politics, Hillary Clinton, Jeremiah Wright, John McCain, Obama, Obama Wright Split, Presidential Election, Reverend Wright, Washington Post
posted by Papamoka at
6:45 PM
3 Comments:
I'm totally with you on this one...
http://rightcommentary.com/2008/04/29/obama-fires-back-at-wright-iceberg-dead-ahead/
It's a perplexing dilemma and I really can't see how the Reverend helped Obama any way or form. Obama seperating himself from him was a very smart move but with that separation comes a price of religious African Americans that might look at this move as a slap against them.
He had to face it and face it just as Kennedy did his detractors against his alignment as a Catholic and the Pope's influence when he was President.
The Democratic Party is blessed to have two highly capable candidates vying for the nomination. (I’ve said that before.)
I’ve looked at a number of polls which indicate more people have been put off by Obama’s “bitter” and “clinging to” comments than by his association with the Rev. Wright.
Don’t know how this will play out: Fox News is having a field day with the pastor controversy.
What is bothersome to me, candidates aside, is the prevailing thesis here that it is WRONG for an American to criticize America. Hell, that’s our greatest freedom.
It is easy to overlook the fact that SOME of the Rev. Wright’s criticisms of our government are based in TRUTH. We who ourselves have been critical of our current government know it.
Let me give an example: the Rev. Wright talked about 9/11 with the silly phrase, “America’s chickens have come home to rosst.” George W. Bush says al Qaeda “wants to destroy our way of life.” The fact is, Muslims aren’t interested in “our way of life.” Their lives are centered in their religion, and they simply wouldn’t have time for our lifestyles while engaging in prayer five times a day. Most followers of Islam is peace-loving. Islamic jihadists don’t hate our way of life; they hate us because of our policies in the Middle East over the last 50 years.
We did, in fact, supply Saddam Hussein with the very deadly chemicals he used to kill Kurds, and there is a “grip and grin” photo available on the Web of Donald Rumfeld and Saddam Hussien with the handshake which cemented that deal.
Don’t get me wrong. Yes, the Rev. Wright comes across as a “divider” and “a hater of America.” What comes across even clearer, though, is that it is unspeakable to criticize our government. This ain’t Stalin’s Soviet Union. This ain’t Saddam’s Iraq. This ain’t Hitler’s Germany. This ain’t Pol Pot’s Cambodia.
This is the United States of America where citizens are free to criticize our government – at least for the time being. In our loyal fervor generated by this heated campaign, let’s don’t overlook that.
Scrape, scrape, squeak … the sound of my soapbox being shoved back under my computer.
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