That’s where the concept of guilt by association comes into play. 20 years of attending Wright’s church. He quoted him in his book and used him as an advisor in his campaign.
I’m well over 20 and my own mother doesn’t know everything about me. I don’t know everything about her, either.
I’ll grant you that it’s not impossible or even improbable that Wright’s said similar things in that time period. I also think it is just as probable that he hasn’t, and the combination of impending retirement and 9/11 caused his tongue to loosen in a way it never would have in the past.
Obama has yet to prove himself a liar. There is no evidence that he’s lying now, only your so-called common sense. When he can be proven a liar, on this or another matter, I may start to question his credibility. Until then, I have no reason to.
In 20 years (and more) on the pulpit the Obama haters have managed to dredge up what…a handful of instances of Rev. Wright going off the deep end?
And you still have yet to explain how this makes Obama a “bad” person or candidate. Show where, in his entire life, Obama has supported, in action or in speech, the notions Wright has espoused.
Is it possible Wright was not this way 20 years ago?
Is it possible, that despite some odd notions, Wright was also a good man who helped Obama and many others define their spirituality?
Is it possible, that despite odd notions, Wright was otherwise a valued member of his community and helped that community in any number of ways?
Is it possible that someone can have a valued friend despite that friend holding to some opinions with which you do not agree?
Is it unusual to you that when you start getting painted with someone else’s opinions (opinions distinctly contrary to your own) that you’d seek to clear yourself of that? And if that same person persisted, despite anything you have said, to continue to use you as their vehicle to the limelight to spout their message that you’d be more forceful in your attempts to separate yourself from that person?
I find the Clintonistas here far and away more strident and willing to contort the truth here than any True Believer. This is the SDMB and generally intellectual honesty is the local currency. The Clintonistas seem bankrupt in this regard. While I have no particular love for HRC I am positive I would be making the same case on her behalf if the tables were reversed.
If Obama had said that and then turned on Wright because of bad poll numbers or something, it would certainly make Obama look bad. But in this case he’s pretty clearly responding to Wright’s own comments. It was Wright himself who forced this confrontation. I’m guessing the American public will understand that. I’m not sure this will win over all those who might oppose Obama purely for the connection to Wright, but I wouldn’t expect a big backlash for not continuing to stand by Wright.
This kind of stuff hurts my brain. Look, you have a relationship with your mother regardless of what your views are on God, baseball, race, politics, whatever. You may never discuss those things with her and still have a relationship, because the foundational relationship is one of mother and son(?).
Obama had a relationship with Wright initially out of convenience. Fine. He moved to the area and was looking for a new church, and Wright’s was fine. (We’ll even leave aside for now the calculation Obama made to choose Wright’s church because of the sway Wright had with the black community and that was a way for a Hawaii-raised outsider to gain acceptance in Chicago). So, he has a new church and a new pastor. Great. But from that point on Obama became more and more enamored with Wright. Why would that be? Based on discussions with him, right? So he was won over to Wright’s bosom by Wright’s words and beliefs. To the point that he asked him to marry him and his wife and baptize his two daughters. Now, that’s not really necessarily too big a deal—somebody has to marry them and somebody has to baptize the kids. But the problem comes from what went beyond that. He became a mentor/spiritual guide to Obama. Obama looked to him for advise. Wright persuaded Obama to more fully embrace faith. and Obama admired the man enough to dedicate a book to him.
The bottom line is that Obama made this relationship happened. That is different than a familial relationship where things that go to what one believes may not even be discussed, never mind agreed upon. It is also different than a relationship one might have with someone you play on a basketball team with or someone who is your accountant. In thiose instances basketball and accounting are the foundations of the realtionships—the reasons the relationships even exist. With Obama and Wright, Obama embraced Wright for his views on religion, humanity, the role of God, and the roll of man in the great scheme of things. They talked about right and wrong, and the obligations each of us might have to the other. They no doubt talked about society, and the plight of the inner cities and the black community Wright served. These discussions were the foundation for their relationship, These talks are what led Obama to look to Wright as a mentor and spiritual advisor. If this was a bad decision, the fault for it lies with Obama. Either the man showed amazingly poor judgement, shares those beliefs himself, or he is an innocent victim of a pastor that hid his extreme views from Obama for all those years (just praying Obama didn’t see one of the DVDs he sells).
No, sorry. To believe the last option asks to much. I don’t want to think Obama is a racist, but Wright’s spew combined with the spew coming out of his wife’s mouth, makes it more than possible. Regardless, though, I think he is full of shit with this whole Wright fiasco. He actually out-Clintons Clinton (Bill). And that’s saying something!
