I usually enjoy Chuck Todd's "First Read" blog at MSNBC, simply because I think he's one of the most perceptive and intelligent reporters we have. There's a little nugget in today's edition that I found both revealing and not entirely accurate (in my view), and it's all about ...
... oh, do I need to tell you?
UPDATED with more specific context.
More after the jump....
Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro in today's "First Read"
And then there’s Wright, Wright, Wright. When Obama can get through a TV interview without the name Rev. Wright coming up, that's when he'll know he's out of the woods. So far, he's not out of the woods.
That's a self-revealing comment, under the conventional wisdom at least. Essentially it translates to:
"Barack Obama will be out of the woods when we reporters let him out of the woods. And we haven't yet."
No explanation of why reporters haven't let Obama out of those woods. No hint that they have (or even need) any reason. But until they let him out of the woods - by no longer bring up Wright in every interview - he's still in the woods. Quite simply, Obama gets out of the woods when and if reporters decide to let him out, and not before. Nyah. Nyah. So. There.
But as I've written before here, I think the "Wright is a Media Myth" meme is something of a myth itself. That is, I don't think Obama is still in Wright Forest simply because reporters haven't decided to let him out of the woods yet. I know reporters like to think of themselves as "opinion makers" - and that's the conventional wisdom Todd, et. al. are applying above - but in fact I think there's more going on here, and it's not entirely the media "making" opinions.
If you didn't follow that last link, here's my take:
American voters have, for the last two months, been facing the very real possibility that we may elect the first African-American president in our history. That's a huge step. I think it's a necessary step, but still a huge step. It means, in part, hoping the residue of slavery and Jim Crow won't come back to bite us if we turn the reins of government over to an African-American. It means, in part, hoping President Barack Obama wouldn't decide to use his position to "get even" for four centuries of intentionally inflicted racial misery.
When we face these sorts of huge steps - moving to a new city, changing career fields, getting married or divorced - we often prepare ourselves to take them by asking this question:
"What's the worst that could happen?"
If we can come to terms with "the worst that could happen," knowing how rarely the "worst" actually does happen, we think we're ready to face the other, less dire, more likely outcomes. We think we'll be okay. And we can take the huge step.
I think it's fascinating - indeed hopeful! - that it seems Americans have decided that "the worst that could happen" is ...
... President Jeremiah Wright.
Not President Malcolm X. Not President Willie Horton. Just President Jeremiah Wright. We've come a long, long way.
Because Jeremiah Wright is not a radical separatist, promoting violent revolution. He's not a sexual predator. He's just a preacher who - like a lot of preachers I've known - has an annoying tendency to say outrageous, absurd things. He gets diarrhea of the mouth combined with constipation of the brain. The outrageous and absurd things Wright has said are no more outrageous than "I have signed legislation outlawing the Soviet Union; we begin bombing in five minutes" (Ronald Reagan), "I think the jury is still out on evolution" (George W. Bush), "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran" (John McCain), or "We can completely obliterate Iran" (Hillary Clinton).
We've had lots of presidents, and two other candidates in this race, who've said outrageous, absurd things. If Jeremiah Wright - a preacher who's done nothing worse than say outrageous, absurd things - is "the worst that can happen" with our first African-American president, then white voters have come a long, long way. President Jeremiah Wright would be no whackier than the president we have, or the other two candidates in the race.
Okay, we could deal with that.
And here's the important part ...
... white voters, even those who are using Wright as "the worst that could happen," as a means of emotional innoculation - know President Barack Obama would not be President Jeremiah Wright. They're not the same man. White voters have fixated on Wright, not because they think Obama is just like Wright, but because they think Wright is "the worst that could happen." And white voters are using Wright to work around to ...
... okay, we could deal with that.
That's my take on the Wright issue. I suggest that because even here on DKos - without a doubt Obama-friendly territory! - Wright diaries have dominated the discourse ever since the story broke. Despite Obama's courageous and brilliant speech in Philadelphia. Despite his press conference last week, when he denounced his former pastor. The discourse continues ... here at DKos ... Obama-friendly territory ... where we're not bound to echo what the self-announted "opinion makers" are saying ... and where we're smart enough to (and do) think for ourselves.
So we're working through Wright Forest here too, and I think we're doing it to ask ourselves:
"What's the worst that could happen?"
And finding that "worst" isn't really so bad at all. We could deal with even the worst. And we know Obama isn't that "worst," or anything close to it.
Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it really is, as Todd, et. al. said, a case of Obama not being out of Wright Forest until reporters are ready to let him out. No reason. Nyah. Nyah. So. There.
Your thoughts?
UPDATE -- Keep in mind that, when I describe "President Jeremiah Wright" as "the worst that could happen" with respect to voters' perception of Barack Obama's candidacy ...
... I mean only in the specific context of whether and how President Obama might address 400 years of institutionalized racism: slavery and Jim Crow.
That is, by talking about Jeremiah Wright, I think white Americans are asking themselves this question:
"If Obama could do the other things he says - get us out of Iraq, extricate us from our self-imposed duty of GloboCop, empower us to start rebuilding our jobs, our economy, our hopes, and our dreams - would it really be that bad if, once in awhile, he said something Wright-like about our history of racism?"
Keep in mind what we're not discussing: Malcolm X or Willie Horton. No one is suggesting that President Barack Obama would be a black separatist as Malcolm X was during his early years, or a sexual predator. Even the Louis Farrakhan "endorsement" flap didn't stick for longer than it took Obama to say "I reject and denounce."
Wright isn't the first "tar" the media have thrown at Barack Obama, but Wright the only "tar" that stuck. Why? Because no one with the brains of a box of rocks believes or ever believed that Barack Obama might be another Malcolm X or Willie Horton ... or even Louis Farrakhan. Those comparisons were dead on arrival, because they were so self-apparently absurd.
Wright has stuck because, I think, many white voters can't imagine an African-American president not wanting to get some payback for 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow, and many white voters imagine that, from President Obama, that payback might come in the form of the occasional Wright-like comment. But that's "the worst that could happen," in terms of that payback. Not separatism. Not revolution. Not turning predators loose among us. Just the stray over-the-top comment.
And we've had presidents do that before.
So yeah, okay, we can deal with even "the worst that could happen."
And given what Obama has said about race, when he has discussed it, white voters are growing comfortable that they won't even going to get that. Barack Obama obviously is not on a revenge mission. He's not trying to elected to get African-Americans some payback.
So that is the specific context in which I think white voters began to look at the possibility of electing our first African-American president and began asking themselves:
"What's the worst that could happen?"
The "legs" of this story - the depth of Wright Forest - is not about the media's iron grip on the American psyche. We're not that stupid. Wright Forest is about white Americans needing to convince themselves that they aren't going to sign up for 8 years of payback for things their ancestors did before they were born. It's about We the People, not the reporters.