Christopher Hitchens asks a question:
What can it be that has kept Obama in Wright's pews, and at Wright's mercy, for so long and at such a heavy cost to his aspirations? ... I think we can exclude any covert sympathy on Obama's part for Wright's views or style—he has proved time and again that he is not like that, and even his own little nods to "Minister" Farrakhan can probably be excused as a silly form of Chicago South Side political etiquette.
.... then, how is it that the loathsome Wright married him, baptized his children, and received donations from him? Could it possibly have anything, I wonder, to do with Mrs. Obama?
I was wondering about the same kind of question here:
It may be that he stayed with the church and kept quiet about it because his wife was attached to it. I can only recall her own statements about her reluctance to feel proud of her country, until now, and wonder whether her own attitude was not influenced and encouraged by the fiery homilies of the pastor?
Read Hitchens' scathing exposé in its entirety.
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A quote to remember:
I last saw him as the warm-up speaker for Louis Farrakhan in Madison Square Garden in the 1980s, on the evening when Farrakhan made himself famous by warning Jews that "when God puts you in the ovens—it's forever!"
This is from the person described by Reverend Wright as one of the most important voices in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
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A view from New Zealand:
How can Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years, the fiery Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a man of golden tongue and lofty ideals, shove his own candidate to the back of the bus? This isn't a stupid man; this is a man who has the audacity to kill hope.
...Wright was so busy flexing his ego and shadow boxing with the media, the black man he was really punching in the gut was the first one who has a chance to become the next president of the United States.
There is a fine line between imperfect fidelity and propagating division. This time it was crossed. The Senator did the right thing, a second time. Barack Obama denounced his former reverend, and without hesitation.
With too costly an irony, Reverend Jeremiah Wright lectured to the Washington Press Club last week, before Obama had even made comment, "It is better to be quiet and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
posted by The Contentious Centrist @ Monday, May 05, 2008
3 comments
3 Comments:
I think that Mrs. Wright was part of the reason as well, but not the whole.
Political power base and money probably played a large roll as well.
I think that Obama will have done America good, just for this discussion on African American pathologies that are holding themselves down.
We cant move forward on race until those pathologies are laid to rest, meaning are not the most common worldview among the AA community. Unfortunately this will take time, and the passnig of the old gaurd.
I don't think Sen. Obama meant his Wright kerfuffle to open this kind of conversation about race but I agree that it is absolutely necessary. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as ClockworkO from the CR bb used to say.
I think Barak is nothing more than another charismatic politician that has figured out the modern form of the game. He will do what he has to do to get elected and so forth.
His wife on the other hand, she is a true believer. While I hope she doesn’t adhere to the more outlandish things Wright said, she surely believes in his basic worldview that the government and America is evil and all that jazz. I never thought that maybe Obama stayed in the pews because his wife said they were going to.
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