by hilzoy
Obama’s response is here. An excerpt:
“Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.
Because these particular statements by Rev. Wright are so contrary to my own life and beliefs, a number of people have legitimately raised questions about the nature of my relationship with Rev. Wright and my membership in the church. Let me therefore provide some context.
As I have written about in my books, I first joined Trinity United Church of Christ nearly twenty years ago. I knew Rev. Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago. He also led a diverse congregation that was and still is a pillar of the South Side and the entire city of Chicago. It’s a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those with HIV/AIDS.
Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he’s been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.
(…) Let me repeat what I’ve said earlier. All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn. They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country.”
He’s also going on cable to discuss the whole thing.
I’m inclined to think this is a good response, but I’m unsure of my own instincts on this one, largely because I find the idea of being held accountable for the political views of the various ministers I had while I was Christian so baffling. What do you think?
***
Update: Wright has left Obama’s African American Religious Leadership Committee.
i like the idea of having to denounce, reject and condemn any person you’ve ever been associated with, the moment you find out that that person has said something that offends some other person who, frankly, is looking for reasons to dislike you.
this, plus “six degrees of separation” equals the instant end of society.
Baffling and incredibly stupid. But why is it only Obama who has to apologize for his minister? I’m sure Clintons’, McCain’s, and every other politican who belong to a religious institution have heard things they didn’t agree with? So come on media sleuths, pundits, and all other know it alls do some research. Or rather, please just leave it alone. Where are the issues everyone said were so important? Gone in the muck of an election. Yech.
Baffling and incredibly stupid. But why is it only Obama who has to apologize for his minister? I’m sure Clintons’, McCain’s, and every other politican who belong to a religious institution have heard things they didn’t agree with? So come on media sleuths, pundits, and all other know it alls do some research. Or rather, please just leave it alone. Where are the issues everyone said were so important? Gone in the muck of an election. Yech.
Well, actually, I emailed all kinds of journalists covering the Republican field and most seem to think McCain does not have a pastor.
Remember he couldnt figure out which denomination he was from last year ?
That’s the irony of all this. Republicans are attacking Obama for what his pastor says when their own candidate does not even attend church
Heaven’s, I am no more accountable for what my parents, beloved, or friends say and do than they of me. Our voluntary associations are even more tenuous. I have acquaintances and friends whose behaviors and ideas are abhorrent to me, but the “sum” of these individuals is not so narrow.
I’m a member of several associations with whom I’ve taken strong disagreement with, and if they chose a course of advocacy I could not support, nor feel comfortable in associating, I would make it known to the organization. Yes, we are often “known by the company we keep,” but “company” is not one individual and one sentiment he or she expresses. While I detest racism, sexism, and religiousity, I also detest dogmatism, or “pure” associations, as if a liberal pluralistic society had to think, act, and speak only in orthodox ways.
Hearing more, not less, views, exposing these views to criticism and analysis, does far more than striving for “purity.” The notion of “political correctness” has become a vile buzzword for non-critical thinking altogether. Preferably, speak our minds; wrestle with alternative ideas, stake a position; and show your commitment in YOUR behavior, not in the actions of others.
I may be an American, but I am ashamed of our president and congress. Does that mean I have to distance myself from America? The “love it or leave it” motif is best, “think over it, and choose the better.” The White House fanatic is pretty hard to top, but it no more makes me “more or less and American” to revile him, while extolling the Founder’s dream.
It’s a fine response, but, how many people inclined to think that Obama hates america because of what his pastor said are going to read it?
Hopefully he will come up with a good 10 second response that the news shows can show and that’s convincing.
Though it seems he’s off to a good start, AP headline on my yahoo page right now:
“Obama denounces pastor’s 9/11 comments”
It’s probably the right political response, I’m guessing, but it’s disappointing in a way because not all of Wright’s controversial remarks were false. As you outlined them in part 1, I found many that I agreed with, but of course they’re not the kind of thing a politician can get away with saying in this wonderful narcissistic country of ours, not if they want to poll somewhat higher than Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul (though Paul, of course, had other problems and Dennis isn’t exactly the most charismatic of candidates).
