Letters to the Editor
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This Will Pass...
In fact, if the latest story out about 3 unknown contract State Dept. employees accessing Obama's files gathers steam, which it appears to be, Rev. Wright's comments will fade quickly enough. Just to hopefully put some closure on this, let's look at the whole messy affair. Barack Obama was introduced to his Christian faith by this man, Jeremiah Wright.
He joins this church for reasons that he explained in a biography he wrote called "Dreams from My Father." He stays involved for 20 years, gets married in this church, has children that are baptized in this church by this pastor. This pastor makes remarks that would make anyone cringe and quite obviously cross the line of civil discourse, to the degree that we can still participate in that anymore. As Obama's run for the White House accelerates, this man's comments are unveiled without any sort of context to an electorate that still seems to prefer things explained in sound bites and analyzed by people in the media who have no experience with the kind of systematic, legalized, and enforced discrimination, exclusion and even murder of people of color Wright rails, obviously in heated fashion, against. Obama knows that this could be a problem for his campaign, and moves to address it in perhaps the most noble fashion anyone has yet come up with: a speech that confronts the issues head-on, the anger many black people feel and felt, as well as the resentment many white people feel at being tagged with crimes committed by people who are generations removed from this time. He essentially says that both sides have a point: the times have changed, and yet they haven't, and it's time to put aside the knee-jerk reactions and try to reach a level of understanding that allows us to collectively use the political process to solve some really big problems. Problems that are actually bigger.
There's been speculation that this will hurt Obama in the general election. My thought is that if he survives this test, and uses it to drive home the point that while everyone is focused on a now retired minister, we have a war that is affecting our lives on a day to day basis, and a Republican candidate who would very much like to continue the disastrous policies of an incompetent and criminal administration for FOUR MORE YEARS, Obama will win the nomination and the White House handily. Just look at what the GOP is offering: more incompetence, more corruption, more war, MORE STUPIDITY and racing to beat everyone else to the bottom. Leave aside an economy that ISN'T WORKING. Even for the fat cats at Bear Stearns and Citigroup.
I'm so sick and tired of this constant asking about how the stupid people will react. I don't know. Stupidly, I guess! This is the wrong question and the wrong focus. Instead of being concerned with the vote of stupid people, why don't we just STOP BEING STUPID and make the most of this opportunity to start healing and moving forward? A candidate for the Office of President of the United States just showed leadership and took the high road. How and when did that become irrelevant?
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@pyrrho
If Rev. Wright is the thing that makes you vote against Obama, vs. McCain who sought the endorsement of Hagee then yes, you probably are a racist who wouldn't vote for Obama anyway.
I am not a fan of any church. After all, isn't a basic tenant of Christianity as taught in most churches that simply not believing in Jesus as savior (i.e, being Jewish, agnostic, hindu, etc...) means you deserve to spend an eternity burning in hell? But all three candidates use their affiliation to churches as a good thing, so if you go down the road of worrying about some (and really, it was cherry-picked sermons by ABC) statements by pastors in this world of anti-gay, anti-sex, anti just about everything, and say you won't vote for Obama because of his pastor...
Again... listen to Rev. Wright's sermons and try to get beyond your knee-jerk response to "God Damn America", are they really any worse than what the Catholic church says and does (eg. defending pedophile priests)? Or what your typical evangelical says? Especially given the reality of current racism in this country, at least there is some justification for his paranoia. What excuse does Hagee have?
I'm not happy that Obama brags about his Christianity period. But given the reality of the political landscape, and the reality of all the religious nutcases who say all sorts of horrible things, I find Rev. Wright more palatable than most of the scumbags who the other candidates are happy to suck up to.
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doloresflower
I respect your views and I really wish I could be more idealistic. But I've worked in politics and on other campaigns and I just feel these clips of Wright are real killers.
I mean, I'm probably more liberal than 99% of America, and I was even offended by this guy. I loved Obama's speech - probably the best one I've ever heard on race or any other issue - but I honestly am a little disturbed that he never spoke up once in defense of his own country - a nation he now speaks so loftily of. And he brought his children to church to hear this hatred? It really is disturbing. I don't think that Obama believes that stuff, but I think his failure to speak out was in some ways political - it would have been the unpopular thing (in this church) for him to do. But that kind of undermines the premise of his whole candidacy - that Hillary did what was politically convenient instead of what was right. Yeah, the Iraq War caused far more damage than Wright's remarks, but her vote alone wasn't going to change Bush's war path. And Obama probably felt that speaking up wouldn't have made much of a difference either.
Honestly, I was a Hillary supporter before all this blew up, but a part of that decision was based on the fear that Obama wasn't vetted like she was - which turned out to be true. I don't live in PA any more, but my family still does. Even the ones who LOVED Obama - and still do - don't think he can survive a general election. I guess we will see. I was actually surprised that the negatives attributed to Wright in this poll were so low. I think PA will be a big bell weather. If Obama loses PA by more than 20 points, it's a really bad sign for him - and it could end up disastrous for the party, because he could be on a steep slide down and still end up the nominee.