Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Thoughts on the Speech: It's about Hatred NOT Anger


The headlines in the mainstream media are unanimous: The Obama speech on race was a smashing success. He displayed the audacity of hope, courage and tough candor. His wife, overcome with emotion, reportedly wept after the speech. Immediately after the listening to "the speech" I spoke with fellow Forum contributor Megan Gray. We agreed that Obama should get gold stars for his delivery. This shouldn't come as a surprise. Obama is renown for his ability to "construct cathedrals with words," as Jonah Goldberg so nicely put it. But precisely because of that, I reiterated the need to be on guard when listening to Obama. A gifted orator, Obama seems to have the ability to hypnotize people with his airy words and smooth delivery. His speech can be admired for aesthetics but the content of the speech was deeply troubling. Once again Obama subtly revealed his infatuation with old-school, worn-out leftist ideology. His liberalism will be exposed as the campaign unfolds. Beyond the political ideology, it was Obama's sweeping generalizations and creepy moralizing that most bothered me.

For starters, Obama repeatedly equated the justifiable anger that results from discrimination with the kind of blind, foaming-at-the-mouth hatred and racism on display in the person of Rev. Wright. Anger and hatred are not the same thing. Obama further spoke about his inability to disavow Wright; saying that to do so would require a racial divestiture, of sorts, of the entire black community and further, the disavowal of his white grandmother. So what is Obama saying here, that the hate-filled bile of Wright is by necessity the prerequisite baggage of all blacks by virtue of a shared history? He repeatedly referred to Wright's rants as "controversial." But again, there is a big difference between statements that are controversial and those that are outright wrong and hateful. While most statements fitting the bill for the latter adjectives could certainly be described as controversial, it is not necessarily true that all statements that are controversial are necessarily wrong. The injunction to "Turn the other cheek." could be perceived as "controversial" at the time it was issued but it is by no means a malignant command. In fact, as a "sign of contradiction" much of the Christian message remains perennially "controversial." But the moral character of that message is not in question. Wright's statements are controversial (Obama concedes as much) and they are morally repugnant. Sitting in the pews listening to controversial statements is one thing but tolerating hateful rhetoric is another. Refusing to do anything about it for twenty-years is inexcusable and, dare I say, it betrays a tacit endorsement of those very statements.

Further, Obama's oft' repeated pastor/family comparison is mightily flawed. "We all have that uncle in the family who says things you don't always agree with..." So the analogy goes. It doesn't take much reflection to arrive at the obvious conclusion: You can't choose who your aunt, uncle or grandparents are but you do have the freedom to choose your spiritual advisor and church. There are still many unanswered questions that can't be airbrushed out of the controversy or buried beneath an avalanche of pithy words: Why did Obama remain a member of this church for twenty years? Why did he contribute so much money to the church? Why would anyone with any modicum of sound judgment expose his family to the kind of poisonous hatred on full display in Wright?

Prediction: This issue will not go away. The speech made yesterday might help in the short-term but down the road, especially in the general election, the intimate Wright-Obama alliance will come back with a vengeance to torpedo the Senator's aspirations. Polls are already showing a storm on the horizon for Obama.

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For further reading:
A story from the mainstream media that actually scrutinizes Barack Obama's multi-layered contradictions. Here's an excerpt and the link to the entire story.

Buried in Eloquence, Obama Contradictions About Pastor:
In Speech, Obama Contradicted More Than a Year of Denials About His Knowledge of Rev. Wright's Sermons

"I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial," Obama said at a community meeting in Nelsonville, Ohio, earlier this month. "He has said some things that are considered controversial because he's considered that part of his social gospel; so he was one of the leaders in calling for divestment from South Africa and some other issues like that," Obama said on March 2. His initial reaction to the initial ABC News broadcast of Rev. Wright's sermons denouncing the U.S. was that he had never heard his pastor of 20 years make any comments that were anti-U.S. until the tape was played on air. But yesterday, he told a different story. "Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes," he said in his speech yesterday in Philadelphia. Obama did not say what he heard that he considered "controversial," and the campaign has yet to answer repeated requests for dates on which the senator attended Rev. Wright's sermons over the last 20 years.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4480868&page=1

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