They’d get accused of a hate crime by those poor, oppressed whites.
In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he’s been my pastor.
I think the above is pretty much a sufficient answer, and Obama’s a fool if he wades into it any further.
Best he can do.
Black radicals (and their demands for genuine racial equality) still scare the hell out of white Americans. If Obama doesn’t distance himself from Rev. Wright’s rhetoric – rhetoric with which I agree almost unconditionally, by the way – it’ll hurt him badly with white voters.
On the other hand, if he distances himself from Rev. Wright in any meaningful fashion – leave his church, for example – he would be seen as a faithless coward, another Romney, willing to abandon his religion – and, to some extent, to abandon blacks as a whole, as Rev. White’s church is a historically black one – for political advantage.
It’s an ugly tightrope, and Obama’s walking it the best he can.
“But why is it only Obama who has to apologize for his minister?”
Because Obama’s minister is black, and he’s saying radical things, and (as I said above) mainstream Americans are terrified by black radicals. Historically, in America, black preachers and black churches have been wellsprings of progressive social change – remember, the Reverend Dr. King was a Baptist minister – and progressive social change means the loss of white privilege. So there’s an instinctive negative reaction (in the MSM, and among white voters as a whole) to Rev. Wright that you’re not going to see against, say, Jerry Falwell, or McCain’s BFF pastor John Hagee; the latter two preach for social change that reasserts and strengthens straight white male privilege, and so don’t read as a threat in the same way.
well, it’s more a memory of black radicalism, because I don’t find the black community to be particularly radical–it’s pretty conventional in a lot of ways, compared to what it was in the 60s and 70s.
I think a lot of folks in this country today would have peed in their pants if they faced some actual radicals….
Dumb statements, even if only strategically dumb, make great sound bites in America.
Nuanced explanations of dumb statements always make lousy sound bites.
(See my comment near the end of the previous post’s thread). He’s going to be asked to apologize for EVERYTHING between now and November, including the abduction of Patty Hearst.
So will Clinton, if she wins.
I will say though that Obama may have the rhetorical power to handle this. He needs to chastize and distance himself from Wright and distribute eff yous all over the place to Mona Charen, Mark Penn, Rush Limbaugh and well, just about every loud mouth in America. He needs to be gentle and kick ass at the same time.
By ass, I mean Wright’s, Clinton’s and the entire right wing of the Republican Party’s, which McCain is kissing right about ………………………………………………………. NOW!
What I find most despicable about the whole thing is that Dr. Wright’s “comments” are not just “comments.” They are part of a greater message to a very specific group of people in a very specific time and a very specific setting. The context of ministering to an “unapologetically Black” congregation in a very underprivileged area is completely missing from these stories, and the mostly white media wouldn’t know how to deal with it anyway.
Boy, do I miss not being able to connect with ObWi at work so catching up on the posts now.
First I want to copy something I posted on another blog that my work computer does give me access to:
“People seem to want one of two things, either for Obama to reject the more radical remarks made by Wright or reject and denounce Wright himself.
On the first part, he has done this several times in the pasat and, to his credit, continues to do so without whining about it.
Consider this scenario: One month from now somebody replays Ferraro’s comments and asks Clinton to disavow them. Would that be fair to do? And do you think Clinton is going to say “Of course I reject and denounce them” or “Look folks, that is old news, I already did in the paast and I resent them coming up again.”?
My sense is it would be the latter.
On the second request. Wright represents somewhat of a father figure for Obama. Now, my father was an alcoholic bigot who would frequently tell off color racist jokes and signed a petition to keep AA’s from moving into our neighborhood. In addition to that, he also taught me about the necessity for honesty, hard work and the need to remain true to myself.
Because part of who or what he was was a negative, which I have rejected, do I have to denounce him as an individual? Anybody that tells me I would have to can go … .”
That was before Obama put out this statement. I think he did this as well as anybody could. He did not throw the Rev Wright under the bus, but he definitely did denounce those specific sentiments, just as he has before. And he didn’t make a big deal over having to do it again.
