Barack's Irrelevant Race Speech

Barack Obama delivered a speech on March 18th, just days after the firestorm created by the release of tapes in which his Pastor Jeremiah Wright repeatedly made the most incendiary anti-American statements. So to diffuse the issue he endeavored to deliver a speech on race relations in America. The problem with this speech was that the anger that Jeremiah Wright provoked in patriotic Americans had nothing to do with race. He filled his speech with platitudes about race relations, which while they may be true, have nothing to do with why people are angry. People were not deeply offended by Jeremiah Wright because he was black. If a white candidate were closely associated with a white pastor who had made the same comments as Wright there would be an equally strong response. Yet he droned on and on telling us things we are already aware of to try to camouflage real issues. We wondered how a presidential candidate could have a spiritual mentor and friend who made downright false, ignorant, racist, anti-American statements in his sermons. How was such a man the inspiration for the title of Obama's book? How can this be the man who officiated Obama's marriage, who baptized his children, whose church he attended for two decades? We rightly questioned Obama's character, judgment, and what he professes to believe when we heard Jeremiah Wright. Yet to respond to all this, Barack felt it was appropriate to come out and fill our ears with what was mostly more rhetoric, this time about race.

Not that he did not bring up Jeremiah Wright. But when he did it was an attempt to portray it as just another episode in the story of race relations in America. He even pretended as if this speech was somehow necessary because he was the victim of racial division. He claimed that "at various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either 'too black' or 'not black enough.' We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary." Only then did he get to the issue of Jeremiah Wright saying "it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn." No it did not. Tapes came out of your pastor's sermons, that was the turn. He went on saying, "On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike." For Obama to be bringing up different ends of some so-called spectrum at this time was petty and foolish. It is an attempt to mask the issue of Wright as if it were on equal footing with "implications" that we've apparently heard, when in fact there is no equivalence.

He then continued stating, "Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely." Yet over the weekend when playing damage control on MSNBC's Countdown he said "I did not hear such incendiary language myself, personally, either in conversations with him or when I was in the pew. He always preached a social gospel." So which is it Senator? You knew about these kinds of sermons, or you did not? Was his knee jerk reaction to dishonestly deny? When you create a web of lies, do not be surprised if you get tangled in it.

He then condemned the statements and explained why he disagrees with them. Anybody with very little brain function would realize this is pure politics. He never thought it worthy of condemnation when Wright had a formal role in his campaign. He never thought it was worthy of condemnation for the past twenty-year period. Now suddenly and only when confronted with tapes does he condemn? He can't say he represents change and hope when he is acting like any typical politician responding to trouble. He attempts to explain why he associates with the ignoramus pastor by claiming that there is some context that we are missing. Wright is apparently "a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth." It's like saying your a member of Hamas, but don't worry, they provide social services. Not that Wright is a terrorist, but he is certainly an excuser of terrorism and his anti-American rhetoric could probably match a Gaza mosque. Wright's lecturing somewhere or helping the needy does not provide an excuse for why Obama would associate with him or make him any less anti-American. Obama says that "as imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me." Senator, that only makes the problem worse, not better. It does not excuse your behavior at all, and only makes us wonder how you could adopt a man like Wright into your family. Even mentioning his real family, not his fake Uncle Wright that he chose to adopt, was merely a means to continue excusing Wright. "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." First of all, Senator, your grandma is not a hateful race baiting anti-American. She raised you, for heaven's sakes. Your Grandma was obviously not racist as she loved and sacrificed for her little boy regardless of his skin color. Yet you have the audacity, the regular kind not the hope kind, to compare her to Wright because of something she said "once" and because more than once she uttered some things that made you "cringe." This is somehow comparable to Wright, who did not raise you but who you chose as your pastor?

Believe me, says Obama, this is not "an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable." How he convinces himself or anyone else of that is bewildering when that is exactly what he is doing. He could have dismissed "Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias. But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now." Crafty, Senator. Bring in Ferraro and try to create additional equivalences, this time between a former Democrat Vice Presidential candidate (who conveniently was on your opponent's team) and your insane preacher. I happen to think Ferraro said nothing racist, but that is another matter. It was not that "some" dismissed her; it was that the Obama campaign went on the assault. Does he think we have the memory of fish?

Apparently the Wright sermons "reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through." That may or may not be, but what that has to do with Obama associating himself with Wright is absolutely nothing. He recounts the history of racism in America that we already know and gives that as an excuse for Wright. But the reason Wright is in the news is Barack Obama. What's Barack's excuse? The Senator claims that black "anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races." The condemnations were not of some general black anger, they were of specific anti-American hateful nonsense that came out of the pastor that you are so intimately connected with.

The rest of the speech was mostly rhetoric. You've relied on rhetoric for too long, Mr. Obama. The speech in its entirety was an attempt to make Jeremiah Wright's statements about some larger race issue. To try and compare it to the incomparable. To provide lame excuses. To deflect the issue away from his own judgement and character. You didn't fool me; I'm not one of your fainting fans. It was politically necessary speech, not genuine in the least. You were calling for Don Imus to be fired over three words but remained a member of Wright's church for two decades. In fact, at the time you said "there's nobody on my staff would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group." Yet Wright was your pastor and had a role on your campaign and a testimonial on your website. Barack's pastor problem has not gone away because of this speech. If anything, this speech has only made things worse. It worked on the New York Times, which called the speech a "profile in courage,” but I can't see how it had any effect on patriotic Americans. Tweet