Yeah, but he’s just a politician, what do you expect? They all do it, right? Right, they do. But the reason this relatively inexperienced man was offering for us to vote for him was that he was different. A breath of fresh air. Change incarnate. At the very least, that fairy tale can be laid to rest now.
And he has no one to blame for himself. He made a deal with the devil 20 years ago and thought he might be forgiven payment. The gamble made sense. I might have made the same decisions. But I wouldn’t be surprised when those decisions started working against me.
Obama has shown himself to be human. Fallible. and worse, a politician. And when your campaign is built on you being a demigod, that’s a problem. He’s done. And if he manages to still win the nomination, he will get trounced.
I’m not going to argue against the rest of your post, mainly because I don’t have the wherewithal, not that I agree with it. This, however, is funny. Wright’s been selling DVDs for 20 years? The only one I’ve found mention of is the one containing the Controversial Statements.
He has not. You and the others who don’t want to see him in office have called him a ‘demigod’, more than human, infallible, etc. etc. Those of us who support him do so precisely because he is treating us as one human to another, not a two-faced exploitative politician.
You’ve set up a textbook strawman. Have fun dancing on it.
Please show where Obama has run as a demigod.
I’m getting very, very irritated with this suggestion that everyone who wants to vote for Obama *worships *him. You’re painting with a broad brush, and wondering why we disagree with you on everything else.
You know what? Every time we see another story like this- Obama’s father, his early schooling, his wife, his lapel pin, his national anthem, his pastor… I become even that much more certain that Obama’s the man who should be our next President. Because every one of those issues that has somehow made Obama unelectable is, instead, laughable. The fact that he’s been consistently attacked on completely non-provable grounds just goes to show that his opponents are scared to face him on the real issues.
Excellent article
This is the way I see what happened. The videos of Wright came up, and Obama gave his “well, he can sort of be a nutty uncle, but we love him anyway” speech.
After that, I think that Obama thought Wright would be savvy enough to accept the unspoken expectation that if Wright kept his nutty uncle side under wraps and avoided stirring things up during the election, assumingthings went well, Wright would to get to be the first black preacher to give the invocation on the Capitol steps on January 20.
Unfortunately, out came the nutty uncle, and boom, Jerry’s under the bus.
I agree. We should be outraged at the amount of useless and irrelevant coverage the media has given this subject and even more outraged at the dishonest weasel talking heads who keep hammering this subject in order attack Obama by association. If we allow this kind of dishonest divisive bullshit to steer our elections then we deserve the government we get. We let it happen in 2004 and have paid a heavy price. Will we do it again? How bad does it have to get before we reject these kind of tactics and do something to change things?
At the top of Obama’s website it quotes him
“I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington …I’m asking you to believe in yours”
After Obama’s speech on racism Jon Stewert commented. {paraphrased}
“In surprising news today a major political candidate spoke to us as if we were adults”
It may be that as the campaign has progressed Obama has realized that we’re not quite ready for that yet. I hope not.
In that speech Obama invited the public to reject the sound bite national inquirer mentality and have real honest problem solving dialogs about important issues and how this country should be run. Instead he’s forced to once again be talking about Wright. I think Wright made a bad call to bring attention to himself at this time but I can understand a man with a 30 year career wanting to defend himself from the dishonest malicious characterizations that were aimed at him for political purposes. I thought his PBS interview was fine. He looked cocky at the press club but so freakin what? Why is this guy still being associated with Obama as if his outrageous statements have anything to do with what Obama thinks. Are we really that fucking stupid? I sincerely hope not.
I understand why Obama did what he did and time will tell how well it works. He tried to disarm the talking heads from assigning him guilt by association. I would have rather seen him repeat his plea more forcefully that we reject this kind of political game playing and it is crucial to the future of this country that we do so.
I would rather have seen him state clearly that Wright does not speak for him and ask the media to please focus on relevant issues and ask us to encourage them to do so. I wish he had reminded us of what is at the top of his web site and if we do sincerely want change we have to start by acting to reject this kind of self serving political dishonesty.
Even if Obama heard the exact words from those clips and decided to stay in the church because he thought there was much more good than bad {which has been described over and over} it shouldn’t reflect on his candidacy. The fact is that republicans have courted the religious right that has spouted things just as hateful for years and years. That was accepted as politically necessary. What hypocrisy! The real tragedy is that so many people are willing to let themselves be swayed by dishonest sound bite manipulation and interpretation. If we want to think Wright is a wing nut that’s fine. Making Obama guilty by association on the flimsy evidence provided is just ridiculous. Allowing ourselves to be diverted from the important issues to focus on this is shameful. Haven’t we learned anything in the past eight years? If we want to be outraged we surely have much bigger fish to fry with issues that have a more serious effect on our daily lives.