It is my understanding that this more vitriolic approach of Wright’s is of more recent vintage and that many of his sermons are exactly of the type that Obama describes.
And I think he gave a perfectly legitimate reason for not leaving the church. Almost any church is more than just the pastor, priest, rabbi, etc. It is more than just s place to hear religious talk. It is also a social setting. And it is obvious that Obama received a lot from that church, and not just from Wright.
I hope that his response gets as much play as the initial cherry-picked words of the Reverend Wright. Of course, I am also curious to see just how hard Hannity wil try to crucify (intentional) Obama tonight.
Quite hard, I bet.
Obama may not be an Angry Black Man, but (horrors!) he knows one.
I categorically reject this point of view: the game of gotcha has no beginning, middle, or end. It just is.
More on a serious note, I think what Obama said is just about right. Wright seems at least a little off, and people don’t want to imagine any of that off-ness rubbing off (so to speak) on their candidate CiC. Still, I think Obama distanced himself from Wright’s statements without abandoning him as a person, which: nice touch.
Obama is the Jackie Robinson of politics. Although we would like to think a Barack Obama rise to the Presidency would mark the arrival of post racial America, he in fact, would be the signal that we might now be moving in that direction. I suspect it will be at least a generation before we have any real proof that the racial divide is closing in any measurable way. Until then, Barack Obama, and any other minority will be scrutinized more intensely than a Caucasian male.
Is not one of Obama’s most appealing traits his Jackie Robinson-like grace under fire? With the exception of being the President what could be a truer test of character than the campaign for that very office? So far, during this nomination process, it has been Obama’s levelheadedness that most encourages me as to what his Presidency might portend.
As an atheist I tend to stay away from these arguments about private matters of faith, but it seems to me that Obama has struck the right tone for those who lean in his direction but need a bit more reassurance. Those who have already made up their minds that Obama is a Muslim (or Chrisitanist) radical will not be persuaded.
I say well done Senator Obama.
Now lets get back to winning a nomination and a General Election.
I think my favorite remark that’s being paraded around as “racist” is the “Rich White men run America” bit, I mean is there any freaking way to deny that this is true? Seriously, if you had to describe, a CEO, a Governor, a Senator or a Judge what image comes to your mind?
Clarence Thomas. David Patterson.
I could probably rattle off a few more, but I have to go check the pork roast.
One upside of this flap over Wright’s words is that it might help to convince people like Fox News viewers and Hillary Clinton that Obama is in fact Christian. Not just “as far as I know” but really Christian.
It is pretty absurd; a candidate being condemned because he comes from a real community of real people resembling other real communities of real people, who all together make up… the people.
I think he’s handling the media myopic magnifying glass pretty well. Holds his dignity.
“Clarence Thomas. David Patterson.
I could probably rattle off a few more, but I have to go check the pork roast.”
Wow, man you got me I mean those 3 governors since reconstruction, 3 Senators since reconstruction, and 2 Supreme court justices ever (Africn-Americans that is), really put me in my place, truly we are a color-blind society. Free at last, Free at last, thank god allmighty were Free at last, Dr. King’s dream has been realized my friends. Man, I’m glad you helped me with this epiphany slart, if it weren’t for you insight I would have thought the fact that I could count the number of AA Sup. Court Justices, Senators, and Governors in the last 125+ years on my fingers and still have room to add an Obama presidency and a Justice or Senator was a sign that Wright had a point but you lifted the wool from my eyes, sure is a shame that 1 in 9 African American males ages 20-34 is in custody, I mean you’d think with this level playing field and all they’d would behave better.
None of this is about logic. This is about someone — probably the Clinton campaign — deliberately stirring up a controversy in which Obama is forced on the defensive, and is tarred through his association with someone controversial. It will dominate the news cycle for a few days and then die down — but only after doing some damage with primary voters, and drowning out any rational political discussion for a few days. Classic Karl Rove tactics. Obama is playing a losing hand gracefully.
The only good thing is that there is a limited number of times that Obama’s opponents can do this before Rev. Wright becomes old news.
