Rev. Wright Is Irrelevant to Obama's Ability to Be President
Try as I might, I don't understand what the nutty, narcissistic antics of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's former pastor, have to do with determining Sen. Obama's fitness to be president.
Hillary Clinton, who's laboring mightily to keep Wright in the headlines, sanctimoniously dubs Wright's comments "offensive and outrageous."
OK, I agree with Clinton's assessment. I, too, find the camera-hog pastor's loony words offensive and outrageous.
So what?
First, how does Obama's attendance at a mainline Protestant-denomination 8,000-member church with an aging, over-opinionated former pastor pertain:
- to ending the Iraq War and bringing our troops home, or
- to solving and salving the nation's horrific financial problems, or
- to correcting the ails of public education for America's children. or
- to delivering desperately-needed healthcare to millions of American families?
I don't see how Wright's off-the-charts, out-of-control behavior would in any way diminish President Obama's ability to accomplish great deeds and good works for the American people as President. I just don't see the logical connection...
Second, if the paranoid suspicion was that Rev. Wright would somehow influence President Obama's thinking, the senator clearly, firmly put that silly idea to rest when he angrily cut all ties to Rev. Wright at an April 29, 2008 news conference, saying about Wright's tacky buffoonery:
"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday... His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate..."They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Reverend Wright thinks that that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought either...
"They offend me. The rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced. And that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today."
What Does It Mean When One's Pastor Says Stupid Stuff?
What does it mean about a person when his/her pastor says or does stupid stuff?
What does it mean when a person keeps attending a church even though that angry, misguided pastor wrongly blames America's woes on Americans... on white conservative Americans, or gay Americans. or brown-skinned immigrant Americans, or religious right evangelical Americans, or atheist Americans?
One of my favorite pastor-writers, Mark Daniels, a conservative American, eloquently explains what it means in 'He Was My Pastor...Not My Spiritual Mentor' :
"A pastor can be a spiritual mentor, particularly for those who seek out the pastor's counsel. But a pastor isn't a spiritual mentor to every member of her or his parish... To me, there's validity to Obama's distinction between spiritual mentors and pastors..."The danger in all of this is that folks from either the conventional or new medias may begin to comb through the public pronouncements of every candidate's pastor as a means of tripping candidates up. This would be terribly unfair because in healthy churches, the ministries of pastors may be appreciated even if parishioners don't agree with everything their pastors say...
"Christians gather not to worship their pastors. (Thank God for that!) They gather to worship their God, serve in God's name, and they pray that, most of the time, their pastors speak both faithfully and accurately about the God they believe is revealed on the pages of the Bible.
"In that sense, Obama's statements today reflect classic Christian understandings of pastors, the ministry, and the Church."
A hearty amen to those wise words!
The bottom-line is this: Rev. Jeremiah Wright's self-absorbed shenanigans are irrelevant to Barack Obama's abilities and capabilites to serve as President of the United States.
Why are Some People Dwelling on this Non-Issue?
But I wonder: why are some people still dwelling on what is obviously a non-issue?
Hillary Clinton and John McCain, of course, are using it to smear a capable opponent.
The cable news talking heads... especially Norah O'Donnell and the hysterical Chris Matthews of MSNBC, and the equally histrionic Fox News blatherers... are using it to hype ratings and to grab support for their favorite candidates.
But everyone else? Why are they focusing on this particular pastor and his former congregant when many, many pastors to political leaders have famously uttered equally stupid, equally bigoted, equally incendiary, equally destructive words into TV news cameras?
Try as I might, the only difference I can come up with is the color of their skin: black...
... rather than Jerry Falwell-white, Pat Robertson-white or the white skin-tone of John McCain's proud supporter, Pastor John Hagee, who preaches that "all Muslims are programmed to kill" and "God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because it had a gay pride parade the week before."
I don't hear the same shrieking chorus of voices about McCain's pastor-pal. Do you?
(Photo taken on April 30, 2008: Mark Lyons/Getty Images)
Related Reading
Religious Tests in 2008: Only for Blacks & Mormons?
Boredom and the Race Between Obama and Clinton
Better Living - Thoughts from Mark Daniels: 'He Was My Pastor...Not My Spiritual Mentor'
Salon, Feb 28, 2008: Some hateful, radical ministers -- white evangelicals -- are acceptable by Glenn Greenwald
Transcript: Obama Press Conference on Jeremiah Wright
Talk to Action, Spril 30, 2008: McCain Endorser Pastor John Hagee: God Curse and Doom America
Comments
I think this whole debacle has exposed Obama as a fraud and as a typical politician after he asserted that he “can no more disown him [Wright] than I can my white grandmother” and then go on to disown him a few weeks later.
No doubt about it: Obama handled the whole Wright controversy badly, erring on the side of generosity. In hardball politics, that’s usually a dumb move. the self-absorbed Jeremiah Wright proved to be far less loyal to the personal relationship than did Obama.
My observation, though, is that those who find this incident to be deadly to the Obama campaign weren’t likely to support Obama anyway. It just added fuel to the fire, for them.
Agreed on your last point. The folks who care about Jeremiah Wright as a liability now are the same folks who did six months ago. The rhetoric hasn’t changed; just received more exposure.
But on the Jeremiah Wright point, I think the guy’s getting a bad rap. Criticizing Obama is exactly what he needs to do right now, not for his own sake but for Obama’s. The nastier Wright gets to Obama, the less of a liability he will be to Obama’s campaign–and there’s no better time for it than May, too late for Clinton to win the nomination but too early for this to play a significant role in November.
The one thing this whole situation has reminded me of is the fact that Obama is a liberal, not a radical. Jeremiah Wright and I are radicals, not liberals. And while I’m still a very enthusiastic Obama supporter (he’s the only candidate of my lifetime that I’ve really gotten all that excited about), this distinction is important because while a liberal could be elected president, a radical could not. The more Wright does to send the message that Obama is not a radical, the better it will be for Obama’s chances as a candidate.
You make great points, Tom. Yes, I, too, realize that the more clownish and ridiculous Wright’s behavior becomes, the easier it is for the moderate-mannered Obama to separate himself from his former pastor.
I think Obama has passed through this storm with some damage, but not fatal damage, by any means.
Thanks for your comment!
I think Sen obama is full of crap….for him NOT TO KNOW about these rants and raves after attending this mans church for 20 yrs is bull….if this was my pastor, he wouldn’t be my pastor for long and his church would not be my church. Sen Obama is saying what he needs to say and that is about it.