Curiosity about what Rev. Jeremiah Wright will finally say after he decides to speak in public again is as real as anything gets. Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, this part of the story of American politics this year has been universally ignored by the entire news media -at least so far, as of the beginning of April, 2008.
Rev. Wright was scheduled to speak at three venues in late March but canceled each of his sermons, first in Tampa at the Bible-Based Fellowship Church for March 25, then in Houston, at the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, for March 26, and finally at the Brite Divinity School, associated with Texas Christian University, in Ft Worth, for March 27. In each case a spokesman for Wright cited security concerns even though, in each instance , police officials who were interviewed said that maximum protection had been arranged for the controversial pastor and his entourage.
Many people had looked forward to Wright's scheduled appearances and reasonably believed that he would show up and deliver a message that would tell his side of what has so far been an unsavory story given considerable media attention. And , after all, it can reasonably be said that Wright owes Senator Obama a heart felt public explanation and apology for his past tirades, . and a statement that seeks to make amends. Rev Wright, in the opinion of a number of commentators, almost cost Obama any chance for the Democratic Party nomination for president.
Preparations for each of Wright's scheduled appearances also caused problems for a good number of people with an interest in what he might have had to say. This included myself and a good friend in Texas who helped with finding exact schedules for the now cancelled sermons and the awards ceremony at Brite Divinity School. Others were the many news people who made special trips to Tampa or central Texas to be on the scene of a presumed news event.
After all, it is impossible for Rev Wright to be forgotten or to fade into obscurity. He has become a major part of the drama of Obama's candidacy. And not just Wright, also Trinity United Church of Christ, about which there is more worth saying, later. .
There can be no question that at such time as Wright resurfaces, the entire episode of the weekend of March 15 and 16, actually starting as of the 13th, will be re-opened and "the speech" delivered by Barack Obama on the 17th will be seen in a new light.
Much of the news media seems to be oblivious to this fact.
At least to judge from cable TV shows featuring talking head experts, discussion panels, and guest political celebrities, the rest of the campaign will be all about putting the Wright sermons behind us and re-focusing on just about exactly the subjects of interest during the status quo ante bellum.
Gradually, according to this scenario, what Wright hath wrought will become yesterday's news and will mean less and less.
This outlook is not quite clinically insane. And it is irrational no matter what the experts insist. The minute that Rev Wright starts to speak again, he will become newsworthy and will once again be a focus of attention in the political campaign. There isn't the least question about it.
The news media : Asleep at the switch
Yet the mass media, both the major newspapers and the TV networks, seem to have no comprehension of something so elementary to the news process.
A good example is Rasmussen Reports, an otherwise deservedly respected source for political information. We can dismiss Obama worshippers like Gary Hart, who in a CNN interview on March 24 essentially made a fool of himself, rationalizing away each and every tough question that Wolf Blitzer asked him about future fallout fromthe tapes of Wright's anti-American harangues. And, as perceptive as he sometimes is, we can also dismiss Dick Morris, not so much pro-Obama as anti-Hillary, and someone else who makes the most of every Obama strength and disregards just about all of his negatives and the serious problems he faces,. But Rasmussen is another matter since this usually very reliable source is noted for acuity.
Here is how the March 20, 2008 issue of Rasmussen Reports framed the subject: After explaining that Obama's poll numbers had stabilized in the days following his Important Speech, a sure sign of returning normality was the implication, goingon to say that "barring a big surprise in the next few weeks, the Democratic Presidential Nomination will be determined by the superdelegates.. They will be watching the polls and other signs carefully to determine whether or not the events of the past week will have a lasting impact."
This kind of commentary misses the point entirely . This is 2008, not some other year. The question that matters most is this :
What kind of surprise can we anticipate next ?
It would be going too far to say that everything about this election season has been a surprize, but that's the basic idea. Periods of predictability have been the exception. What we have gotten is week after week of mostly surprises. And with good reason. And now there is a loose cannon on the deck in the person of Jeremiah Wright.
What happens when he re-enters the public domain ? At that point we could expect almost anything, and whatever it is, we can be sure that today's "solid" political calculations will become instantly obsolete.
Which is not to count other more-or-less foreseeable events.
So far in 2008 there has not been a major Muslim terrorist attack like those in London, Madrid, Saudi Arabia, or Morocco, etc, of recent years. Nor has there been an attack on American soil despite a few attempts by Islamic jihadists to cause serious problems. These attempts have been stopped by intelligence services. But this could change in an instant. Especially since the stage has been set for exactly such a development.
Consider :
1. On Easter Sunday, at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI publicly baptised Magdi Allam, a well known former Muslim from Egypt and a new convert to Catholicism , now a newsman in Italy and a respected intellectual. Allam is under round-the-clock police protection because of death threats from Muslims who know, full well, that this is the penalty the Qur'an requires for any believer who converts to any other faith, just as Muhammad's book demands death for anyone who causes someone to leave Islam. This means the Pope. In other words, Allam's baptism, officiated at the Holy See is, as many Muslims understand their religion, a casus belli.
2. Some time soon we can anticipate overt reaction to a short film that compares Islam to Fascism and that is highly critical of Muhammad and the Qur'an. This 16 minute and 30 seconds long movie, entitled "Fitna," was released on March 27 on Liveleak on the Web. In the first 24 hours there were approximately 1,200,000 "hits" at the site and it was duplicated widely to be shown on an unknown number of other websites. The producer is a Dutch politician named Geert Wilders, a leader of the conservative Freedom Party in that country. The Dutch government had done everything legally open to it to prevent the film from being shown anywhere -no Dutch movie theaters or TV channels would agree to show it- but Wilders went ahead with his plans and after several false starts the film was finally ready for public viewing. But on day # 2 Liveleak had received a number of plausible threats of violence or death to its personnel and it stopped showing the movie. Google picked the movie up, security measures were provided to Liveleak, and on March 30 it resumed showing Fitna. But threats remained and governments throughout Europe braced for the worst. So far the reaction in the Muslim world has been relatively mild - small scale riots in Pakistan, vandalism and mayhem in Indonesia, protest demon-strations in Afghanistan, official condemnation in Iran, etc But , ominously, a purported fatwa issued by Al Qaeda seeking the death of Wilders, warnings from various Muslim leaders of impending large scale opposition, and so forth.. Of course, the hubbub may dissipate, and nothing further occur, but the potential certainly exists for "round # 2" of riots and other violence along the lines of what we saw in the wake of publication of several cartoons by a Danish newspaper not that long ago. And it means that Wilders will have to live with the knowledge that he is the target for assassination by some Muslim zealot, just as Theo van Gogh was murdered in 2004 .Should that happen pressures from Europe upon Muslims states or groups could set off a chain reaction as Muslims react against , for them, opposition to justice in riddingthe world of a sworn enemy of Islam That is, although all has been quiet until now, a large scale uproar could break out at any time in the near future.
3. An article by Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily, published on February 24, lurks in cyberspace awaiting the attention it deserves. And there are parallel reports which say about the same thing, such as those published by Human Events and Front Page, more information for which I am indebted to my friend in Texas. For it seems as if a certain Barack Obama was associated with a domestic terrorist and a Muslim pro-terrorist group from 1999 to the end of 2000, something more than adequately documented since the then future US Senator received $ 6000 per year for his consulting services. He also served in an apparently unpaid position on the Woods Fund after that time, as a member of its board of directors , a body that was supportive of Muslim interests. The terrorist in question. also a member of the same board, by then having neutralized his legal liabilities, was William Ayers, once a member of the Weather Underground, and part of a group that set off explosives at the New York police headquarters in 1970, at the US Capitol in 1971, and at the Pentagon in 1972. Ayers is married to Bernardine Dohrn, herself a notorious terrorist, and someone who -I'm mot making this up- has served with Obama on several professional panels The Muslim group is known as the Arab American Action Network, and had direct ties to the PLO in the past, and possibly still has similar connections today. The AAAN was founded by Rashid Khalidi, now on the faculty at Columbia University, but in the years under review he was a professor at the University of Chicago, and was a colleague of Obama, then lecturing in Law. Khalidi held a fund-raiser for Barack in 2000,because of his ( Obama's ) support for the Palestinian cause. This is not exactly innocent since what Khalidi means is clear enough in his on-the-record statements in favor of suicide bombings against Israelis.One would think that as soon as this "hits the fan," there will be a new storm that breaks out around the person of Barack Obama. And this storm will involve Israel and the Palestinians.
All of which is highly relevant to Obama's candidacy inasmuch, as will be explained further on in this essay, Barack demonstrably is sympathetic to Islam.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------But let us return to the focus of this essay, Rev Jeremiah Wright.
Just what will Jeremiah Wright say next ?
There are several possibilities. ( 1 ) He could be contrite and ask for forgiveness. ( 2 ) He could be defiant and , in one form or another, remain consistent with the kind of person he was revealed to be on videotapes seen around the country. ( 3 ) He could seek to find an original approach that would express regrets while at the same time persisting as a champion of James Cone's reverse racist ideology. or ( 4 ) He could strive to turn over a new leaf, as in "meet the new Jeremiah Wright, advocate for moderation," even if his style still is fiery.
Like anyone caught in a dilemma brought about because of problems with one's own ideology, Wright would surely want to retain as much as possible of his earlier views and values. This is a basic psychological
principle.
People simply cannot, no mater how much it may be in their interests to do so, become altogether new as a person overnight. Any radical personal change takes time. New ideas take time to be absorbed and "worked into" one's philosophy of life. New values need to displace old values and the process ordinarily is one of inner conflict and conflict resolution for several years.Yet there can be shortcuts. At least there can be shortcuts IF someone had been a different kind of person in the past, and change in a new direction returns to those abandoned foundations to start anew. Wright, of course, has this option. Or has something of this option. Before he became a militant African American bigot - or no better than a part time bigot- he was a Marine and, after that, served in the Navy as a medical specialist. To have done either would have required quite different values than he has sometimes espoused from the pulpit of Trinity United Church. Wright, at least theoretically, could return to the values he had as a young man.
