Letters to the Editor
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Why, I believe...
in the business, we call that an EPIC BURN.
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Please Glenn,
Glenn: I believe it's critical that we keep that in mind as we discuss him for the next seven months.
Can't we discuss Hagee the horrible, too? Since the US has no problems, we should have time to talk about him as well.
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Yikes.
I'm speechless.
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Wright Seems to Be Right About Some Important Things
The comments that I've heard from Wright (and I'm sure there are other sound-bites I've missed) seem to me to be bang on about the corruption of the leadership in this country. So, I don't think he ought to be discounted so handily. Obviously, it's ridiculous to condemn Obama when no one's honestly examining the full meaning of some of these things that Wright has said. I think Obama would actually agree with some of Wright's criticisms, but he knows that the shallowness of media analysis and public policy is such that were he even to attempt to explain the meaning and pertinence of some of Wright's judgments, he would be instantly jeered off the stage before he got past quoting Wright.
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Ouch.
I believe it's critical that we keep that in mind as we discuss him for the next seven months.
So say we all.
If only you could say this entire post live and on the air on every cable news network. If nothing else it might shame some of the schmucks into doing their jobs better.
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Wow.
Glenn, the Hammer of Rational Discourse has once again pounded upon the Anvil of Stupid American Media.
Well done.
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This Is a Joke, Right?
I am assuming this was written with tongue in cheek. However, like most readers, I am not quite sure about that.
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Interview with Jeremiah Wright
For a good contrast on media reporting and the man himself, check out the Bill Moyers interview with Wright on PBS at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/watch.html.
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I too am grateful that we don't have real issues like a tanking economy, a growing war in Iraq, a looming one with Iran, exploding gas and food prices and a housing slump
You're so right Glenn. Thank goodness all Americans are so safe and secure that we can afford to waste our time on matters like this.
And thank God we have a press that is so enlightened that it's able to drop everything when the supposedly most secure section of Baghdad which is supposed to be under American control is exploding.
And thank goodness no one has real healthcare issues to deal with. Not in a country like ours with such an obviously wonderful healthcare system.
And they wonder how the Romans watched Nero fiddle while Rome burned? We're in a lot more trouble than I thought we were if this is really what they're choosing to focus on.
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Attention webmaster...
You screwed up the <sarcasm> </sarcasm> tags again. They're not rendering properly on any browser I have tried.
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Wow
How do you even have job at Salon?
Funny stuff.
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Reasons to Talk
So it isn't as though we really have anything else to talk about besides Jeremiah Wright.
Absolutely. And looking at it from Wright's side, all those wonderful conditions and trends you allude to are exactly why Reverend Wright is so vocal in the first place. On account of everything being so wonderful.
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The Jeremiah Wright Story is Important to Me for One Reason . . .
Every election season, I get excited by the possibility that we will finally have an opportunity to move the nation forward by selecting leaders that want to realize the promise of America embodied in the Constitution, Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and our history of expanding freedoms for everyone. And every election season, I am disappointed.
The Jeremiah Wright controversy and the hoopla surrounding it tell me that the realities of African-American history and culture are not really American. The African-American story is not an American story. That African-Americans are downright un-American and have to prove, according to people like Peggy Noonan, how American we are, when the white candidates have already had their Americanness vetted simply for having white skin.
The controversy tells me in the most painful ways that hoping for a better America is no better than beating my head against a wall. Hoping that the media and American voters vote on issues that actually affect our future is simply futile.
I am heartsick that our elections are decided on who we'd rather have a fucking beer with, on lies told about someone who put his life on the line for the nation, and on a candidate's association with a firey preacher. It's sickening.
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To quote a great mind and speaker...
I want to quote a great mind and political genius as far as this Wright mess goes:
Yeah, about time for me to get a little drink of water. Figure this stuff is safe to drink? Huh? Actually I don't care if it's safe or not, I drink it anyway. You know why? Cause I'm an American and I expect a little cancer in my food and water. That's right, I'm a loyal American and I'm not happy unless I've let government and industry poison me a little bit every day. Let me have a few hundred thousand carcinogens here.
Ahh, a little cancer never hurt anybody. Everybody needs a little cancer I think. It's good for you. Keeps you on you're toes.
- George Carlin
Now, what is the point of this quote, you may ask? Do I think that Wright is a cancer? No. Is his rhetoric a cancer? No, that's not either. Then surely, the deleterous effect he apparently is having on Obama's candidacy? Nope, that's not it either.
Then what is the point? What is the 'cancer' I speak of when I quote the great George Carlin? Simple. The cancer is the 800-lb. Gorilla in the room that the political elites, the media, and the more willfully ignorant of us continue to ignore. The ugly past we have, the ugly present we often endorse, and the ugly future this administration is sending us toward with its warmongering, toadyism, and belligerent defiance of common sense. Wright is no cancer, and he's no danger.
Say what you will of Wright's demeanor, his rhetoric, his style, his unapologetic nature. The one thing he's doing is something that very few people are willing to do, and even fewer are given any sort of audience for: exposing problems.
I don't care if you think he needs to be less "bombastic", as he is often described, often by himself in reference to all the coverage he's gotten. I don't care if you think he's outrageous. I've listened to the sermons, and the recent appearances in question, and found precious little that I found terribly ugly, racist, or un-American. He is doing something that we need to have done every so often: He's forcing us to drink the water, and reminding us of the cancer in there.
Even if he was outrageous and inflammatory, I am personally tired of being coddled and lied to in soft tones. I want truth, no matter how painful it is. Even if I'm angry now, it's better for me in the long run than if I consume the soothing tones of liars and politicians.
The less we know of some of the ugliness that's genuinely out there, the less protected we can be from it. Ignorance is not strength, no matter how some might want to run by the Orwell playbook of 1984.
This is a discussion that needs to be had, yes, not for the reasons that McCain, the GOP, Hillary, the media, or even Obama might want. This is a discussion we need to have because we NEED to be made uncomfortable. We need to know what's wrong out there, and if it takes a firebrand to be made a target of sound bites and outrage, so be it.