Why Jeremiah Wright's Tour Is Good for Obama

[HopeforChange]

Read this Article - It makes sense

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/trailhead/archive/2008/04/28/do-the-wright-thing.aspx

Entire Post Here
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Do the Wright Thing

By Christopher Beam

Barack Obama has been trying to keep the Rev. Jeremiah Wright out of the spotlight for a long time now. As far back as February 2007, he rescinded an invitation for Wright to deliver the invocation at his presidential announcement.

But now Wright is pushing back, closing his media tour today with a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Needless to say, this isn’t exactly the Obama campaign’s dream. From their perspective, any attention on Wright is bad. Obama has been struggling to win over working-class white voters—the last thing he needs is a media-driven refresher on his greatest liability. And indeed, Wright’s comeback may hurt Obama. But in the long run, it’s likely to help the candidate more than hurt him. Here’s how:

The YouTube ratio. Right now, Wright is defined as that guy you saw in that YouTube clip or looped on MSNBC. Naturally, it’s always his most heated remarks that get repeated. The more people see Wright in other contexts—on Bill Moyers, at the NAACP, at a conference of ministers—the less they’ll associate him with those initial images. It doesn’t hurt that when he tries, Wright can be charm itself.

Distance helps. In his interview with Moyers, Wright argued that Obama has to say certain things because he’s a politician. On the one hand, that argument makes the senator sound dishonest. But it also highlights that Obama and Wright are in different lines of work. As Wright said today, after Nov. 5, he’ll still be a pastor. He also challenged the idea that he’s Obama’s “spiritual mentor”—he uttered the phrase in a mockingly overdramatic voice. Rather, he said Obama is one of his members. That’s it. The more he distances himself from Obama, the more voters can see them as separate people with separate views.

The comeback kid. Wright may not be a politician, but he has a politician’s quickness—a quality that makes him remarkably entertaining to watch. When he was asked at today’s event how he feels about being an American, he diffused notions that he’s unpatriotic: “I served six years in the military,” he said. “How many years did Cheney serve?” When the moderator asked him to respond to Chris Rock’s joke that Wright is a “75-year-old black man who doesn't like white people—is there any other kind of 75-year-old black man?” Wright had the perfect retort: “That’s just like the media. I’m not 75.” (He’s 66.) It’s moments like these that could right Wright.

Changing the subject. Just as Obama turned the conversation away from Wright’s words with his race speech, Wright today tried to refocus the attacks on him as “attacks on the black church.” He discussed the evolution of black Christianity from the brush harbors where slaves convened to worship out of slaveholders’ sight through to the liberation theology of the 1960s. He reframed his own famous remarks as part of this tradition: “It is not bombastic, it is not controversial. It is just different.” This argument doesn’t excuse his most questionable comments—like, say, his claim that the AIDS virus was some government plot (which he utterly failed to address when asked about it at today's NPC event)—but it does explain the tradition from which he descends.

Better now than in October. The furor over Wright so far is nothing compared with what Republicans will drum up in the fall. John McCain announced yesterday that despite hinting that he’d leave the Wright issue alone—he asked the North Carolina GOP not to air an ad denouncing Obama and Wright—he now thinks Wright is fair game. So much for the civility race. Given that, it’s better for Wright to fight back and soften his image now than to allow his current image to calcify over the next six months. If he can go from Obama’s crazy minister to Obama’s controversial but thoughtful and witty minister, that will be a huge step in pre-empting the GOP onslaught.

[PurityOfEssence]

1. No. It's a big problem.

It may not be ruinous to his campaign, but it's a big hit.

[DearAbby]

7. Must be one of the 19%

who isnt ready for an African American for President. Wright isn't running for office, and Obama has never once exhibited what they are claiming? What is your major malfunction?

[PurityOfEssence]

27. No, I just don't like the Commisars of acceptable thought who tar any oppositon as racism

Is that simple enough? There's an old term from the Bay Area in the early eighties: "Virtuecrat"; it defines those who proclaim themselves morally superior and thus endowed with the god-given (emphasis on the GOD in this deplorable little episode) right to thunderously dismiss all inferiors who don't cleave to the party line.