At this time all we can do is guess. But there are some clues
One clue consists of a comment that Obama made on "The View" television show on Thursday, March 27. Obama and Wright have talked since the Senator's March 17 speech, possibly at some juncture during Easter weekend when both were vacationing in the Caribbean, in the Virgin Islands and in Puerto Rico, respectively. Indeed , it seems reasonable to conclude that the two talked strategy with respect to Wright's re-appearance at some point in the future. But. although this might explain why the pastor cancelled his long planned sermons in Florida and Texas, basically we still are in the dark about what to expect just from this sketchy evidence.
Another clue comes from a surprise appearance that Wright made at St. Sabina Catholic Church in Chicago on March 28. at a ceremony to honor poetess Maya Angelou. Wright gave a short benediction on that occasion, but the significance of the event would seem to be the loud ovation he received from the congregation and the warm welcome from various "influentials" from the city's politically important South Side The full story , as much as there is, can be accessed via CBS2, a Chicago TV station site.
Another clue comes from the Easter sermon preached by the new pastor at Trinity, Rev Otis Moss III, to judge from a television appearance a few days before, a sycophant toward Wright. At least according to TV news reports, the sermon was defiant , defensive, and extolled Wright as a hero. It was also "Christian" in some number of senses, as NBC5.com tells us, but what exactly to make of this is an open question since Trinity is, after all , a church. And it is no secret that a Christian message can serve non-spiritual purposes, such as providing rationalizations for un-Christian things, if, anyway, a connection can be made to "higher values." And it may be "mixed," Christian but also personal and self-serving.
Yet the message that Wright is "misunderstood" and his past sermons were for the good, etc, was reinforced by a visiting minister, Rev. James Forbes, who gushed enthusiastically about how honored he was to give positive testimony about Jeremiah Wright, someone he apparently admires without reservation.
This would suggest that Rev Wright, when he does emerge and speaks candidly in public forums, won't be much different than in the past -even if there is an obligatory public apology for excessive hyperbole that "may have offended some people."
The fact is that, while there has been some criticism of Wright from the Black community, including very serious criticism -such as from Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia- there has also been an outpouring of support. To the extent this is the case, this means that Wright could be reinforced in his mindset. Against this is his personal relationship with Obama and considerations of great importance about the Senator's chances to become president.
But popular African-American support there is, as indicated by a Pew Research poll for March 20 - 24, which shows that while almost 2 out of 3 White voters were deeply offended by what they saw and heard of Wright's tirades on TV, only 29 % of black voters , one out of three, were upset. In other words, almost 70 % of the African-American population either accept Wright's views as "normal" or are no worse than muted in their criticisms. And we can assume that Wright knows this, as does Obama.
These facts may not be decisive in whatever decision Wright finally makes about future public appearances and public statements, but all will assuredly have some weight in his calculus, and it would seem to be ill-advised to expect a "new Wright." Even a Wright who starts out with, "I am sorry for my excesses," as his way to re-enter public life, may well prove to be a temporary phenomenon.
Yet, these factors given their due , anyone who is responsible has to say that the verdict is out and we simply don't know.
What is certain, however, is that the "old Wright" will continue to be topical for the simple reason that Wright's vintage sermons and writings are still being examined to try and find even more examples of outrageous statements.
The hits just keep on coming.
The most recent lunacy as of the beginning of April concerns his view that the crucifixion was an "Italian lynching," and the view that Italians are "garlic noses."
Either Fox TV or CNN broke the story ( it is unclear to me which was first ) but the other cable / TV channels followed suit in discussing the material. And this story too,"has legs" even if there are no DVD visuals This is all about something Wright wrote and published in Trumpet magazine, apparently intended as a sort of swan song for the last issue before his retirement. This was printed in what is still the most recent issue. And it has to be regarded as certain that Obama saw it.
Gateway Pundit provides the relevant details, along with a nice picture of the page where Wright's article appears. I sent a copy to my friend under the title, "the hits just keep on coming."
Another problem for Obama is that Wright's figures of speech are quite memorable. No-one can forget what he said. Which, ordinarily, is a rather large "positive" for a preacher, but in this case it is the opposite because the content is often inflammatory and sometimes incites racial or ethnic prejudice.
Not to be overly dramatic about such things. In many parts of the United States everyone learns a lesson early in life, in a pluralistic society expect others to make jokes about your biological group.. This is what happens in real life and all the solemn lectures from on high about showing respect for others .may be disregarded whenever needed.
While such things do have value, -people do take ethical preachments to heart even if not in the exact ways intended- nearly all of us , if we are honest, are anything but Politically Correct at a basic level. And it is this level that the young usually are least reluctant to express truthful views of others. A youthful sense of humor often persists through one's entire lifetime, moreover, and can bubble to the surface when prodded. Thus new jokes about the latest Wright semi rant. "Some of my best friends are garlic noses." Etc. But while you or I may find this secretly amusing today, who is to say that the next laugh provided by "Uncle Jeremiah " might be at the expense of Germans or Poles or Filipinos or Jews or Greeks or God knows who else.
As it is, this gross insult to people of Italian extraction can hardly be greeted with enthusiasm in the Obama camp. And one would think that Obama would like at least a small percentage of Italian-American votes. One blog very recently headlined its feature for the day with words to the effect,"Obama loses New Jersey," a reference to the very large Italian American population in the Garden State.
This could also mean trouble even in Illinois, where 740,000 Italian-Americans live, California ( 1, 150,000 ), Florida ( almost the exact same number ), Pennsylvania ( 1, 550,000 ), Ohio ( 720,000 ), Connecticut ( 650,000 ) , Massachusetts (920,000 ), and New York ( 3, 255,000 ). All told more than 15 million US citizens are Italian-American. What's wrong with doing some research ? The point that many or most of Obama's defenders miss, and one is tempted to say "all of his defenders," is that while there may be justification for his grievances about unfair treatment of African-Americans in the United States---
( A ) it simply is false that all White people have always treated Blacks shamefully, which is the opposite of the truth with respect to most educators, most Quakers and Baha'is, most German-Americans ( a clear majority of whom were anti-slavery in the Civil War era )., most people in polyglot Hawaii, etc, and for that matter, most practical politicians in major cities., and
( B ) Wright's paranoid delusions and conspiracy theory ravings were ( or are ) completely off the wall., not to mention hate-filled and potentially destructive.
The first point here was discussed to good effect in an article by Andrew Patner on March 19 under the title, "Obama and Rev. Wright: A View from the South Side of Chicago," which is available on the Web. As Patner makes clear, and if you are a Chicagoan you know he is essentially on the money, the general neighborhood where Obama lives and where Trinity is located, . is fairly mixed. It has a large Black majority, to be sure, but it also is where the University of Chicago can be found, an area known as Hyde Park, and in addition to this there are a number of White or other non-Black enclaves. Thus not only does Louis Farrakhan live in the area, so does Richard Epstein, a Jew, and the noted ( or notorious ) legal beagle. Indeed, Obama was given a major boost to his political career, early on, by another Jewish South Sider, Abner Mikva , even if Mikva has since relocated to the suburbs.
In other words, Rev Wright knows all about the South Side scene and yet still gave vent to horrific resentments against "white people" at large as if it was unnecessary to make elementary distinctions.
About the second point, an article on Metro Blog, a site maintained by the Dallas Morning News, "Rev Wright, politics, and the black church, " for March 28, has little use for the view that everything objectionable about Wright's diatribes can be " explained" as Obama does, by appeal to the injustices of African-Americans in the past, or in the here-and-now for a significant percentage.
That argument, which is being uncritically mouthed by ( I do believe ) most TV journalists and many or most of their guests, is not true on the face of it. It is patently false, as a matter of fact.
After all, many other African-Americans, including Martin Luther King, did not suffer from similar delusions. . In any case, a little research -and Wright has serious academic credentials and knows how to do research- would have made it abundantly clear that AIDS was not the creation of the Federal government as a means to kill off African-Americans. Indeed, this kind of thinking is close to insane, it is so far off base. To give the least credence to such a view is an indication of wilful ignorance motivated by some very ugly and irrational beliefs. And as the writer of the article said, the Tuskegee experiments , sometimes said to be a model. for causing medically induced deaths of Black people- which took place a very long time ago- are irrelevant as anyone who has studied AIDS with the least seriousness knows perfectly well.
To which we can add some of Wright's other lunacies, like his opinion that the Government engineered Pearl Harbor for sinister purposes, or that 9 / 11 was deserved retribution for US military activities around the world. To say the least, such an outlook is entirely specious since it conflates what ( certainly in most cases ) were legitimate national security concerns and resulting military missions designed to limit civilian casualties as much as possible, with a deliberate attack intended to cause the maximum number of civilian casualties, as the Muslim terrorists believed, is commanded by their religion. Yet Wright did exactly that.
Someone wrote a comment about the Dallas News article which said something else worth thinking about -
"The excuse that ' whites don't get black preacher styles' is paper thin. It is akin to excusing David Duke because that is 'just the way he talks about things.' "
" Likewise the ' you're taking it out of context' or ' its only a few of the things he said over time. ' Again -he said it. In or out of context, he said it. Does David Duke get a pass because of his background and life experiences ? He's a racist and so is Rev Wright. You want to make excuses ? You're wrong ! "
This really nails the case to be made about the video tapes. As if it matters. Rev Wright's supporters don't begin to understand the obvious, nor does, sad to say, Barack Obama. In fact, Obama's defenses of Wright are fallacious and ultimately dishonest. No-one with real integrity can possibly believe that a close friendship over 20 years , plus frequent church-going all that time, and nonetheless Obama was clueless about his pastor's biases and tendency to accept urban legends of the most insidious kind as true. This has zero plausibility. All kinds of people have said so, not least Michael Medved, as far as I am concerned one of the best judges of issues such as this.
