Obama, Get Wright's Dirt Off Your Coattails
Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 05:47:18 PM PDT
Many of you will disagree with what I have to say, however it's rapidly becoming clear that it's now time for Senator Obama to sever whatever ties or perceptions of ties exist between himself and Jeremiah Wright.
Let me be clear, his controversial positions are damaging enough, but they are far from the worst of it.
Rev. Wright is trying to attach himself to Senator Obama: to fuse his cause, his fortunes, his solutions, and his grievances with those of Obama.
I suggest you re-read that last sentence, for it contains the death of our hopes for a progressive president within it.
It's going to be a hard thing for Obama to do. Personally, I'm sure he still feels a great love for the man, a man who meant so much to him, and to disown the man after having equated him with family will be tough politically. He will be accused of disloyalty and being a cold, calculating pol, practicing the dark arts of sub-bus-toss. But something changed today, or at least was widely revealed for the first time.
"He didn't distance himself," Wright announced. "He had to distance himself, because he's a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American."
(From the first link) The ego of the man has been on full display before (particularly post SC - which I'll mention in a moment), but today it was so bright as to be blinding. "I cannot be wrong" he seems so say, "so Obama's disagreement must be insincere." Perhaps now would be a good time to note that Wright never once even apologized, or offered any sort of olive branch to those who disagree with him and were offended by his remarks. Does anyone really think he was never asked to apologize, while Obama apologized on his behalf for months?
There were signs of this completely self-absorbed reaction to criticism after South Carolina.
That Sunday, I was struck by how much of the sermon was about--well, him. During the address, he let fly with a verbal fusillade aimed directly at his detractors: "I don't care what nobody in the 4-H club says. Y'all know what the 4-H club is?" The church roared, and he explained: "That's Hannity, Hillary, Hobbes, and Haters." Later, while discussing his opposition to South African apartheid, Wright seemed to take another shot at his enemies: "I was talked about then, and I'm still talked about now," he thundered. "But I'm not going to stop being me because of what somebody says about me. [Jesus] set me free to be me and he set me free to forgive stupidity." And here he gets in one more jab: "So I forgive you, 4-H club; I forgive you, confused journalists; I forgive you, nervous negroes--I forgive you."
(From the last link) Wright seems to feed off the tit-for-tat with the looney fringe of the right, as he referenced today "playing the dozens" a verbal volley of insults is something he's more than willing to engage in, as long as there are cheering crowds and TV cameras - which after this morning will be guaranteed. He has upstaged the entire primary process itself, and will continue to do so because Wright makes for very compelling TV.
Ironic for a man who considers himself in the prophetic tradition was the moment of unintended prophecy when he humorously listed himself as a possible VP for Obama. Doesn't he see that that's exactly the mental ticket that the right are drawing and fleshing out in the minds of voters? In that moment he made it completely unintentionally obvious that his agenda now is to ride Obama like a prize mule to carry his cause and himself as far as Obama can manage.
At this point it's helpful to revisit the equivalence Obama drew between Wright and family. Wright is like a family member, a very specific kind: the stereotypical parasitic parent of a celebrity - you know the kind. So I plead and ask you to plead with me for Obama to do something now. Obama you're a big boy now. This family member no longer represents the man you loved. Get that dirt off your coattails. We know all the good this man has done in the past, but we also know how much good you could accomplish if you get to the White House and we know that will never happen with this man trying to elbow his way into your spotlight.
Andrew Sullivan may have said it best:
Obama needs not just to distance himself from Wright's views; he needs to disown him at this point. Wright himself, it seems to me, has become part of what Obama is fighting against: the boomer, Vietnam era's obsession with its red-blue, white-black, pro and anti-America fixations. That is not what this election needs to be about; and Wright's massive, racially divisive and, yes, bitter provocation requires a proportionate response.
We need a speech or statement from Obama in which he utterly repudiates this poison, however personally difficult that may be, however damaging the impact will be. The statement today will not do it. This is no longer about cynics trying to associate one man's politics with another. It is now about Wright attempting to associate himself and some of his noxious, stupid, rancid views with the likely Democratic nominee. Wright has given Obama no choice - and he has also given him another opportunity. He needs to seize it.