Here's a big one: I don't much like religion, and I REALLY resent it being shoved down my throat as if it's necessary and the privilege of others to force it upon me. It's anti-pluralist. Certainty is a form of conservatism, just as open-mindedness is the soul of liberalism. Ya ever wonder why religious people tend to be more conservative? That's why. Broad strokes here, but it's true.

I don't like the spectacle of people whipping up the throng in the name of an unquestionable being for whom they are an exalted proxy, and I shudder at the possible consequences of unleashing such raw anger. This is a faith-based campaign, and I'm just a mere mortal with a taste for logic and causality.

I don't like reckless demagogues who provide dangerous ammunition to the reactionaries by their ridiculous displays of raging certainty. The sheer anger of the clips of Wright are deeply disturbing and it doesn't take a Leni Riefenstahl to make some effective hay with them. It was bad enough before his egofest roadshow took to the airwaves. It really doesn't matter much that much of what he says is true, inciteful, interesting and stimulating; the smugness and the snide jabs at other sub-cultures, coupled with the ENDLESS confrontational belittling of the crowd and the domineering lecturing suck all the joy out of hearing interesting analysis.

Obama has played with fire and now he's burning us all. Thanks. I actually feel sorry for him. Perhaps he spurned his mentor a bit and tweaked the guy's pride, but he didn't deserve this.

We didn't either.

I'll vote for him if he's the nominee; if that comes to pass I hope he can somehow put this brushfire out. Maybe he can; he's a talented guy. I'll also give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that he'll change course, stop being a corporatist and serial maneuverer and actually stand up to the forces of power.

Boiling this all down to tarring opponents as obvious racists is juvenile.

As for Wright not being a candidate, so what? As for the connection it's obvious: Obama cites him as a MAJOR influence, has been in regular contact with him and his preaching for YEARS, even took the title of his autobiography from the man's coined phrase and has ducked dealing with the growing controversy in a way that suggests that he doesn't think such fulminations and incriminations are really that big a deal. We're judged by the company we keep. There's a reason for that. This isn't just a casual acquaintance; it's a life-defining inspiration and spiritual guidance.

This is their fault, although much more Wright's than Obama's.

[smalll]

2. At least the Obamatrons who are convinced that Hillary is behind Wright's kamikaze tour ...

understand it's a problem. So you're just clueless, rather than paranoid.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[katandmoon]

21. What an incredibly ugly and hateful post

Do you really think you're helping your candidate by spewing hate speech like this?

[DerekJ]

4. Fuck Obama, I'll never stand against saying the truth to make him elected. I'm standing up for my

beliefs not his.

[HopeforChange]

5. The Truth Hurts doen't it?

[DerekJ]

8. I can't believe how many here have forsaken what they have fought for all their lives. The fight for

tolerance, justice, the fight against bigotry, and ignorance, to score political points.

I won't do it. Let Obama's campaign go to hell. I'm standing behind Wright.

Wright is what America needs to hear. Period.

[HopeforChange]

10. So what are you saying?

You are standing up for Wright

And Against Obama

So that means what?

Wright is for Clinton then?

Is that what you are implying?

Or are you from Canada and can't vote?

[DerekJ]

12. Against Obama?!!! Listen to me carefully my friend. My morals, and values doesn't change to suit the

candidate I support. They are fixed, and I chose the candidates that best fits it. If this candidate goes against my beliefs, I start weighting the good versus the bad.

I support Obama, because of his foreign policy. I'm Canadian, I can't vote, but I donated to him ( through my American relatives). I want the killing and the genocide around the world to end. I want religions, and races to come together, and respect each other. I believe Obama's candidacy will deliver (partially) many of what I'm fighting for.

I'm not backing off Obama, ever, unless it’s proven without a doubt that he is lying about his positions.

Meanwhile, I also support what is right, not what is right for Obama. Wright is right on many issues. Again his rights far exceed his wrongs. Wright has the right to speak. I won’t stand by Obama to shut him up. I stand behind Obama otherwise.

[HopeforChange]

16. Thank You. I support Obama as well

I am from a foreign country originally and I think he is the right man. I agree with Wright but I dont' want it to hurt the campaign because I don't wan't Hillary to become president worse than I want Obama to become president.