Can you really excuse racist ravings on ANY grounds ?
Yet this is precisely what a large percentage of Obama supporters do , and it is what Obama himself sometimes does -even if, at other times he does not. He wants to have it both ways, in other words.
The operative term for this is hypocrisy.
And the operative concept for Obama's worshipful supporters is "double standard." It was Obama himself who made the statement, back in April of 2007, concerning Don Imus' comments about women basketball players at Rutgers, that, in his exact words :
"There's nobody on my staff who would who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group." Obama went on to demand that NBC should fire Imus .
Which, by the way, has been reported widely, such as on March 20 by NewsMax, itself quoting from ABC News.
But when the focus is on Rev Wright, clearly much worse than Imus ever was, then things are different. In other words, Obama fails the "Imus test," as it has been called, his own test. Which, however, is only one of Obama's glaring inconsistencies, another well known one being his demand that all superdelegates vote exactly the way their states voted in their primaries. When asked if this meant that Ted Kennedy and John Kerry ought to vote for Hillary, who won Massachusetts, Obama backpeddled.
But there is much more for Obama to worry about besides periodic episodes of bigotry on the part of Jeremiah Wright. The Hillary campaign may be most reluctant to bring such matters up, since on the ( ersatz-) Left in America, Political Correctness rules, and any telling criticism of Obama can be, and often is , thought of as racist in character. But others have no such compunctions since they reject, outright, the premises of PC ideology. For them it is a virtue to speak the truth as they see it , and if doing so is "controversial," so much the better. Maybe people will finally listen and face the facts for what they are.
Additional crazy views of Rev Wright -
Israel treats the Palestinians as bad or worse than Hitler treated the Jews in WW II., an opinion that is preposterous. Surely a case can be made, and many Israelis make it themselves, that their government is unfair to many Palestinians, even that there have been more than a few outrages. But the Jews did not start two Intifadas that angered the Nazis, nor does modern day Israel maintain concentration camps for close to 100 % of the population of the West Bank and Gaza, nor has it murdered better than 90 % of that population. The comparison, that Wright takes seriously according to sites like Do No Evil report, is ludicrous. Needless to say, not at all incidentally, such a viewpoint matters a great deal to millions of Jewish voters in crucial states.
Or as one respondent at the site put it, in reference to Obama, "which is worse, racism or someone who defends a racist ? "
Also on the subject of the Jewish vote, Wright believes that Israel, with the former connivance of apartheit South Africa, developed an A-bomb that has the capability to specifically target Arabs and Blacks, leaving all others unharmed. According to this fantasy, in the past, Israel, with help from South Africa, was able to test this device at sea, somewhere off the coast of that nation. This outlandish claim is absurd. It also is still more racist garbage. And it is demonstrably false since, obviously, any nuclear test, anywhere on Earth, has been within the capabilities of many nations to monitor for decades, and there has been no news to any such effect. Furthermore, physics is not biology and atomic weapons kill everyone in a given area regardless of nationality or race. Yet Wright believes such utter paranoid nonsense ? At any rate, this information was first reported on the site, "wizbang," not the best moniker for a journalistic source, but , again, the reporting seems to be accurate.
There also is at least one rumor that conceivably may turn out to have some substance, as reported on three different websites that I have stumbled upon, namely, that Wright, in his 20s, was a member of Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam before he decided to become a Christian. This story may be untrue, but it is plausible, and many people may end up believing it because of Wright's idolization of Louis Farrakhan. Obama, of course, repudiated Farrakhan's endorsement of his candidacy, but there is one thing he overlooked.
What Obama cannot deny -even if his famous March 17 speech says otherwise ( is false on this point , as it is on other points ) - is that he knew all about the Trinity publication, the Trumpet, and about Rev Wright giving Farrakhan its highest award for the year 2007. Maybe Obama did not attend each Sunday sermon at the church, but he receives the magazine, doesn't he ? In fact, he has been on its cover three times.
And as a one-time editor of a prestigious law review, he certainly knows how to read. Yet he seems to have refrained from even the mildest protest about this, last November. Which, of course, some people might well take as further evidence of his Muslim sympathies., especially of Black Muslim sympathies.
In other words, what Obama is treating us all to is a world class con job.
This is what it all seems to be even if one or another of the individual problems just listed turns out to be off target, weak, or insufficiently convincing.
Other minefields ahead
The behavior of Wright's followers can also be expected to make a difference as the campaign continues. Enthusiastic crowds who shout their approval of the former pastor may encourage the faithful, but the effect upon others might well be chilling -and conceivably far worse. Primal fears could be provoked. Not only with respect to Republicans and Independents, and both groups became markedly more critical of Obama after March 15, but also among Democrats. See the Los Angeles Times for March 30, under the heading, " Clinton, Obama supporters wrangle over delegates."
The story is far more than a dispassionate analysis of vote disputes in Texas, it documents what had so far only been anecdotal reports of bad feelings between advocates for the two camps, including cases of badgering , insults hurled at one another,.and incidents of "mild" violence. Now here is an establishment report of serious animosity.that could well get much worse in the future.
Anyone who has had the idealistic view that, at long last, we might actually have an election featuring high-minded candidates taking part in principled and honest debate, should be disabused of any such notion.That kind of outlook is hopelessly unrealistic in any presidential election year, and is especially unrealistic for 2008, even if, at least until March 14, Obama and Hillary, as well as McCain and Huckabee before March 4, gave the impression this was possible. But it never was , and as of today it is completely out of the question.
As for snares and traps to be cognizant of beyond the problems posed by a loose cannon in the person of Rev Wright, let us not forget Oprah Winfrey. She was a vital part of the surge in support in Iowa that launched Obama's candidacy and into frontrunner status. Granted, he might have won anyway, but without the strong and unprecedented backing of Oprah, he very well could have lost to either John Edwards or Hillary. In other words. Oprah has some responsibility for the " Obama phenomenon."
It turns out that Oprah was also a member of Trinity church, but someone whocould only take so much, and who quit after approximately two years Of course that was in the eighties, and for all she knew at the end of 2007 when she made her decision to support Obama, much may have changed at the church, and in any case there had been sufficient time to forget about ( or repress memories of ) Rev Wright's excesses.
However, mid March brought it all back. -and doubtless then some.
Hot Air, the website, ran a special news feature about Oprah's online forum at Oprah.com on March 14, just after Fox TV broke the story and had been broadcasting it for a day or so. No less than 300 posts expressed , in verymstrong terms, genuine outrage at Wright's outbursts and invective. toward White people. Here are some examples of what Oprah surely had to have read since she takes a personal interest in her site.
" I have to agree with Dick Morris. We both intensely dislike Hillary and Bill. But, but it needs to be said that Rev Wright strikes me as a very dangerous, divisive, and anti-American racist......."
" This is extremely troubling."
" I was upset.... Its beyond inflammatory and much worse than anything Geraldine Ferraro said, yet I don't hear a peep out of Obama. What his pastor said is beyond disgusting."
All of which brings up a subject that many people have an interest in., yet which the press , so far, has completely overlooked. Why is Oprah being given a free pass ? What isn't she being asked about her endorsement of Obama and about her reasons for leaving Trinity ? For if she says she quit because of fears for her reputation if the substance of Wright's tirades ever became common knowledge, or if she didn't say it herself but a reliable source did so for her, that would call into question all of Obama' s denials of awareness of the seriousness of Uncle Jeremiah's ugly blasts from his podium.
The article by Ed Morrissey added the observation that when Obama did begin to offer a defense, his main contention -still very much in service since it is enough for the worshippers who constitute the apparent bulk of his "cause"- that it is all too easy to "cherry pick" a few statements and make the most of them, is nothing but an egregious evasion. What kind of context, Morrissey asked, can possibly justify "God damn America," shouted repeatedly to a church congregations ? And what can conceivably justify Wright's ridiculous view that AIDS was an invention of the CIA or some other official agency to kill off Black people ?
Morrissey also made the point that the news media had been derelict in its duties.
No question about it, some journalists were abdicating their responsibilities in not so much their reporting on Obama, but in practically offering devotional rhapsodies in his honor. This was far over the top at times, with comparisons of Obama to Abraham Lincoln and JFK and, so the impression could seem , to Jesus Christ. But even the muted version of such devotionalism was evident in how many reporters selected themes for their reports, or in word choice, or in defensiveness when confronted with even fairly tame criticisms of Obama.
Hence, a bizarre circumstance..........
" Given the intense media interest in Mormon underwear and LDS doctrine in the Fall of 2007, one might expect a little more scrutiny of the much more politically and racially-charged message coming from the pulpit of Trinity United Church."
Now that Obama has made his candidacy-saving speech of March 17, and the polls show that the situation has stabilized, especially since Hillary's negatives have risen ( partly, it seems , because she is getting some blame for being critical of Obama as "hero," as one expert put it ) , the worshipful condition of the press has been restored and talk is now focused about where it was on about March 12.. Despite losing two major states , Texas by a solid 4 % and Ohio quite decisively , news people once more were talking as if an Obama nomination was inevitable and Hillary should get out of the race !
In other words, journalists as true believers in a candidate lose objectivity , fail to ask the right questions, and generally make asses of themselves. Hence Hillary's grievance about how Obama was not being vetted by the news media.,quite true until the second week in March, and true again ever since the start of week # 3.
But perhaps the worst land mines in the path to the nomination for Obama were placed there -unintentionally or not- by Barrack himself.
Obama's self-inflicted wounds
It remains problematic whether the Rezko trial, now underway in Chicago, will have a damaging effect on Obama's campaign. Monica Crowley has predicted that it will, and she certainly has access to inside information that I can only dream about, but so far there have been no real bombshells. Some lesser items of bad news have become known, such as that Obama had to admit receiving $ 100,000 more from Rezko than he had previously reported, but which is not illegal, and therefore can be regarded as less than important. There are questions about making money through the purchase of a house at less than fair market value, but such things are common enough in politics that , within reason, few voters get very worked up about this sort of thing.