The president has to be president to all citizens with widely varying opinions and ideas.
He tried that in perhaps the most eloquent political speech given in decades. Didn’t really matter. The sound bite generation and even many Clintonites here let it zoom right by them and preferred to dwell on out-of-context, inappropriately attributed snippets that had nothing to do with anything.
I am deeply cynical about the ability of most of the American populace to make anything like a rational choice in elections.
Nobody “dredged up” anything. The Reverend Wright and his supporters posted his sermons on the internet for inspiration. This is what they wanted the world to appreciate in all it’s glory. So you can park any notion that it was a closet skeleton. It was front and center for all to see.
Yes, not likely, but yes.
Did David Duke treat his friends well? What difference does that make? The guy’s a horse’s ass.
So we should judge Wright by his physical deeds? Wright is supposed to lead and inspire people. The garbage coming out of his mouth (which Obama is disavowing) is not inspirational, it is harmful.
You’re asking me if a President can have a long running friendship with someone who makes racially insensitive statements? No. That’s why Obama is disavowing him now. It’s not a court of law, it’s the court of public opinion. The stink of a 20-year relationship is tough to wash off.
I’m still waiting for a cite that Wright ever engaged in hate speech.
No you’re not. It’s been posted over and over.
The assertion certainly has been.
So it is unusual for a person to change over the course of 20 years? My admittedly anecdotal experience tells me it is the norm for people to evolve their opinions over the years than remain the same. Further those opinions seem to get more set in stone and often a bit more extreme. My parents were always conservative. As they grew older they got more conservative and more extreme. They tolerated conspiracy theories and bigotry and such much more readily than they ever would have done when they were younger. So too with my grandma, great grandma, aunts, uncles, friend’s parents and so on. While this may not be true of everyone it is hardly unheard of.
It is not about treating friends well. It is about assessing the whole person. I knew some remarkable people who were doting and committed parents, active in their communities, supported numerous charities and just all around great people. They were also unrepentant bigots. While I particularly disliked that about them I was also unable to paint them as overall awful people (oddly their kids did not turn out to be bigots in the least). Should I focus only on their one glaring flaw or account for the whole person and weigh their character in its entirety?
If Wright spent 30+ years supporting his community and helping people and just generally being a do-gooder should not be ignored. So he has offensive ideas, I do not like them either and he is diminished in my eyes by a fair bit. If he was roundly an ass his whole life and has no redeeming qualities feel free to point that out.
Obama repudiated Wright’s rhetoric long ago. Obama haters were having none of it despite the fact that they can point to nothing in Obama’s character or deeds or speeches in his whole life that showed he even remotely shared Wright’s opinions.
Obama is disavowing him now because Wright if anything ramped up his rhetoric using Obama’s coattails as a ride onto center stage. That despite Obama being crystal clear he did not share any of those opinions.
What’s so difficult to believe about it? Do you know how many people I associate with that I think nothing like, nor do I share their values… Just because you associate with someone does not mean you have to share the same exact values.
I think people are reading too much into Obama’s past relationship with his pastor. I don’t belong to any particular parish, but if I did, it would not mean that I completely accept the pastor or share his every thought. This whole situation is completely out of control. Obama is his own person. Bottom line. Can we just let it go now and move on?
It’s a debating technique to win an argument. If you don’t agree with what’s been posted that’s fine. It’s pointless to debate whether it is or is not offensive if it has already been acted on. In the real world Senator Obama is spending a great deal of time distancing himself from Reverend Wright. There’s no point arguing whether you think his remarks are bigoted. It doesn’t matter if you think The Reverend recently became a horse’s ass or that he was always that way and Obama wasn’t aware of it. It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. What matters is what public opinion thinks and Obama is most likely reacting to focus group data.
There aren’t any cites. Wright is from a different generation, and he’s possibly holding on to his past. If he can’t let go of certain beliefs about whites or race or the government, so be it. But there is certainly no hate speech within his statements. He’s justified in his beliefs due to his past experiences. I personally don’t agree with him, and neither doe Obama, as he made clear yesterday. Obama stands for a new beginning; and Wright needs to believe that the black race is worse off than they actually are.
And you know what, I’m starting to think Wright resents Obama’s rise above race issues. Obama is carrying on with an ‘audacity of hope’ to believe he can become the first Black American president. This kind of audacity puts Wright out of business.
I think if Wright continues with his rhetoric he is clearly trying to sabotage Obama. That’s just not good.