I fear she will destroy what is left over from the Bush Administration.

I just don't trust her and so much so that I am not sure she would not beat McCain in November because they will steal it.

Anyway I hope this will work out okay in the end for Senator Obama.

[Armstead]

11. Me, I'm just standing up against stupidity. Wright is being stupid.

Whatever legitimate case Wright might have been able to make, he blew it with his arrogence and his selfish timing.

[DerekJ]

13. What arrogance? Why do you expect him to come on TV begging for forgiveness?!! What did he do wrong?

Timing!! maybe. maybe not. we will see how things work out.

[Armstead]

17. Timing plus feeding into what he knows will get people upset

I really don;t care about Wright's style, message or anything else.

But it made me mad as hell to see him saying things today that he knew were going to get people pissed off at both he and Obama.

Frankly, it looked like deliberate and petty sabotage and revenge against Obama.

I see nothing high minded in that.

[DerekJ]

20. Why?!! I liked what he said he was great. NAACP speech was fantastic, informative, and educational.

Somebody has to start challenging people preconceived notions, and ignorance. It has to start somewhere.

[Armstead]

24. There's a lot of things I find entertaining and informative but which....

I wouldn't want to be associated with a candidate I support.

I think Bill Maher is a riot, but I wouldn't want him going around making speeches in his obnoxious style campaigning for Obama.

Wright is perfectly within his rights to say whatever he feels like. But, if he really does want to see Obama elected, he also has a responsibility to use his fricking head, and nmot deliberatly alienate people and damage Obama's efforts.

As for the content, some of it was okay. But Wright's speech had elements that were disturbingly similar to theories that white racists have used over the years. C'mon, that "whites are left brained and Africans are right brained" has a few too many parallels to racist theorists like William Shockley for my liking.

[DerekJ]

25. I wasn't alienated, do I or you have more brains than the rest of the country?!!

Anyone who actually took the time to listen to his speech, will find that the media is drawing an unfair caricature of Wright.

[woolldog]

28. OMG, are you politically tone deaf or something?

Snap out of it. Wright is a disaster. YES you do have more brains than the rest of the country. Most Americans are stupid. That's why this is even an issue b/c these stupid political games actually work on the electorate.

[HopeforChange]

6. I posted the article - I think it makes sense

[Armstead]

9. Wright has cemented his image as Obama's crazy minister

No good will come of Wright's self-centered preening.

Wright could have tried to clear the air without being a jerk. Unfortunatly he chose to be a jerk about it.

[DerekJ]

14. The black man has to come on TV humbled. Isn’t it?!! (I'm white)

[Maddy McCall]

15. Well, Obama wanted to open a discussion on race. Wright did just that.

So I don't really see the problem.

[DerekJ]

18. Neither am I Maddy.

I know your intentions aren't pure here. But regardless, America needs to star being a civilized country (I'd rank you rock bottom on the list of civilized countries, sorry). It has to start somewhere.

[Maddy McCall]

22. Yeah, the country of MaddyMcCallistan is quite barbaric.

Do you realize how little sense you make?

[DerekJ]

23. WTF are you talking about?!! Who's not making sense, you or me?!! What barbarism are you insinuating

now?!!

My message is simple, should Wright been vilified for some other reason than politics, many of the us here would have been standing right behind him, saying how Wright is right.

[katandmoon]

19. Talk About Cognitive Dissonance...

[ImpeechBush]

26. Strange that Obama is distancing himself from Wright if

Wright is such an asset as the article claims. Obama even called an unscheduled presser today to stress his disagreement with Wright.

I can understand the Obama supporters pushing the point that Obama does not equal Wright. That makes a lot of sense. That seems to be the same position as Obama himself is emphasizing.

But a lot of his supporters seem to be pushing "Wright is alright" and attacking anyone who disagrees. This is like enlarging the hole in the ship while the captain is bailing.

[ClayZ]

29. Watch Rev. Wright bless that snake Hannidy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTGRL0OJWQ

It is at the end of the clip.

I think Rev. Wright is an amazing man at 73 years old. I hope I have learned that much when I am that age.

Talk about turning the other cheek.