Some do, of course, and in a close election this might count. As an illustration I remember a story about a business executive who was considering hiring a well thought of prospect for a managerial position. Screening was deliberately lengthy such that it was time for lunch and a visit to the company cafeteria. Each person would buy his own lunch. It was then that the prospect lost any chance for the job he was seeking. The executive noticed that the man slipped a couple of butter patties under a dinner roll.and did not pay for them. That settled matters, for his view was that someone dishonest in little things was dishonest generally and could not be trusted.
So, some percentage of voters may well take a dim view of Obama's financial "flexibility." But in national elections people must choose between candidates each of whom have shortcomings. This factor would probably be a wash. against some other consideration.
More serious, as a story reported by Media Matters for June 14, 2007 says, is the fact that Obama has been caught in a lie. This news has not received any attention in the press or on TV for the simple reason that, at the time, it was about a candidate who had little political "traction." Hillary was ahead in the polls by 20 % or so. No-one could possibly catch her, and Obama's speeches as a presidential candidate were still amateur in quality; and he could not be taken all that seriously. But things are very different now, aren't they ?
Actually they were important enough even in the Summer of 2007 to be the subject of passing news attention. Among reporters who covered parts of the story, for a short time anyway, were CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Fox's Brit Hume , but the matter came and went. Which is where they things have stayed until the present.
Here are the facts-
It seems as if Obama has insisted that he never did political favors for Mr Rezko. He said this explicitly to the Chicago Tribune in December of 2006, when he made it clear that he meant "never." Alas for Obama, letters have surfaced that show, well enough, that in 1997 the then state senator from the South Side wrote on behalf of Rezko's plan to obtain $ 14 million from the State of Illinois in order to help build an apartment complex.for senior citizens. Which raises some significant questions since Obama was not being truthful and was protecting Rezko from moral scrutiny. After all, Rezko's way of operating was more-or-less common knowledge and often involved kickbacks in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range, and other shady practices. This was why Rezko was under investigation for some years, including the Autumn of 2006, when Obama asked for his help in purchasing his new upscale Chicago residence.
At the time, as the report says , which can be accessed on the web by typing in "Media ignore key details in Obama / Rezko story," the Senator knew full well that Tony Rezko might be indicted soon. Barack was taking a serious chance and, as he later admitted, it was a " bonehead" thing to do. But he did it, and it raises another kind of question about his self-touted major selling point, his supposed good judgment.
On this topic just a few words of wisdom are in order.
This issue is on top of other questions about Obama's judgement in staying at Trinity for 20 years. This isn't my observation , but that of Frank James of the Tribune, who highlighted this in a January 23, 2008 article. And it is the view of a writer published in the Wall Street Journal on March 18. "You know how in real estate its.......location, location, location.? Well, in politics its...... judgement, judgement, judgement. Mr Obama gets a big fat "F" for sitting, year after year, under his pastor's venomous racial hatred, bigotry and unpatriotic trashing of our country."
This may be going too far. Even if Wright's "bad" is unforgivable, his "good" as a pastor deserves recognition even if it doesn't begin to excuse his failings. At any rate, the issue of judgement is crucial.to everything else. And this includes Obama's poor judgement in his dealings with Rezko.
Hillary can't "go there," said Frank James, since doing so might very well re-open Whitewater and other dubious financial transactions in her past, but Republicans would not have such reticence in the general election, nor would privately funded "Swift Boat" groups.
What has come out as a result of Rezko's trial so far, it would seem, still isn't anything lethal to a hypothetical Obama nomination, but ( 1 ) the trial isn't over, and ( 2 ) when added to an entire assortment of other questions, it just might be consequential.
Is giving birth a "punishment" ?
There is another secular issue that has just been raised on a few blogs, in this case the information coming form the site, RogueJew.
In a March 30 posting , in an excerpt from a recent speech, Obama had this to say on the issue of abortion :
“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.”
There is a very important observation to make about this comment., not counting the grammatical faux pas, saying "got" instead of "have."
Who says that having a baby is a form of punishment ? No-one says any such thing, ever. Certainly not in politics.It sounds horrible and it speaks volumes about one's values. It is also sound bite material that anyone who so desires can exploit to the maximum.
These days, it should be noted, the DLC under Howard Dean is seeking to win Evangelical voters to the Democratic Party cause As of early 2008, according to the best data that I have seen, about a third of Democrats are Evangelicals and, while some of this number are pro-choice, they are more than offset by pro-life Catholics and Orthodox Jews who remain in the party. Yet here is Obama telling these people that abortion is better than the "punishment" of giving birth to a baby.
One can understand his point about the problems that a teen girl might well have if she became pregnant. Depending on circumstances, an early term abortion might be a reasonable option, but it would hardly be anything but a case of "making the best of a bad situation." And some people could argue to good effect that a better choice would be having the baby and giving it up for adoption.
In any eventuality, Obama blundered -badly.
He blundered even if, so far, the press has not touched this story.
More damaging, and quite possibly explosive, are Obama's connections to Islam.
About this matter, the press corps has blown the story completely.
Early on, the angle of pursuit centered on the question, "is Obama a Muslim ? " This query usually took the form of seeking to discover if beneath the rhetoric the Senator was concealing a secret to the effect that he follows Muslim religion with his membership in a Christian church as political cover. A variant has it that Obama was a "certified Muslim" as a youth in Indonesia, he knows it, he also knows that no-one is allowed to quit Islam on penalty of death, and he has not, in fact, abandoned Islam.
Whatever lingering suspicions anyone may have, this line of thought is a dead end. Given Obama's frequent testimonials in favor of Christian faith , the charge that he is a Muslim in disguise is difficult to sustain and it seems to be false. In fact, some of Obama's one time champions on the hard Left have subsequently repudiated the Senator as too religious, especially too Christian, with one "Progressive" blog condemning Obama as "much worse" than Huckabee in his religious beliefs.
What the news media did, en bloc -I know of NO exceptions- was to drop the subject entirely when no evidence materialized to suggest a direct link between Obama and Islam. The conclusion was that any connections were all in his past, and were tenuous to begin with. There was nothing to the story. Hence, some time before February, the matter disappeared from news coverage.
There are three strong reasons why it should not have been.
( 1 ) What cannot be denied is that there are direct family links to Islam for Obama. His African brother in Kenya is a true believer Muslim who seeks to institute Shariah law in that country. Barack, himself, has visited Kenya for extended stays at least twice, the first time as described in his book, Dreams of My Father, ie, his Muslim father with two wives..From all indications, while Obama may not be a Muslim himself, he is deeply sympathetic and there is rational fear that at some opportune time, such as when in office as president, he could announce to the world that he has become a convert.
Such an action would hardly be out of the question in the context of black America. All sorts of African-Americans have made dramatic announcements of conversions to Islam, starting with Cassius Clay becoming Muhammad Ali a half century ago. Others include, not necessarily with fanfare announcements, Mike Tyson, Malcolm X, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Coltraine, and Michael Jackson ( in 2003 ). Indeed, this tradition extends as far back as the 1930s with Noble Drew Ali and the Moorish Science Temple in Chicago, and indeed, Chicago's South Side has been more-or-less an almost literal Black Muslim Mecca. ever since then.
But what might be regarded as the "clincher" is a report widely cited on the Web, here duplicated from the site, Grand Old Partisan, that on February 27, 2007, Barack Hussein Obama went on record as saying that the call to prayer of Muslims is "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth."
In an interview with The New York Times, Obama recited, "with a first-class [Arabic] accent," the opening lines of this prayer:
"Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! I witness that there is no God but Allah I witness that there is no God but Allah I witness that Muhammad is his prophet... "
While not proof of anything, anyone can say the prayer innocently enough, it nonetheless is one of the distinguishing signs of a believer. All Muslims know the prayer and all recite it.
To conclude that Obama is a Muslim sympathizer isn't in the least problematic. He is exactly that, and this has enormous political and policy implications for an Obama presidency that the news media has not begun to address.And that, so far, the public is blissfully ignorant about. This is press irresponsibility of the most odious variety.
My recent essay, "Obama and Culture Shock" is now widely available on the Web. It provides copious evidence about Obama's pro-Muslim views and about his family's Muslim background. Obama's protestations that his father was an Atheist are evasions. Possibly the man was a secular Muslim for some period in his life, but the record is clear that he "walked like a duck," viz., did most or all things that Muslims do in Kenya, and that his conversion - from Christianity to Islam was sincere.
The news media does not cover this important story not only because a large percentage of journalists are Obama devotees who shrink in horror at the thought of sullying the reputation of their messiah any further, but possibly even moreso because they are, almost to a man ( or woman ) , ridiculously ignorant of the subject of religion., specifically Comparative Religion or History of Religions. In this area they don't know what they are talking about most or almost all of the time.
The option of actually studying religion never seems to occur to them. Just about all senior correspondents, anyone whom the public knows about, are products of the Cold War and of rising through the ranks after a start at one or another City Desk assignment, exactly the worst possible preparation for worthwhile coverage of religion as newsworthy. Indeed, until now this state of affairs is not even recognized as a problem.
Of course, to recommend study of Comparative Religion means actual study, not feel-good horse manure as promoted by Karen Armstrong or anyone who thinks remotely like her. A journalist-cum-student who sees the light and decides to take a few classes in the field would be well-advised to look into the views of his or her professors first. Anything gleaned from Armstrong -or someone like Diana Eck or John Esposito- and you would be assured of being misled and misinformed.
Be that as it may, absence of working reliable knowledge of religion in genuine depth is a real problem., and a problem of the greatest possible magnitude.
