The Thomas Chronicles

The video I posted in my previous post shows a clearly disturbed and meloncholy Barack Obama. Even though he still exuded his usual easy confident mannerisms, he was much more abrupt, even sharp in his statements.

I was wrong in my original post on this subject. I think Obama did for once unequivocally denounce the Rev. Wright’s statements and denounce his views on America. One might say that Obama’s vehemence was even an overreaction. As one person described the event, “Obama threw Wright under the train, let him roll around for a little bit, and then jumped atop him like mash potatoes.” Well, uh… that sounds about right.

I actually feel sorry for Obama and this whole controversy. He seemed genuinely hurt emotionally by Rev. Wright’s vitriolic rants at the NPC. Not because of what Wright actually said, but because Obama reacted as though he’s been personally betrayed.

Let us be clear here. Obama didn’t denounce Wright out of a sense of moral outrage. He denounced him because Wright’s actions didn’t allow him to do anything else.

Charles Krauthammer gives this opinion about the whole hoopla:

At a news conference in North Carolina, Obama explained why he finally decided to do the deed. Apparently, Wright’s latest comments — Obama cited three in particular — were so shockingly “divisive and destructive” that he had to renounce the man, not just the words.

What were Obama’s three citations? Wright’s claim that AIDS was invented by the U.S. government to commit genocide. His praise of Louis Farrakhan as a great man. And his blaming Sept. 11 on American “terrorism.”

But these comments are not new. These were precisely the outrages that prompted the initial furor when the Wright tapes emerged seven weeks ago. Obama decided to cut off Wright not because Wright’s words or character or views had suddenly changed. The only thing that changed was the venue in which Wright chose to display them — live on national TV at the National Press Club. That unfortunate choice destroyed Obama’s Philadelphia pretense that this “endless loop” of sermon excerpts being shown on “television sets and YouTube” had been taken out of context.

Obama’s Philadelphia oration was an exercise in contextualization. In one particularly egregious play on white guilt, Obama had the audacity to suggest that whites should be ashamed that they were ever surprised by Wright’s remarks: “The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour of American life occurs on Sunday morning.”

That was then. On Tuesday, Obama declared that he himself was surprised at Wright’s outrages. But hadn’t Obama told us that surprise about Wright is a result of white ignorance of black churches brought on by America’s history of segregated services? How then to explain Obama’s own presumed ignorance? Surely he too was not sitting in those segregated white churches on those fateful Sundays when he conveniently missed all of Wright’s racist rants.

Regarding Rev. Wright, I’ll give Obama the benefit of the doubt and conclude that he must really believe at least some of that rubbish Wright says. Wright’s comments, which have circulated the world via the internet, and his outlandish statements at the National Press Club, is nothing new. It’s been what Wright has preach for about thirty years and it is in perfect accord with Black Liberation Theology and the Black Value System, which is the professed ideology of the Trinity United Church of Christ.

The alternative to this is much worse.

Faced with the alternative I’d prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt and think he actually believes at least some of Rev. Wright’s radical views. The alternative to this is that Obama sat in that congregation for 20 years, gave tens of thousands of dollars to that church, and knowingly corrupted his children simply because he wanted to get ahead in politics.

One makes him a misguided man who believes in an inherently racist ideology. To other makes him an amoral opportunist who would do anything to be President. He’s already exposed his daughters to Wright’s vitriol, which could possibly poison their views for a long time to come; he has thrown his white grandmother under the train and belittled her as “typical white person” who’s really racist at heart; and now he’s thrown Wright under the train.

Far better if he actually believes in Wright’s ideology rather than being a an amoral user tearing through the lives of others.

Even with all my doubts of Obama, I don’t think Obama’s supporters should be derided either. There is a genuine hunger for bipartisanship. For the past seven years, the Democrats and the Republicans have conducted a very visible sumo wrestling match that made both of sides appear like whining children throwing tantrums.

Into this void of severe dissatisfaction with our government steps Barack Obama, who promises to brush aside all this bickering. He proposes that we work together instead of working against each other.

In a word, he is proposing a peace. Or at least a truce.

It is not surprising thing, then, that people are responsive to this basic message and platitudes, even though, unfortunately, Obama’s done more belittling of his opponents and has done more to silence opposition than any candidate thus far. It seems that his definition of bipartisanship is to do things his way and no other. (Note: He has not draft one single bipartisan piece of legislation. His invariable liberal voting record speaks for itself.)

With this said, however, his supporters shouldn’t be faulted for their support. They too want peace and an end to two party sumo wrestling match.

In fact, I do too. I just don’t think Obama’s the ticket for achieving that end.