Grannie's Revenge

The Rev. Wright did right by Obama's maternal grandmother and returned the favor by repeatedly throwing the presidential hopeful under the bus in an hour long feast of self-indulgence.



If the good reverend stopped short of accusing Obama of pandering to white bigotry in his speech on race, he still left brake dust on Obama's shoes. (Btw, it is good to see that at least one other person to the left of Franco apart from myself found that speech to be more pandering than inspiring.)

The Rev. Wright is a particular problem to Obama because it strikes to the chore of the Obama candidacy. Obama is where he is today for some very basic reasons. He's not Hillary Clinton who the left has never forgiven for the Iraq War vote and he wasn't in a legislative body where a war vote would have entailed anything other than posturing.

That allowed Obama to get his foot in the door. He closed the deal with much of America by marketing himself as a new breed of politician - bipartisan and not tainted by the politics of opportunism or cynicism. A breath of fresh air. Well, the air kept blowing. He was a new breed from a new generation. All of that divisive culture war stuff from the 60s and 70s. Not his bag, babe. And he was post-racial. Finally a black politician who only happened to be black.

Obama's skin color and biography wasn't a liability. It was an asset. He was a candidate of the world. Instilling respect among leaders all over the globe, proof that Americans had finally grown up.

And then came Wright.Wright's performance the past few days decimates Obama's defense that the Rev. Wright you see on YouTube and FoxNews isn't the man he knew. After this, it's almost impossible not to picture Wright without a "God Damn America" bumper sticker.

Wright confirmed the right wing whispers about the Afrocentric and Liberation Theology aspects of the church. Say what you will about these movements, but they are rather rooted in the sixties.

Rev. Wright seems much comfortable with an Edwards campaign discussion of "Two Americas" although I think they'd disagree on the terms. Everything with Wright is black versus white. There is none of the unity or reconciliation - the overcoming of racial tension - that Obama represents. Wright mocked the notion of reconciliation as clearly as he mocked Obama.

Which takes us to the pews. If we take Obama at his word regarding who is and what he represents, how could he endure this man and this church? We got the grandmother answer and that's fine, but that's blood. This is a church. Wright is making a political statement at the pulpit, shouldn't a man like Obama have made his statement by leaving his pews?

If Obama believes what he says he believes, he has to recognize that men like Wright are poisonous. If there is ever going to be the type of reconciliation that Obama represents, the ideas of men like Wright must be challenged and defeated. Yet he sat there and did nothing.

Obama you're a protestant. We leave churches and have internal squabbles all the time. It's in our DNA.

The out is just this and it might be the most honest approach. Admit that he joined the church to advance himself politically. If you want to make a name for yourself in Chicago politics as a black candidate, it was the place you had to be. It smacks of opportunism and cynicism but it's better than the alternatives which are the big issues. No one is ever going to believe the St. Obama notion in three months anyway with the Resco scandal and whatever else lies in the RNC's oppo book. Even Jesus had friends in the oldest profession.