( 2 ) Obama's connections to Muslim organizations are now an issue. Exactly how far this goes is unclear and uncertain, but there IS documentation that tells us that the Senator "is in bed with" militant groups.
This is, first, in reference to a February 25 story provided by WorldNetDaily., entitled," Obama raised funds for Islamic causes." The details are-
Obama has a close relationship with the ( Muslim ) Palestinian community in Chicago. And we can assume that he has informed himself about exactly what leaders of this community want when they refer to their needs. For a politician of stature not to make himself informed would be folly since his name would become associated with such causes.
In 1999 one Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, introduced the then state senator to a crowd at a fundraiser for the Deheisha Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank. Abunimah reported this during a TV interview on Democracy Now, a Progressive ( fairly hard Left ) television news show that is broadcast via community television outlets and PBS affiliates, etc, to hundreds of cities across the country. Abunimah added that this was not the first time, nor would it be the last. Obama was a frequent speaker at Palestinian events and was well known for his support of this community and for condemning Israel's occupation of the West Bank and ( since ceased ) Gaza.
Obama knew, in other words, that he was associating with someone who supported Intifada activities against Israel. This association continued until 2004 or beyond, as Abunimah also said, and Obama spoke with him that year , apologetically, inasmuch as his race for the US Senate would not allow him to address Palestinian issues as he had done previously.
Abunimah is another member of the board of AAAN, the Arab American Action Network, mentioned at the outset of this article, an organization started by Mr Khalidi now of Columbia University, someone who is a supporter of the PLO., long branded by the US State Department as a terrorist group.
As for funds being sent to Deheisha, this camp, near Bethlehem, was, in 1999, the year that Obama helped raise money for it, at the center of terrorist activities against Israel and was responsible for a significant number of bombings and other acts of violence against Jewish civilians, One Deheisha-led group caused an attack that resulted in the deaths of 11 people, mostly women and children, with another 50 who were wounded.
Obama also has, as a foreign policy advisor, a certain Robert Malley, someone on record as favoring direct negotiations with Hamas, and someone who has co-authored a number of articles with a former advisor the Yasser Arafat, all of them favorably disposed to the PLO. In other words, one of Obama's ears has been open for a long time to pro-PLO propaganda, and may explain the Senator's statement, which has been incredulously remarked upon by many people , that he is willing to meet face to face with "any" leader, including Muslim leaders of questionable reputation.
As for Malley's "expertise," his conclusions about the failure of the Camp David talks in 2000, which he blamed on Israel ( Ehud Barak ) , have been refuted in detail by authentic experts like Dennis Ross -whom Obama rejects.
Not only is Obama associated with Muslim groups, various Muslim groups are associated with him. This is documented in detail in a Fred Lucas story for CNSNews dated February 25, 2008. One of these groups was created by Obama himself -or with his full knowledge - and is featured at his website under the heading, " Muslim Americans for Obama '08." The page for this group , part of Obama's overall site, lists Muslim objectives that the candidate approves, including establishing " a Muslim American advisory group on U.S. foreign policy; " provid [ing] prayer areas in public places such as malls, airports, universities and government buildings; institut [ing] a law to allow Muslim employees to take time from their work day for prayer; and institut [ing] a law against harassment of Muslim women in public areas."
While we can agree that the final goal seems worthwhile, the others are dubious. Should there only be a Muslim advisory committee for US policy overseas ? For if you are going to have such a group, then there also is cause to have similar advisory groups for Buddhists, Hindus, traditionalist ( mostly Pagan ) religion, as well as Jews and various divisions within Christianity such as Eastern Orthodoxy and Afro-Latin Pentecostalism. Maybe the idea of having a religious advisory group is sound, maybe it is overdue, but to limit it to Islam is completely unjustified.
As for prayer areas in public, this is preposterous on the face of it and constitutes blatant religious favoritism Exactly why should Muslims be given such areas ? On what grounds ? Because their religion demands this ? So what if it does ? This is anything but a Muslim country and Islam is anything but a religion that is compatible with American democracy and our Bill of Rights. Indeed, much of Shariah law is diametrically opposed to freedoms that all American citizens are rightfully proud of and for which the nation has fought wars. Besides, if exceptions are to be made for Muslims, why not make exceptions for Catholics, Jews, Hindus, Baha'is, Mormons, Buddhists, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, and others ?
As for a law that allows Muslims to take time off from work, this is a complete absurdity. To say it again, if you do this for Muslims, then you had better be prepared to do likewise for Buddhists, of which there are about as many in America, for Hindus, another 1 -1/2 million., Wiccans , as many as 500,000 , as well as for other religions. And if you do this for Muslims now, why wasn't this done for Jews in the past ? Not to mention the fact that the issue of time off from work for daily prayers is sometimes linked to a demand for time off to observe Muslim holidays, which generally follow a lunar calendar, with the result that such holidays fall on different dates each year, which is -by modern standards- simply crazy. Certainly it is when contrasting Islam with Christianity or Judaism, faiths in which lunar considerations are minimal and do not effect anyone else, anyway.
Muslims are like spoiled children who always insist on having their way no matter what anyone else thinks. Muslims need to be stood up to, not appeased. Especially since their religion is anti-American in character.
Which I say as a scholar of Comparative Religion and a social scientist who has taught at a variety of colleges in the United States. What no-one can say about the views I may express is that they are uninformed. Indeed, critics of views similar to mine are the ones who usually are incredibly uninformed and simply have no useful base of knowledge on which to base their unwarranted generalizations.
Islam is not a "religion of peace," it never has been, nor is it anything but a form of proto-Fascism. To remind the history impaired, we sacrificed tens of thousands of lives in WW II to defeat Fascism.
As for Obama's site, what has caused concern among people who follow Muslim activities in the United States, are its links to groups that have ties to terrorist organizations, as supporters or as apologists. These include the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) , the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Muslim American Society (MAS).
This assessment of the dangerous character of these groups is not only that of non-Muslim experts like Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer, it also is the opinion of M. Zhudi Jasser, chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. About which a few worlds of explanation are in order.
It is sometimes necessary to distinguish "American Islam" from normative Islam. Not always, of course. Almost any mosque community peopled mostly by first generation immigrants is bound to be Old World in character, with all sorts of incidents reported by police as a result, honor killings, most conspicuously, but including female genital mutilation and forced marriages. And this form of Islam sometimes is perpetuated over time, at least this usually is the case when its theology is Wahhabi ,as when a mosque is given financial assistance from the government of Saudi Arabia, as about 1000 mosques in America are But otherwise. the second and subsequent generations tend to be increasingly Americanized, or perhaps more accurately, more Protestantized, more secularized, and more humane. They more-or-less follow the equivalent of some Sufi path that remains nominally Muslims, maybe even proudly Muslim, but in fact more-and-more un-Muslim. Hence, since foreign Muslims are well aware of this, they are regarded by Muslims in places like Egypt or Iran as semi-heretical. All of which is too complex an issue to explore further here, but it does help to make a point.
American Muslims sometimes can argue, and sound plausible, that Muslims really are "just like Methodists" even if they have some peculiar customs. And "since they are just like average Christians" they deserve the same status, plus, "of course," special considerations for their unique form of worship.
This also says that some Muslims in America, like Jasser, perceive self-interest in acting as monitors for orthodox Muslim groups and mosques because they know that "regular Muslims" with their jihadist values and narrow minded outlook, could cause trouble for themselves. As if such distinctions mean much to Obama, who has clearly aligned himself with the normative form of Islam.
As for MAS, ISNA, and ICNA ( as well as groups like CAIR, with whom Obama has separate relations ) , each seems to have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, which , while it has been"tamed" in Egypt, is the foundational terrorist organization to which all other terrorist groups look for inspiration.
Moreover, as the CNSNews ( Cybercast News Service ) article points out, these pro-Obama groups are active in various entirely legal but very questionable activities. Their agendas are what has been responsible for such oddities as Muslim cab drivers refusing to convey passengers from transporting alcohol, since alcohol is prohibited by the Qur'an, and lobbying, as when MAS sought to persuade Congress to cease shipping arms to Israel.
Obama's site also crosses the line into providing a platform for Muslim proselytization. All one needs to do to obtain proof of this, said the report, is to go to the Muslims for Obama page, click the audio Qur'an translation ( itself overtly religious ), and find " The Sounds of Islam."
"At this site," as the article says, " users can listen to numerous lectures regarding Islam, including those from people who have expressed radical views in the past."
" One of the more controversial lecturers on the site is the Islamic preacher Yusuf Al Qaradawi, who has advocated suicide bombings....."
" The BBC quoted him as saying, "The worst ... of the enemies of Islam are those ... whom he ... made monkeys and pigs [ this is a direct quote from the Qur;'an ] , the aggressive Jews and oppressive Zionists and those that follow them: the callers of the trinity and the cross worshippers ... those influenced by the rottenness of their ideas, and the poison of their cultures the followers of secularism ...How can we talk sweetly when the Hindus and the idol worshippers indulge in their overwhelming hatred against our brothers."
For myself, while -to borrow someone else's slogan- I don't hate Muslims, I hate Islam, and if you ask me
, the hated that Qaradawi complains about is deserved 100 times over.But access the article and see for yourself. The points made in the preceding comments are only a rough sketch of what it reveals about Obama and his Muslim supporters.
( 3 ) Finally there is the matter of Louis Farrakhan. It is quite true that Obama repudiated Farrakhan's endorsement of his candidacy several weeks ago, but what Obama has never done is to repudiate his pastor's endorsement of Farrakhan in the Trinity church magazine's award of the equivalent of "man of the year" to the leader of the racist Nation of Islam.
What Obama did say , as reported in the Washington Post and repeated in the Boston Globe and many other newspapers on January 15 , was the following :
"I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan I assume that Trumpet Magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree."
This disclaimer leaves some important questions unanswered. even if the uninformed and religiously illiterate press doesn't "get it."