So … as someone else on this blog has quipped, the Clinton campaign has now thrown the sink at Obama, followed by the pipes, and now the septic system. What is left to hurl?
— Bokonon
The context of ministering to an “unapologetically Black” congregation in a very underprivileged area is completely missing from these stories, and the mostly white media wouldn’t know how to deal with it anyway.
The storyline would be that he’s a white-hating black racist. Which, in our ‘post-racial’ society, is the only kind the MSM wants to admit exists.
Funny, that’s the storyline we’re getting anyway 🙂
A problem is that Obama or the media or someone set a very high bar concerning a candidate’s responsibility for the remarks of surrogates. Didn’t Hillary just throw Ferraro under the bus for making remarks that were far less inflammatory?
Based on how this campaign has gone, it seems pretty clear that Wright has to leave the Obama island.
John Cole: PPS- Can you jackasses stop pretending he is Muslim now that you are denouncing his Christian minister?
Ha! Gold.
“Heaven’s, I am no more accountable for what my parents, beloved, or friends say and do than they of me. Our voluntary associations are even more tenuous”
I should think you have this precisely backwards: You’re not accountable for what your parents say, because you didn’t pick them. To the extent that an association is voluntary, you ARE accountable for it.
I have a difficult time getting exercised over this matter, because however lunatic Wright’s remarks might be, it’s just a gloss on top of the lunacy which is religion. Once you’ve swallowed the horse, why choke at the horse fly?
What do you think?
1. Glad I don’t have a TV
2. Apparently a slow news day
3. None of the smart-*ss responses I thought of would have been appropriate, so I guess Obama didn’t do too badly.
4. I’m refusing to read any more media pieces on this “controversy” until Richard Russo writes an op-ed about it.
5. What cleek said.
Can you jackasses stop pretending he is Muslim now that you are denouncing his Christian minister?
Maybe Obama actually denounced Wright because Obama’s secretly a Muslim.
OMGOMGOMG heh indeed smock
It’s frightening to us whites sometimes to witness the anger apparent in things like the quote from Wright. But I know Obama well enough to know that, were that the daily fare at his church, he would not find it to be a congenial community. In any case, that is not the fare, it is instead mostly social justice and personal responsibility. I do not question Obama’s genuine commitment to a positive and inclusive America. I have heard no such anger from him.
Perhaps it’s because you think it’s directed at you?
Because, certainly, such anger is frequently seen in non-black congregations.
I don’t think it’s enough, but then I’ve long thought that Obama is far too weak on push-back (which is among the reasons I narrowly cast a vote for Clinton). Obama is being held to a double standard by the media, and he needs to make that loud and clear. The talking points are here .
What bothers me is that the minister’s remarks are echoed by Obama’s wife (to a lesser degree), and all of that is echoed by Obama (to a lesser lesser degree). It may clarify what I said a couple of weeks ago: I was getting a general feeling of malaise from the campaign. In terms of the HOPE being sold here, they seem to be building up the depressing crap – building a market for HOPE so to speak. Obama does it less frequently but it is there. His wife has used it as her opening act. And it seems that this minister has at least some part in it all.
I’ve been on the road and I’m not up to speed on all this – but one question I’ve seen that got my attention – why would you expose your kids to this one day a week? And if Obama really disagrees why would he not find another church? But most importantly – why would you take your kids to hear this crap every week? (Or some version of it anyway.)
Again I’ve been out of the loop and I have not caught up here – so if these aspects have already been addressed then disregard. Also I’m tired and rambling. Good night.
wait.
George Bush’s church officially disapproved of the Iraq war, before it even started. that makes the Methodist church anti-American. clearly.
did Bush denounce, renounce, reject, condemn, his church ? did he stop going to church ?
“Clarence Thomas. David Patterson.
Be honest, Slarti: before he got his name thrust into the limelight very recently through no doing of his own, did you even know who David Patterson was? Heck, I live in New York, and wouldn’t have been able to identify Spitzer’s Lt. Gov. to save my life!
And in any case: it’s the “CEO” question that the really hard one….
And if Obama really disagrees why would he not find another church?
from his statement:
The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign.
do we know his kids have been going there “every week” that whole time ?
