BARACK OBAMA’S 20-YEAR RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS MINISTER CONSTITUTES A GOOD DEAL MORE THAN A CASUAL CONNECTION
BARACK OBAMA’S 20-YEAR RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS MINISTER CONSTITUTES A GOOD DEAL MORE THAN A CASUAL CONNECTION
by
Ken Eliasberg
Last week we took a look at Senator Obama’s efforts to explain (wish) away his continued presence in the home of a vicious and dangerous racist, Jeremiah A. Wright. As then noted, Obama’s initial response was to lie; then, seeing that the public wasn’t buying his story, he came forward with a powerful speech to deal with the problem. Did it? We’ll see, but my studied impression is that underneath all of Obama’s customary rhetorical flourish was the usual black response to the lamentable conditions that exist in substantial segments of the black community — slavery did it to us, and to think otherwise makes you a racist.
But let’s really dig in to Obama’s efforts in this connection, starting with his most recent appearance on the View, where he received a warm and cozy reception, highlighted by Barbara Walter’s informing him that they thought he was very sexy (and, in the process, highlighting the rather empty calories of this program). Regarding his refusal to part company with his church or Pastor over the past 20 years, Obama informed the audience that he would now have done so IF (1) Wright had not resigned, and (2) he had not acknowledged the pain his bilious comments may have caused before resigning. Wait a minute, am I missing something here? Obama would have us believe that he would NOW resign, after imbibing 20 years of his Pastor’s toxic brew; after having his wife drink deeply of this brew (which quite obviously had a very profound effect on her); and after having his daughterssit through this garbage (God only knows what their view on race will be after ingesting that bile)? Does this make sense to you? It sounds like a parent who would give his misbehaving child 20 years to shape up or then he’ll really get upset (and maybe give him something as severe as a time out). This sounds like something the Clintons would try to pass off on their accepting public (and, thanks to a complicit media, used to get away with (the media now seems to have deserted the Clintons in favor of Obama — witness the treatment she is receiving at their hands with respect to “snipergate”)). But I don’t think it will fly here. Obama was supposed to be our post-racial healer, not just an Ivy League version of your typical race-baiting grievance peddler.
Then there was his effort to once again call on his good old white grandmother as evidence that even unbiased people come up with biased comments on occasion. Recall that he called upon his ‘ol grandma in his Philadelphia speech, noting that she had had a reaction to passing black men on the street (didn’t Jesse Jackson have the same reaction?), and that she had been guilty of some racial “stereotyping” as sort of a way of suggesting that we are all guilty — once again, the call to moral equivalence. Then, in an interview he tried to elaborate on this explanation by suggesting that his grandmother, while a good woman, was, on occasion, guilty of reacting like “your typical white person.” How’s that for throwing grandma under the bus, while missing the cause of our concern — the reaction, based on Wright’s sermons, of your “typical black person.”
Before his View version of an explanation, some of his supporters tried to come up with some form of “guilt-by-association” moral-equivalence explanation for Obama’s loyalty to Pastor Farrakhan (oops, I meant Wright). They suggested that Pastor Wright’s endorsement of Obama was no different than Pastor Hagee’s endorsement of John McCain (Pastor Hagee having uttered some derogatory remarks about Catholicism) or some other Pastor’s unpleasant remarks about Gays. Wait a minute — we’re not talking about Wright’s endorsement of Obama; we’re talking about Obama’s endorsement of Wright, i.e. 20 years of sitting at his feet. There is all the difference in the world between someone with whom you have a passing connection endorsing you and your endorsing someone, let alone your having done so over a 20-year period. This doesn’t even come close to an equivalency connection. This is an ASSOCIATION that Obama is indeed guilty of.
On the other hand, there were those who said that you could not fairly judge the good Pastor until you had reviewed the totality of his good works — or at least the totality of the sermons from which the poison had been extracted. Then, taking a slightly different point of view, someone called attention to Obama’s reaction to Don Imus’s nasty remarks about the girls on the Rutgers ladies basketball team. Obama would have him dismissed out of hand — never mind the totality of Imus’s efforts; never mind the context; never mind the fact that Imus is a “shock jock” and makes his living on the edge of respectability — get rid of him (according to Obama). How’s that for EQUIVALENCE??
Then we have Obama’s famous response to Hillary when she took him to task for his rhetoric, i.e. Obama was all form and no substance. Obama responded with his typical eloquence, pointing out how powerful words from some of our country’s enabling documents are and how they have played such an important role in the development and evolution of our magnificent country. Bearing this in mind, and by a parity of reasoning then, should we not be required to take Pastor Wright’s “words” seriously? Of course we should! They are serious words, seriously intended by the Pastor, and judging from the audience’s enthusiastic reaction, taken very seriously by a substantial number of his flock.
And, finally, we have Obama’s effort to put the good Pastor in perspective — that he “feel[s] badly he [Wright] has been characterized in this one way and people haven’t seen the other aspects of him.” He elaborated on this theme of the unfair treatment being accorded his Pastor, and he continues to defend — to his detriment, in my opinion — the incendiary Pastor. I have to tell you (and him) thatI think he would be well advised to give up on this approach. You know, there were many who said the same things about Hitler and Mussolini — that they did good things for their respective countries (while they were doing some very bad things) before they threw the world into a cataclysmic conflagration. All demagogues do positive things — typically restoring pride in a people whose circumstances leave something to be desired; they typically do so by scapegoating other people, i.e. by looking for circumstances outside of themselves to blame for their lamentable conditions. Unfortunately it is a false and unenduring pride that serves only to marginalize these people. Wright said some very ugly things, and they were not taken out of context. The man he chose for his church to honor, Louis Farrakhan, is a vile man who spews hate. No, we have not dealt unfairly with Wright, and, again, Obama would be well advised to more clearly distance himself from Wright before it becomes very difficult to separate the two of them.
The bottom line then is that Obama has neither severed his connection with Wright nor with Wright’s role in his life. On the contrary, he has continued to try and defend the Pastor, and has been unsuccessful in doing so — at least among all but the true believers. And the unfortunate consequence of his doing so — at least unfortunate in terms of selling this pitch — is that he has glued Wright to his person. And, in my opinion, Obama will pay a price — a substantial price - in the general election, if not in the primaries. And, by the way, this is a price that any purveyor of racial rhetoric should pay. After all, he has come forward as our racial savior, and his prolonged association with Wright has made him look like just another race hustler. Obama has forfeited the high ground of race, and without that formidable platform, he appears as just another politician trying to opportunistically capitalize on the racial grievances of his people. And folks that dog won’t hunt!
If Obama is serious about a dialogue on race — one in which the black protagonist does not come out with just beating you about the head and shoulders with slavery as the explanation or excuse for everything that is currently broken in the black community — then bring it on; it is long overdue. It is time that we stop putting a politically correct scab over an open racial wound, and get on with the serious business of ending racial pandering. On the other hand, if it’s just going to be the usual whitey-did-it-to-us song and dance, then let’s just sweep it back under the carpet and forget the whole thing.