Rev Wright made the decision, not anyone else. The magazine is not some sort of abstraction that makes decisions Obama , nonetheless, refused to deal with this fact and evaded it.
Why did Obama refer to Louis Farrakhan by an honorific title, "minister" ? Does he believe that Farrakhan deserves to be equated with legitimate ministers ? His choice of terminology can well be taken as code language that would be understood, sotto voce, by many people in the Black community as a signal that he is saying what he needs to say but that he still respects Farrakhan.
"Not a decision with which I agree" is carefully worded to leave open a range of' interpretations and many South Siders, and others, would have little difficulty in understanding a sub-text. For them the translation might be something like- " The timing was very ill-advised." "Although the award was deserved it should not have been given because of predictable negative public reaction." "Despite my admiration for Minister Farrakhan, we don't need to stir up a hornets nest."
To grant benefit of the doubt, perhaps it can be said that further repudiation was implied in Obama's March 17 speech. But in point of fact, this matter remains unresolved, it has been a shadow over Obama;s campaign ( and his reputation ) ever since November of 2007, and the news media has not seen fit to deal with the matter.
In so many words, just as Obama assured Rev Wright that he would need to distance himself from him, the Senator's repudiation of Farrakhan left intact his previously favorable views of the Nation of Islam fuhrer.
Maybe such a conclusion is excessive, this is quite possible. And, after all, Obama was explicit in his condemnations of anti-Semitism. But the real reason why he has not severed all ties may have far less to do with Obama's public values and far more to do with political expediency. Farrakhan represents tens of thousands of votes in Chicago, and in other places like Pittsburgh. -where, according to MSNBC for March 22, there has been an on-going surge in conversions to Islam among African-Americans that began immediately AFTER the events of 9 / 11.
That is, Rev Wright's vehement anti-American diatribes are representative of a significant percentage of Black population., Obama is very much aware of this, and panders to such unwholesome malcontents
In other words, part of what is going on in American politics in 2008, even if the press does not see it, is a referendum on Black culture.So far, because it is not explicit, and because few White people know the first thing about it except incidentally, there hasn't been much of a "vote." But there could be, at any time, and should be, because part of that culture is diseased. This is not meant to say that most of it is, or even a plurality, but the numbers are significant. They include everyone who cheers for Rev Wright , who finds nothing objectionable in his tirades, and who are pro-Muslim or Muslim per se,
The large concern for Obama, who is smart enough to realize exactly this, is that any such out-in-the-open referendum would probably be disastrous for his candidacy. Not only would he need to defend Wright, he would need to defend Gangsta Rap, sub-cultures of crime and drug abuse, Black nationalism as such, a set of values that has resulted in millions of fatherless families, various gambling "rackets," a sub-optimal form of English known as Ebonics, widespread denial of the worth of formal education, and still other dysfunctional behaviors and phenomena. Outside of Bill Cosby and sometimes a few brave souls like Juan Williams and John Mc Whorter, no-one who is African-American wants to discuss any such thing.
What political doubletalk that both criticizes and approves of Farrakhan and various forms of Islam means is that, while Obama can appeal to non-Blacks, saying that he is opposed to anti-Semitism, he can also still appeal to African- Americans who accept Farrakhan's view that Jews are Satanic in character, that BET ( the Black Entertainment Network ) is controlled by Jews, and that Jews run Hollywood and the popular music industry. While he is at it, Farrakhan also promotes the view that Mao Tse Tung , now known as a psychopathic criminal who was responsible for up to 30 million deaths in his era, "transformed" his country all for the best. Farrakhan also advocates the view that Fidel Castro, the until-recently Communist dictator of Cuba, where not even one free election was held since 1959, is someone to whom all Black people should look up to and be proud of. Which, at least in my humble opinion, is complete crap.
For this information I again thank my informant friend in Texas, who supplied me with a compilation of such facts.
-------------------------------------Rev. Wright recidivus
But even if Obama could somehow wiggle his way out of his self made problems, which seems unlikely, this still leaves us with a wild card , Jeremiah Wright. and whatever he chooses to say in the weeks and months ahead. This could be almost anything, the man simply can't be trusted not to screw things up more than he already has.
He happens to be a world famous celebrity now. True, he is widely reviled. To cite Rasmussen's polling data, and this seems to be quite accurate, only 8 % of the US population has a favorable opinion of him. Even a sizable number of black people are dismayed, in other words. Although there is a substantial bloc of people who are in a sort of "mixed " category, who take the view that he has positives as well as horrible negatives, some 58 % regard him entirely unfavorably.But he is undeniably famous. Therefore...........
As a writer said in a forum at ABS Politics website, " I am sure that Rev. Wright would LOVE to share his thoughtful opinions with us; he is probably dying to give an interview."
On Oprah's show ? On 60 minutes ? On 20 / 20 ? On Hannity and Colmes ( where he has been a guest previously, to his discredit as a dissembler ) ? The possibilities are almost endless, and must be taken to include the foreign news media, including that of Dar al-Islam.
The opportunities for Wright to "misspeak" would be enormous. Even one major blunder and Obama could face another " time of troubles " like mid-March.
We must remember that most of the shows that might invite Rev Wright as a guest, perhaps all of them, have question and answer formats. The number of questions that Uncle Jeremiah might be asked are almost limitless, and many would surely be very embarrassing.
To borrow from ABS, concerning Obama's March 17 oration, he might be asked, "how did you like the speech, Rev ? "
What if a pastor in a White church said that AIDS was invented by a corrupt regime in Africa, where all reliable evidence says the virus originated, in an effort to kill off homosexuals ? Your opinion that the US Government created AIDS to kill African-Americans is, so far, an empty assertion. based on no evidence at all except specious inference from historic medical experiments of long ago that have never been repeated and which are disowned by everyone that matters. How do you defend your outlandish claims ?
What do you say to German-Americans from Texas who come from families that opposed slavery in the years of the Civil War, and who were killed in large numbers for opposing the Confederacy , who never owned slaves and took a public stand against this evil ? Their descendants are very much alive today, in the tens of thousands, and would like to know why they are being blamed for something they did not do, or that their grandparents, etc , did not do.
What do you say about African-Americans like Thomas Sowell who have criticized you as anti-American, saying that your anti-American values have rubbed off on Michelle Obama, who has said that she had never been proud of her country for her entire adult life until her husband began to win important primary elections ?
How do you justify saying, or implying, that you were raised in poverty under trying circumstances when, as Instapundit's research demonstrates, you were part of a well-off upper middle-class family ?
A question suggested by a correspondent at Free Republic would also be good to hear a reply to ."Can you think of anything that David Duke ever said that equals your " God damn America " sermon ? "
What is your reaction to a website that posts your "greatest hits" ? These hits consist of close characterizations ( or direct quotes ) of some of your sermon material and include-- "Hillary ain't no nigger" Bill Clinton treats us the same way he treated Monica "Racism is how this country was founded" and "we're the same as Al Qaeda"
Do you stick by your previous statements that Louis Farrakhan is an example of the highest "integrity" ? Will Farrakhan actually be " remembered as one of the 20th and 21st century giants of the African-American religious experience." ? Does Farrakhan, as you have said, "epitomize greatness" ? Does he really deserve the " Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award," ? Are white people, as Farrakhan has said, "blue-eyed devils" ? Are Jews "bloodsuckers" ?
Thanks to Hillbuzz for this insight.
Wright could also be asked all sorts of point blank questions about various of his bizarre theories, some of which, not incidentally, are overtly racist.
Does he really believe that Natalie Halloway, the 18 year old young woman murdered on a vacation in Aruba in 2005 , deserved what she got ? Does he really believe, as a supposed minister of the Gospel, that it was reasonable that she should have been raped and killed ?
The full story of Rev Wright's views on the Natalie Halloway story are discussed in a report made available at a site called "ELECTION 2008," under the heading,
Obama's pastor disses Natalee Holloway 'White girl goes off and gives it up' in Aruba, preacher pal says
The article is dated January 27, 2008, and, among other things, points out that the "good reverend" described Halloway's final hours of life, when she was raped, as "giving it up, " which is street jargon for nothing all that exceptional, and by implication, getting what she deserved .
Wright made the point that black young women get raped in Darfur on an on-going basis yet these stories are seldom reported. Which is true enough,. but hardly the only way to think about news coverage. After all, as critics of Wright have observed, literally hundreds of young women are raped and / or killed every day yet we rarely hear about any of their cases, and thus is true for the majority, in America, who are white girls. For that matter, how many rape / murder cases does a Black publication such as the Chicago Defender publicize ? Moreover, there are at least a few examples of young Black women who have received media attention, such as a story featured on "America's Most Wanted," about an African-American girl from South Carolina who was brutally murdered.
In other words, if Rev Wright, as Obama has insisted, makes him "proud," there would seem to be a disconnect concerning everyone else's definition of that word.
Obama can hardly deny having heaped " effusive praise" upon Rev Wright Some is well documented, such as a video segment available on Little Green Footballs, an investigative journalism site, which shows Obama,speaking at Hampton University on June 5, 2007, praising Wright in very glowing terms, suggesting that the two of them were close friends and confidants.
The argument can be made, and I personally don't have any doubts that it is true, that Rev Wright, over the years, did much that was objectively good in his tenure as pastor at Trinity church. Indeed, one of his standard operating procedures strikes me as far sighted and worth emulating in many other groups or organizations. When someone who had talent came to him with an idea for a program , or some kind of "outreach effort," Wright usually agreed and set up a special ministry to expedite the idea. I have forgotten the exact number, but think that about 300 such ministries were established at the church.
No wonder that under his leadership the congregation grew from a hundred or so to 8,500. Although I cannot report on the substance of all of these ministries, I do know about some of them, and there certainly was a good deal of charitable work at Trinity, and community help programs. All such things merit plaudits.