Obama is the Jackie Robinson of politics.
I think that connection both hides and reveals deeper connections. Robinson died at the age of 53, which seems incredibly young to me for an athlete in the pre-steroid age. I have to believe that the anger that drove him took its toll physically. Yet the popular view of Robinson is not as an angry black man, but someone much more palatable (‘vanilla’? ‘bleached of anger’? language ends up mirroring the process)
Obama is going to be the same thing and it might be that he realizes it and plays to that. Certainly lines like ‘we can disagree without being disagreeable’ radiate that kind of non-offensiveness. So I’d ask Q to consider that Obama is ‘far too weak’ not because he is weak, but because that is the way the American people want him to be.
OCSteve: welcome back.
About hearing this stuff every week: my understanding is that this isn’t what Rev. Wright talks about most of the time.
About finding another church: the same topic came up somewhere else, and I wrote about it, so I might as well just paste it in here:
I don’t know how many churches at the time would have had a community like Wright’s: not just open to everyone, but actively reaching out; vibrant; clear about putting religion into practice in the community. God knows I haven’t begun to canvass the world of black churches, but I have been to some, and some of them have been dying: churches whose congregation consists of some elderly and absolutely wonderful church ladies and very few other people. Others have struck me as being more about feeling good on Sundays than about doing good on a continuing basis. In some cases, the ministers have been, in one way or another, out for themselves, and I would suspect that Obama, as a community organizer, would have known who they were and found that a lot harder to accept than someone who was committed to the right things, but also had non-religious beliefs that he disagreed with.
Maybe there are a lot of vibrant black churches on the South Side of Chicago with ministers who are genuinely trying to do good for the community around them, and communities that include everyone from professionals to people from the projects, but it’s not clear to me that that has to be so.
OMGWTFiscleekdefendingchurchesnow???
If I were Karl Rove, I would somehow try to get ahold of that 1/2lot on the corner by Obama’s house, sell it to a Holiness preacher, and try to put a double-wide on it. And then hire cleek’s band for studio work (no details), and when cleek walks in the studio Surprise It’s Kirsten’s New Album.
But that would only be if I were Karl Rove. Personally, I’m not mean like that.
Did anyone read the article in Newsweek, “Why McCain Will Win?” It states that it is because the Democrats are running McCain’s campaign for him, and they are losing the general while all this trash goes on. Can we please stop now? If that reported conversation between Obama and Clinton on the floor of the Senate today bears fruit, this one last bit of flak may have been worth it!
OMGWTFiscleekdefendingchurchesnow???
people can believe whatever damn fool thing they want, as long as they’re OK with me believing they’re dumb for believing it.
if you’re cool with me thinking you’re a fool, go ahead, believe Obama’s gonna force Kwanzaa on us all.
obama: “Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy.”
If he truly ‘vehemently disagrees’ why did he wait so long to strongly condemn the statements? Wright made the 9/11 statement in Sept, 2001; he made the ‘damn America’ sermon in 2003; he made the Hillary statements weeks ago.
Bottom line: talk is cheap; and silence can be deadly:
qui tacet consentire videtur
Who leaked the Reverend Jeremiah Wright tapes?
It wasn’t Hillary because she would have done it in advance of Texas and Ohio.
It is a person who wanted Obama to be in the lead going into Denver.
It is a man who recognizes:
1. The power of the picture of Obama with his hands on his crotch during the National Anthem.
2. The power of Michelle’s statements.
3. The power of the Iraq-Syria-Pizza Joint funding mechanism of Michelle’s garden.
A man who wants chaos at the convention. A man with ambition.
Al Gore is up on Intrade. Anyone who listened to me two weeks ago is up 50%.
The power of the picture of Obama with his hands on his crotch during the National Anthem.
Clearly we have not yet reached the apex of lunacy in this campaign. C’mon everybody, keep reaching for the stars.
