Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Two People Who Will Not Shut Up

Oh Dinesh, you know that I could never quit you!

"Throughout his campaign Barack Obama has mocked his critics, noting that they just don't get what a novel figure and consistent unifier he has been for his whole life."


I've been hearing that Obama has supposedly been setting himself up as some sort of messianic figure for a long time, but, whenever I hear about him, hear him speak, it is normally not to brag about himself or set himself up as a god amongst men, immune to criticism. But if this your example:

"'They say: We don't know enough about him. His pastor once said something. He's got a funny name, sounds Muslim.'"

then you fail. These are all incredibly inane criticisms that, believe it or not, he has been subject to. They could have been significant if taken in the proper direction, but, unfortunately, the Jeremiah Wright ordeal and internet Muslimification myths clearly devolved from an actual attempt to explore Obama's character into an outright attempt to smear him through guilt-by-association, even when the grounds for the association, or, in the case of Wright, the guilt, happened to false to begin with. More on that in a bit...

"For the first time Obama has called the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's views "ridiculous" and even accused him of being a purveyor of "hate."
To which one might say: better late than never. Maybe Obama never really knew how radical this guy is. "


You do realize how bad it would have been if Obama just decided to bash his preacher of 20 years for little substantial reason at the drop of a hat, don't you? Just because a few conservative pundits are obsessing over Wright's alleged "racism" or "anti-Americanism" really doesn't justify that kind of politically motivated backstabbing that he pretty much has been forced into doing in order to end the incessant attempts to associate Wright and Obama. But, the problem with this whole artificial issue is that Wright is not really "radical"....

"He used to believe that the U.S. government manufactured the AIDS virus and deliberately spread it in the black community, and he still believes it."

I would chalk that up to just plain idiocy, and maybe a wee bit of conspiracy theorist paranoia, rather than as emblematic of being radical and hating America. It's not like typically begrudge preachers for believing in crazy crap....right...(wink wink nudge nudge).

"He thinks America may have conspired to bomb itself on 9/11, and he's never wavered in that conviction"

Is it really that inconceivable? I mean, sure, it goes right back into the conspiracy theory mindset, but, really....is it impossible that certain government officials pulled a Reichstag, or intentionally allowed for it to occur for political reasons, rather than simply being too criminally incompetent to prevent the attacks, despite the signs pointing in that direction.

Oh, wait....Wright ISN'T a 9/11 conspiracy theorist...he just said that America brought the attacks upon themselves through their foreign policy (and it is rather hypocritical of you to equivocate on Wright's position like that...since you have a book written specifically to argue that liberal policies domestic and abroad are actually at fault for bringing the attacks upon ourselves...nice job, Distort D'Newza...).

"Now, and before, he thinks that 'God Bless America' is better expressed as 'God Damn America!'"

Oh noez! He's criticizing the government too vocally! Somebody stop him! (I really don't see how this is much more radical than Pat Robertson, et. al., praying for openings in the Supreme Court [guess how that would happen] and blaming Hurricane Katrina on them sinners what lives in the New Orleans. But, yeah, Wright expressing his disdain for America's violent foreign policy and for its failure to assure equality for African Americans is a much higher crime...).

"Obama has been hearing such messages for more than two decades"

I don't know what possesses Dinesh, or the pundits on the picture tube, to believe that a few soundbytes from Wright (most likely the worst fodder they could dredge up against him) reflects upon the general character of all of his sermons. Eh...whatever....

"He said he could no more repudiate Wright than he could repudiate his own family. This by the way is the speech that many pundits hailed for its originality and brilliance. I think it will go down as one of the biggest blunders in American political history."

And we've all learned to trust your judgments as an accurate depiction of reality....oh...wait....

"What Obama should have said in that speech: "Once upon a time this man rescued my spiritual life. A long time ago when I was spiritually and emotionally at a low point, he was there for me and he helped me get over the hill. So I owe him big time. I know that he's said some crazy things, but I've overlooked them, because of what he did for me." Instead Obama tried to sound like W.E.B. Du Bois. He impressed the liberal intelligentsia, while shooting himself politically in the foot."

What's wrong with trying to W.E.B. Du Bois? His speech did no damage to him, and the Wright thing would've ended there if the media wasn't deliberately trying to preserve the faux scandal for the journalistic lolz. Also, somehow I think that your sample speech would've been a lie. I doubt Obama's "spiritual life" was any different after meeting Wright than it was before even being a Christian. I am of the impression that the very reason that you see the church as radical (because it spends its time addressing social and racial issues) is the very reason why Obama joined it: for the social networks, and for the time spend addressing the issues that African Americans face. Of course, if I am correct on this, that opens a whole 'nother can of worms...

"What has Wright said that has finally caused his disciple to end their relationship? While Wright has been pontificating a lot lately, he has not given us any new bombshells. But he did suggest that, in his beliefs like the one about the U.S. government and AIDS, Obama agrees with him."

Well, my first guess about why Obama wanted to end it was the pressure by the media to do so. My second guess may be that Wright will not simply shut up and step out of spotlight for Obama's sake, so he needs to go into damage control. My third guess is that, if Wright did suggest that Obama thinks that the AIDS thing is true, he ended to relationship abruptly and unequivocably in order to prevent the American public from thinking that Wright is correct about that issue. Because the last thing America needs is an idiotic President (again).

"So he has to say something different! Translation: what we see with Obama is not what we get. And Wright is in a position to know. He's nursed Obama intellectually and spiritually over the years."

You know...just because a person has hung around someone else on a few occasions over a long period time does not mean that the second person in question knows everything about the first with infallible detail. If I gathered up your three best friends, who met through three different venues, your wife, your parents, two of your cousins, two parents of casual acquaintances that you went through your school career with, your boss, two of your co-workers, and that guy you have bought a newpaper from every other day for the past 8 years, they will have very different impressions of you and disagree on some of the details. The point is that we put on different faces for different audiences. That doesn't mean that Obama is giving America a false impression of himself, so much as it means that he may have mislead Wright about how much he agreed with every little paranoid delusion he comforted himself with. It's called being polite...

"The more I examine the two, the more I think that it is Wright who is being consistent and calling it the way he sees it, and Obama who is hiding the part of himself that once embraced this man and maybe still agrees with many of his beliefs but now finds him a political liability. While Obama continues to portray himself as Mr. Straight Talk, at this point he is a candidate enveloped in shadows."

Wright may be consistent, but it does not mean that his assessment is correct (example: Christianity). Obama may be hiding his support for Wright and his ideas, but, unfortunately, he has to due to the fact that Wright has been so thoroughly demonized by the media, and any link between the two will be spun beyond all recognition into Obama wanting to bring about the white male holocaust, or something to that effect. (Also: a candidate enveloped in shadows sounds awesome...as long as it is not Cheney...).

So (hopefully) ends the long, drawn out saga of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a man guilty of the high crime of saying that racism still exists in the 21st century, an obvious lie that one needs only to check youtube comments regarding any subject to disprove. It is a shame that Obama has been forced to repudiate Wright, his pastor and mentor, in order to preserve his political career, something that Obama was clearly reluctant to do, but if he did not, he would never hear the end of it. Perhaps we will be able to find a time, not too far from now, when we realize that Wright's comments were simply accurate criticisms of social ills, or uneducated conclusions based upon a paranoia that has been fostered by our hostile racial and political climate. Really nothing radical at all. No calls to arms, no criticisms of events that haven't been similarly critiqued before, both domestic and abroad. Maybe, someday, cooler heads will prevail, even in response to hotheads....but, I guess I may just be a dreamer...

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