But , perhaps unfairly, there really is a strong "Mussolini" counter-argument, that cannot be shrugged off as unimportant. This is in reference to the legend that under Fascism in Italy, where, in the past, there had been much inefficiency, under Mussolini "the trains ran on time." Unstated is the presumed fact that the hospitals were better, jobs more plentiful, and crime rates lower.
All of that was for the good -objectively. But this is hardly the entire story since the bad that the Fascists did in Italy was ruinous. Fascism has a despicable reputation because, on balance, the evil that it was responsible for outweighed the good it brought about.
Without putting Trinity in the same category as Fascist Italy in the 1930s, the same principle nonetheless applies. Every viable group does some good or it would not exist. But all it takes to arrive at the view that a group is "bad" is for it to engage in some forms of wickedness. 100 % evil is not a requirement, as little as 10 % might be more than sufficient, and Wright clearly qualifies with room to spare.
About which the core philosophy of Trinity can be strongly criticized. This has been done in a January 15, 2008, article in Investor's Business Daily, under the heading, "Obama's Church." To make this short and pointed, " Obama's "unashamedly black" church preaches the politics of black nationalism. And its dashiki-wearing preacher.... is militantly Afrocentric " And no-one sees anything wrong with this ?
But let us look closely at one horrific example of the bad that Rev Wright must take full responsibility for. This ought to end debate about the extent of evil which Wright has done in the past, and indicate that he may well still be capable of. additional extreme evil.
Rev . Wright and Subversion
One issue that deserves separate treatment concerns Wright's use of his church bulleting to provide propaganda services to Hamas, a terrorist organization so branded by the State Department and recognized as such by numerous foreign governments.
And this is something else that Obama cannot pretend ignorance of.
The full story appears in the March 20 "edition". of Free Republic The site posts a photocopy facsimile of the article in question in the "Pastor's Page" of the bulletin, actually two full pages, and it is damning. It appeared on July 22, 2007.
What Wright did was to reprint an essay by Mousa Mohammad Abu Marzook, the " Deputy Chief" of the political arm of Hamas Marzook founded the Islamic Association for Palestine and also the faux charity known as "The Holy Land Foundation," which, as everyone who has been paying attention knows full well, was shut down by the US Government in 2002 because it was using the cover of charitable work as a means to send millions of dollars to Hamas to conduct terror campaigns against Israel and Israeli civilians.
There is a lot more, including the fact that Marzook was extradited to Jordan in 1997 by our government , and from there he went to Syria to help direct the political office of Hamas He had escaped , unwittingly , because of someone's poor judgement in the Department of Justice. For in July of 2007, which a presumably astute Barack Obama was very much aware of, the Holy Land foundation trial in Dallas began and , in the process, provided a list of unindicted co-conspirators. Prominent among the names was Abu Marzook
Also prominent was an organization, CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, headed by Ibrahim Cooper, a sometimes guest on various TV news shows CAIR is a front for other Muslim terrorist groups although sometimes also doing what it ostensibly does 100 % of the time as an above-board public relations organization But terror expert Steve Emerson, formerly an investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, later an investigative journalist for various major news publications, is very clear that CAIR is itself involved in Muslim terror support. But this is an aside. The focus of attention now is Jeremiah Wright.
To be sure, the legal case ended with a mistrial after the jury deadlocked despite 19 days of deliberations. About which there is a whole other story since some jurors were turned off by the way the government ( mis- ) handled the case, and some jurors complained about one of their number who tried to intimidate them to arrive at a verdict of acquittal , but one fact is as clear as anything gets, namely that Marzook, in part through the Holy Land Foundation, did his part in obtaining finances for Hamas, and Hamas, in turn, committed acts of terror with some of said monies.
In other words, while the trial was in progress, Rev Wright gave a platform to Hamas intended to sway church members -such as Barack Obama- to view Hamas favorably.
Obama cannot possibly be dismissive of this even if, so far, he has operated under the pretext -the "cover" supplied by his March 17 "big speech" - that he was ignorant of . everything seriously questionable on the part of Jeremiah Wright.
Nor can Obama get away with a generalized denial the minute the news media, or even some part of the media, picks up on this information. This may take a small earthquake, of course, since pro-Obama bias is so palpable that only an idiot would not see it for what it is., but sooner or later this, too, will become part of the political discussion for 2008.
In partial defense of the media, one can sympathize with people who very much want to see the very best of America front and center this election. And Obama's speech in mid March was a masterpiece of political oratory. It also was idea-filled, if not always for the best, sometimes, and in profound ways. Indeed, it was the subject of a reply speech by Newt Gingrich on March 27 viewed by many of C-Span's 20 million regulars.
Newt was generous in his agreements with major elements in the ,speech and sought to build upon them for constructive dialogue about race relations in America, about which I could not, myself, possibly agree moire. No-one is suggesting that Obama has nothing worthwhile to say. The point is that , in the process, he is trying to sell us all a bill of goods. He has another agenda besides " change " and his version of personality politics, and that agenda is extremely questionable and even potentially dangerous.
This is hardly all there is to be said about the March 17 speech., at any rate. Charles Krauthammer, speaking on Fox television, made the point that the oration was essentially dishonest, a "performance." In all the hoopla over how "well" Obama handled the crisis, what was lost was seeing the obvious. At no time in the 37 minutes of the speech did Obama admit any responsibility for ANYTHING.
There was zero self-criticism. Everyone else was to blame, but not Barack. Even his grandmother was to blame. Rev Wright was to blame -even if in a sleight of hand worthy of a magician, he also deserves praises, since, after all, his excesses are "understandable" as resulting from the "drama and tragedy of the black experience in America. " In other words, America is also to blame.
But not Obama, the sinless messiah.
To go beyond Krauthammer, Obama also side-stepped something that merits more discussion than it will receive here. Don't parishioners have responsibility to say something to a pastor when he goes off the deep end or makes harmful mistakes ? Doesn't a communicant have a responsibility to speak up when a clergyman misleads his congregation , or worse, when he promotes something as immoral as racism ?
Obama can hardly contend -as others may argue plausibly- that he was just one member of the congregation and his opinions or corrections would probably be ignored.
To get to the point, Obama has said that he has very different values than many of the values of Rev Wright. He also said, in his March 17 speech, that on any number of occasions he heard his pastor say things that were "controversial" and that he seriously disagreed with. Which is to say that this can be taken as admission that at least some of the substance of the material millions of Americans heard from tapes aired on TV in March was familiar to the Senator. Maybe not the exact same things, but things of similar character. Yet he said nothing to try and change Wright's perverse views ? And Obama has never said that he did .
This is incomprehensible -unless you take the view that Christian faith for Obama is a convenience, and little or nothing more than a convenience. It is a good temporary identity to have, it has meaning, but not necessarily sufficient meaning, a view that would be acceptable in the United Church of Christ denomination to which Trinity belongs. That is, and contrary to what all sorts of religion-illiterate new people nay believe, Trinity is not remotely Baptist in character, it is akin to non-theistic Unitarianism.
This observation may also account for a supposedly sarcastic rejoinder Obama made in Iowa in January when someone confronted him with the allegation that he is Muslim. " I'll let you know" or "I'll let you know when that happens," replied Obama.
To think about it, that was a peculiar thing to say. For if you interpret it at face value what it said was that at some date in the future Obama would convert to Islam and then let everyone know about it.
This response was taken as non-serious by all the news media. And possibly, or probably, it should have been so taken. But it also may have been a Freudian slip, inadvertently speaking a truth that otherwise would never have been said.
All of which needs to be understood in order to fathom the fact that Obama does take Islam seriously, is supportive of Muslim causes, and somehow respects the sick religion which is Islam.
This is the best context that occurs to me that explains the many connections to Muslim religion which exist all over the place in the saga of Barack ( Hussein ) Obama..
And please don't even try to tell me that someone with a Muslim middle name does not think about it, wonder about it, and eventually identify with it. For that matter his first name is Muslim also, and comes from the Qur'an.
Now we can conclude the discussion about Abu Marzook, the Hamas terrorist promoted by Rev Jeremiah Wright.
For other commentary about the Marzook article, see the website CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America., for July 12, 2007.
How do you evade this evidence ? How does Obama ? The answer for Obama is that the news media has not seen fit to ask -as far as I know- even one question about something he certainly had to have seen in his church's bulletin, put there by his friend and pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
To be sure, guilt by association argument has limits. But in the case of Barack Obama, all concerned are well advised to make every association that seems likely.
Guilt by association usually isn't. valid, but usually isn't always, and it takes no genius to see that there is compelling reason to be highly suspicious of Obama's excuses to the effect that he cannot be held responsible for the sins of his pastor.
There is a world of difference between something like criticisms of John McCain for his acceptance of endorsements from some white preachers noted for excesses , preachers whom the Arizona Senator hardly knows at all, and a pastor with whom Obama, by his own admission, has confided in for two decades, and who he considers a close, genuine friend.
Besides, and while I have any number of criticisms to make of McCain and do not excuse his acceptance of support from fanatics of any description, that is another issue. It is about McCain. The operative logic to invoke here is "two wrings don't make a right." Nor do two wrongs make Wright, right.
But can we expect anything remotely like objective discussion from Obama enthusiasts this year ? This seems to be impossible. considering the fact that what the Obama " cause" is all about is something very much like a religion., which has been remarked upon by so many observers that it should be totally unnecessary to document it. This means that multitudes see him as a sort of political savior. This being the case, all hard criticism is interpreted as a personal attack against the individual Obama voter, -or Obama believer- an attack on one's faith that must be responded to with whatever is handy, no matter how irrelevant, no matter if counter argument is bogus, and no matter if all that one does is to try and shift blame, evade the issue, and rationalize away everything that matters.
Obama-mania and its discontents
In an e-mail written for a political discussion group I have belonged to for the past several years, I put things this way :
"But I love my girlfriend, she makes me feel good, and I don't care if she has faults."
