Obama takes another hit from the Wright
Even the most committed, never-say-die supporter of Hillary Clinton must be feeling a twinge of sorrow or pity for Barack Obama today.
To watch what the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is doing to Obama's presidential hopes is not a pretty sight. Obama is a candidate who has inspired millions of Americans with his appeal of generational change declaring a cease-fire, if not an end, to decades of America's culture wars. Wright rips open wounds Obama aspires to heal and pours salt on them.
To be sure, Wright's defiant, contemptuous and angry response to questions at the National Press Club in Washington on Monday doesn't in any way reflect Obama's views, beliefs and feelings about America. And the Wright issue is not the whole of the campaign or something that in itself spells doom for Obama's White House ambitions. But it does make the road more difficult and, coming just a week before the crucial Indiana primary, would seem to portend prolonging the long battle for the Democratic nomination. What must superdelegates be thinking?
Wright's words inflame the campaign for several reasons. First, for weeks the rationalizations for his fiery remarks have been that all we were seeing were "snippets" taking his sermons out of context. Indeed, he repeated that claim. Then he made clear the sound bites actually reflected his views. He was asked about his comment that America's chickens had come home to roost on 9/11. His response: "You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you."
Several times, in seeking to justify his sermons, Wright asserted that he was saying what others had said. He invoked the Bible in defending his infamous "God damn America" declaration. He gave a somewhat convoluted answer to a question about his paranoid claim that America had spread HIV among people of color. He talked about the United States developing biological weapons and selling them to people like Saddam Hussein. Then he declared that the U.S. government is "capable" of an HIV genocidal conspiracy.
Potentially most damaging is his assertion that the response to his sermons "is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright -- it's an attack on the black church.'' If he succeeds in framing the debate that way, the cause of further improving race relations won't be helped.
It will be left to African Americans to agree, or not, that Wright embodies the black religious experience in America, but it's fair to say that legions of Americans whose votes Obama needs would be surprised if that were true. Despite Wright's attempt to redefine the issue, he sounded like this is all about him. And he doesn't seem to care how much he may be harming Obama's chances.
Wright is correct that many in America are unfamiliar with the black church and with the good work of succoring the poor, sick and homeless by Trinity United Church of Christ. It's also true that, to many Americans, white evangelical "born-again" Christians are a world unto themselves. Yet, we can criticize Pat Robertson for the ludicrous things he has said without it being cast as an attack on all fundamentalist Christians.
Criticism and anger over U.S. policies and culture rise from many pulpits, and rightfully so. What we hear in an urban black church will be different from a sermon in a middle-class white village in Indiana. But the tone of Wright's views comes off, for mainstream America, as belying the reconciliation Wright says is at the heart of Christianity. Obama accurately characterizes Wright as focusing on America's sins while the rest of us see the country's story as a progressive journey toward realizing the ideals expressed in our founding documents.
Obama acknowledges Wright has become a legitimate election issue. He, like most of us, wishes Wright would let the presidential campaign focus on the crucial issues facing the nation. But Wright won't do that -- he's demanding center stage and guaranteeing that his views will dog Obama until the last vote is counted.
