On Friday, May 2, 2008, the Washington Post published The 'Race' Speech Revisited. This hit piece aimed at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was conspicuously not carried by the op-ed section of the Chicago Tribune even though they regularly feature Charles Krauthammer's right wing rhetoric.
After reading the piece and considering the circumstances, they chose not to carry it for good reason. In the WaPo Krauthammer charges:
"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".
Could he be the only person in America that came away from Obama's speech feeling guilty? Is this a subconscious admission of his personal shame as a representative of the media for past disservices to the public? Or is Krauthammer inadvertently revealing that his own knowledge and experiences have severe limitations?
Anyone who knows Krauthammer and his body of work will recognize this as just another of his myopic attempts to elicit an adverse reaction from "white" Americans to get them to think twice about supporting a Democratic candidate who happens to be black. More than anything else his notion that Obama was attempting to lay on the "white guilt" reveals a giant leap of faithlessness across a void that may only be found behind Krauthammer's vapid eyes.
Any commentator of his stature should certainly, by now, know the background of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And as a trained psychiatrist, Krauthammer surely is able to grasp the complexity of a relationship between a struggling presidential candidate and his former pastor.
As for the quality of research behind Krauthammer's "contextualization" assertion, the fact that he has been silent for decades about the Abu-Ghraib style torture of black youths in Chicago by its police is no indication that he's particularly unaware of it. Otherwise his Pulitzer Prize must have been for his ability to string large number of readers along with his cleverness, although admittedly Krauthammer is not known for his accuracy.
Anyway in this instance the Chicago Tribune chose not to run his "Revisited" piece apparently because their readers knew the specifics of the city's racial injustice in depth and detail. That perpetrators were allowed to run out the statute of limitations is the proof of a guilt which scribes with selective tunnel vision all across America alone must bear, for neither reporting, nor being sufficiently outraged by it. And if there's any "white guilt" (to use Krauthammer's terminology) it's directly on him and his klavern of korporatist klansmen for not bringing sufficient pressure on the legal system.
The University of Chicago succinctly sums up the racially charged abuse:
"Between the years of 1972 and 1991, approximately 135 African-American men and women were arrested and tortured at the hands of former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and officers under his command at Area 2 police headquarters. Some of these victims were as young as thirteen years old. Various court cases have established that the methods of torture used in the interrogation of suspects included electric shock to the ears and genitalia, mock executions, suffocation, and burning. While Jon Burge was ultimately fired by the Chicago Police Department, not a single perpetrator of the tortures has ever been criminally prosecuted.
"These incidents were not isolated and allegations of abuse by Burge continue to surface. In fact, the Area 2 cases are seen by many observers as part of a pattern and practice of racially-motivated police brutality in Chicago that has been revealed over the course of many years." source
Despite attempts by mainstream media to mischaracterize Obama's mentor as "Reverend Kill Whitey" by running abbreviated soundbites and quoting out-of-context portions of his sermons, it is reasonably well established that Rev. Wright actively encouraged folks from all races to join his Chicago congregation for years. Because of his ministry the Trinity United Church of Christ the 10,000 members are one of the most racially diverse in the U.S. to this day.
So a fair contextualizion of Obama's speech directly conflicts with the scope of Krauthammer's suspiciously self-serving screed. It doesn't take a doctorate to understand why former law professor Barack Obama wished Americans to forgive his spiritual mentor for venting long standing frustrations over a legal system which dismally failed the black citizens of Chicago.
All in all, the most unfortunate part of Obama's speech is what he left out. Stopping short of exposing the mainstream media for failing to report a travesty of justice which isn't particularly unique to Chicago and the neocon tools on their editorial boards for their not-so-veiled race baiting hit pieces, he inadvertently allowed Krauthammer's latest divisive attempt to trigger a negative gut reaction to the guilt-free white portion of American society..
Now why might a man of Charles Krauthammer's reputation and scholarship wish to deliberately misrepresent Obama's intent? What would motivate someone who, in 2006, was singled out as "the most influential commentator in America" by the prestigious Financial Times?
To answer those questions and "contextualize" where, why, and how Krauthammer obviously pledges his allegiance, I've attached my original photoplay for any and all to see. Thankfully those who actually buy into krapslinger's konceptualization krapola are few and far between.