"That is what I hear from Obama's defenders, not anything remotely objective. That is what all the evasions and blame shifting amounts to."
"But I love him," now to discuss Obama per se, is not a good defense of any of the serious problems which have been described here in some detail.
Because this is all about choosing the President of the United States, the most important elected office in the world, we need to know each and every objective weakness of any candidate. This is true even when someone's supporters, as is the case for Barack Obama, worship him as if, to use Chris Matthews as a case in point, he was the return of Christ. This is all rather sickening, or, to cite my Texas friend one last time , this is all very creepy.
Following pied pipers has a long tradition in politics, of course, and the phenomenon is not limited to the United States. But this IS what is happening, there can be no mistake about it. Why ?
There are several reasons. The most easy to identify is the upwelling of support from the African-American population, in some areas as high as 90 %. At long last, one of their own has a serious chance to become president. The image that Obama has cultivated and worked hard to promote, has had its effect, He looks good, he speaks convincingly, and obviously is smart and can hold his own in debates and in crises. This being the case, all of his flaws are overlooked and his strengths valorized out of proportion to their real worth.
But Obama would have no chance at all except for continued enthusiasm from White voters. What do white people see in him ? That is, what do white people who tend to be upscale, well to do, and well educated, see in him ? For most lower income white people vote for Hillary -in the Democratic primaries anyway..
An article by a Leftist African-American seems to explain it best. Max Blunt, on the site, Radical Left, put it this way in an article dated March 19- "Obama gives Whites what they want, the illusion of racial harmony." Hence the real meaning of Obama's March 17 speech was an answer to a pressing question, "how to keep white people happy ? " This was what it was all about, said Blunt, not anything, or not much, of what the pundit class said was true.
Lost to the punditocracy is the fact that what Wright did was to expose a fault line in the black community, something that has been a fact of life for African-Americans since at least the era of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B.DuBois, a division between accommodationists and militants. The militants have always made their case by drawing upon resentments and anger at real and perceived injustices. Under Martin Luther King these two wings of Black politics were temporarily fused, which is what contemporary whites want to see again. After all, MLK has been canonized as a secular saint.
But Rev Wright is almost the opposite of King. -even as Obama presents himself as the successor to Martin. This dissonance had to be overcome on March 17 or Obama's candidacy could easily have gone into the tank .Blunt was upset because in his mind anger is the proper response of African-Americans and should be maximized for maximum leverage and impact. As it is, after March 17, Obama must walk a tightrope and seek to convince White voters that he is " King II " and that he is not angry even though , deep inside, he really is. This explains Blunt's Left-wing opposition to Obama, a rarity these days when 70 % or more of the Progressive vote is locked up for the Senator from Illinois.
To people like Blunt, Obama's campaign is a charade, it is based on false pretenses.
While I can only speculate, it would seem as if Blunt might say that the most important truth that Obama said in this entire election marathon was a comment he inadvertently made in New Hampshire in the first week of January. At the time, as ABC News reported on the 8th, it looked as if Barack would win the Granite State by double digits. A tide apparently was rolling and sweeping all before it. Hillary seemed to be finished.
It was at this moment of anticipatory triumphalism that Obama blurted out, " We are cheerful at the prospect of taking over."
Shortened to "we're taking over," the remark had to have reverberated because not only did Hillary win womens' votes through a show of emotion, Obama's white male support weakened as well. "Taking over" is not what European-Americans want to hear from anybody.
But for Blunt, if I read him correctly, this is precisely what ought to happen, even if he might add "in partnership with progressive Whites.and others."
Obama did try to "correct" himself that Winter day in New Hampshire, by saying that "the American people are taking over," but many of his listeners, including listeners via television, may well have gotten his original words and taken them to be what he really had meant , all along.
Obama is not Martin Luther King. And Jeremiah Wright is definitely not MLK, he is utterly different even if he has a way with words that is powerful and -for good or evil- approximately as memorable. But what would be good to know is how Obama's supporters can try to compare their ( former ) pastor with King and do so with a straight face.
Granted that Wright may have had some rough experiences growing up in Philadelphia. at a time when Civil Rights for Black people was still being fought for, . with casualties to report not quite every day. Even if Wright had the good fortune to live in a middle class household this did not make him any less black, and along with that, considering the time, had to have come the need to confront overt bigotry over and over and again.
All of this assumed, what can still be asked is whether Wright, in a northern city, had it worse than Martin Luther King. ? I really don't think so, and probably no-one would say any such thing. Even granting Max Blunt's contention -which I do not think is accurate, or is only partly accurate at best - that King was an angry man himself, exactly how many angry sermons along the lines of Wright's did King preach in his life ?
I have read the first three thick volumes of MLK's complete writings, including a great many sermons, and absolutely nothing in all in these papers comes close to the kind of harangues Wright is now world famous for. At least to speak of what I know, there is not even one King sermon that is 1 % as hate filled as Wright's well known diatribes as shown on TV in mid March.
In so many words, King had it a LOT worse than Wright ever did. Yet King's message was always one of love and compassion and non-violence. .He certainly was unhappy with injustice, and this is to speak of the injustices of the 1950s, but he maintained a spirit that is simply alien to that of Jeremiah Wright, or to Wright in moments of high dudgeon. King never seemed to have such moments. To me the difference not only is the influence on Wright of James Cone and Farrakhan and Islam and black separatism, but very dissimilar and far superior influences on MLK.
Obama can't tell the difference ?
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April 02, 2008
What Will Rev. Wright Say Next?
The following article is printed exactly as I received it yesterday evening, via email from the author, Billy Rojas. Leave your comments at the bottom:
What will Rev, Wright say next ?
by Billy Rojas
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This blog is an exercise in the author's First Amendment Rights as pertaining to Free Speech with all the protections as afforded & granted by the Constitution of the United States of America. The blog owner is not responsible for content of sites linking to this blog or sites that this blog links to. Opinions quoted on this blog or left as comments on this blog, do not necessarily represent the opinions of the blog owner. Opinions included in articles written by anyone other than the blog owner, do not necessarily represent the opinions of the blog owner. If you are offended by anything written, quoted, excerpted, referenced, linked to ... on this blog: Then go somewhere else.
Andrew Patner: You are very welcome. I have forwarded your comment to Mr. Rojas. Keep in touch.
Posted by: Debbie | April 06, 2008 at 03:52 PM
Thank you for mentioning my article, Mr. Rojas, and for posting the reference, Ms. Hamilton.
Please note that Abner Mikva returned to Hyde Park on the South Side if Chicago as a resident in the 1990s and has remained there since. He is a director of the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic at The University of Chicago Law School and continues to be an active supporter of Barack Obama's political career.
Posted by: Andrew Patner | April 06, 2008 at 12:48 PM
The real question is what would Dr. King think? I think that its pretty obvious.
Posted by: Stormwarning | April 04, 2008 at 07:54 PM
Where is the US Media that ask questions
Why Is The Media Silent Like Obama when it comes to teaching our children?
Are thy afraid to question who god or Rev. Wright Jr.?
Do You think rev. wrights demo video of Bill Clinton riding dirty (to illistrate him humping the black race) and video taped it in front of children, we know it was video taped in a church?.
Was it handed out to hundreds that day in church only to be e-mailed on to there friends and family members in Mississippi just be for there vote?
I gess my question is did Rev. Wright Jack up the black vote to over 90% in
Mississippi???? and god knows where else with hate speech as Barack remained silent only to gain ground in black voter areas????
What if the media did Not question Jim Joans movement in the 70s just becuse he to was a man of god and he was not to be questioned by man him self, so saith the god loving people of this world. What would of happend to Jim Joans fowlers if man would
have questioned Jim would thy the 800+ dead still be hear?.
For not to question the Rev. Wright is to for get the massacre at Jonestown.
We as man did not question Jim Joans at the time he needed questioning and when
man tried to question a man of god people rose up and siad no no no he is
a man of god and so he was able to kill over 800 people with his sick movement.
So Saith the Lord Question not Rev. Wright for he is a man of God so saith
the Party so saith the libral media.What is this movement of REV. Wright and could it get out of control? Is it a danger to man this teaching of hate in a church little children should never hear this languge or see a man of god humpping as hes saying riding dirty riding dirty as he humps in front of little children to demo a man humping the black race WHERE IS THE MEDIA QUESTIONS ON HUMPING IN CHURCH?
http://www.wikio.com/user/anthonytampafl
Posted by: anthonytampafl wikio | April 04, 2008 at 05:34 PM
Wright's rhetoric concerns me, if for no other reason than other people seem to buy his b.s.
Posted by: Jack | April 02, 2008 at 07:57 PM
Wright, has made so many anti American statements that warrant scrutiny, the ones that stuck in my mind include that of accusing the United States of spreading AIDS, and of the “chickens coming home to roost” in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because of American actions during the Second World War. Ok, so Obama has given his reasons for sticking with Wright but we ought to be asking, why, over the past two decades did he not raise objections? Was he comfortable just hanging around listening to “God damn America!” speak….
Posted by: Otto - American Interests | April 02, 2008 at 04:58 PM
hes a racist anti semite so frankly I dont give a ________ what he says Deb!:)
Posted by: Angel | April 02, 2008 at 03:47 PM
very long, but definitely worth reading.
Posted by: michael | April 02, 2008 at 03:29 PM
And now there is a loose cannon on the deck in the person of Jeremiah Wright.
Just one of the many great quotes in this article. I like 'what Wright hath wrought' too. Interesting and well-written article. I found out some stuff that I didn't know, such as the fact that Wright had been a Marine, wow. I really think he's kind of disturbed and Obama must be secretly ruing the day he came across his path, especially if he ends up costing him his dream (though with the media being silent and Obamania the way it is, this isn't likely).
Posted by: Aurora | April 02, 2008 at 02:55 PM