OCSteve and others: what you are seeing is a hit piece of the most vitrolic and most “radical” of Pastor Wright’s more recent sermons. It is in no way indicative of the entirity of Pastor Wright’s career. I say “radical” in qoutation marks because I don’t consider the remarks all that radical or out of line quite frankly. If you really want to know why the Obamas would go and continue to go to this church try this link: http://whattamisaid.blogspot.com/
here is another view of the church from a former member.
Fox news started this last year and it regained traction when ABC picked it up last week. I’d like to think that thinking people note the distinction between the calculated swipe by Ferraro and the Clinton campaign’s allowing the matter to sit like a fart in church for a good week before “stepping up” (nice contrast to the rapid response of the Obama volunteer advisor who was immediately dismissed) and the Pastor’s comments that were not sanctioned or approved by the Obama campaign and that in no way benefit the Obama campaign.
hilzoy: “About hearing this stuff every week: my understanding is that this isn’t what Rev. Wright talks about most of the time.”
My understanding is that he frequently made inflammatory statements about whites.
And if it turns out Wright’s been making those kinds of statements for many years, and Obama passively sat there, without responding to them, will that alter your perception of him?
OCSteve,
In many churches, school age children are sheparded off to sunday school classes during the sermon. I don’t know if that’s the case for this church, but I wouldn’t be surprised given the size of the congregation.
Plus, I’m not sure anything he’s saying is really inappropriate for children, but I might have missed something. Did you have something particular in mind?
I just looked at the Trinity United Church of Christ website and all references to adherence to the black community, black family, black work ethic, black institutions, black leadership, black value system, etc. etc. seem to have been removed.
Good execution Interbama ©.
Come on, Jay Jerome, you don’t seriously think there are a lot of Lee Greenwood types lurking around here, do you?
Now, Obama may be hearing all this stuff from his wife and minister, but sometimes you just have to go along to get along. His most fervent supporters are beginning to make things a lot tougher on him. This isn’t really unique. Look how that whole John Edwards / Pandagon mess blew up. We will see how this goes. Obama has to steer to the middle now. We will see how good he is at it. He’s going to get a big beat-down if he is elected President. Look at President Bush, who naively thought he would be “a uniter, not a divider”. Some people are going to hate Obama just as passionately as the ObWi regulars hate Bush. So let’s find out sooner than later how he handles this kind of thing.
A minister who says “GodDamn” in church, yeah that is a big problem with some 10 commandment types. But I guess he’s thinking “Screw ’em”.
The “NOT Proud to be an American” may be a lesser issue for the church lady crowd than the GD bit.
DaveC, you weren’t doing too badly until you got to this: Look at President Bush, who naively thought he would be “a uniter, not a divider”. And there you kind of shot your credibility. Do you have any evidence that GWB actually thought that, as opposed to just saying it as a campaign slogan? Is there any evidence of uniting in GWB’s political c.v.? There is in Obama’s, as you should have figured out by now.
Newsflash: reflexive Democrat-haters find a way to be outraged at Democrats!
hi hilzoy,
on the first post, you considered that Obama will “…probably [need] to remove Rev. Wright from his campaign’s African American Religious Leadership Committee.”
I think he should do just that.
Obama is getting my white male vote because, unlike your avatar with the gun, I think he’s the best cat to bring peace.
I did not think Samantha Power’s description of Hillary as a monster was in anyway injurious to Hillary. And I thought that Hillary’s (and her campaign’s) response was typical of bogus indignation that characterizes our unfortunate rhetorical era.
I agree to a certain extent that Ferraro’s attempt’s to reduce the significance of Obama’s own genius was on a par with Rev. Wright’s failure to inderstand the significance of Hillary’s campaign.
Mostly, though, I thought Ferraro was tragic, except that it could have been part of a deliberate strategy to pander to Limbaugh’s Democrats. If so, that’ll probably come out in the wash. Still, her comments were probably nonsense thinking people would ignore.
But Wright’s sermon is profoundly troubling. It’s a good example of reverse racism, whose face is just as ugly.
“I just looked at the Trinity United Church of Christ website and all references to adherence to the black community, black family, black work ethic, black institutions, black leadership, black value system, etc. etc. seem to have been removed.”
They were still there when I looked a moment ago. The links are right on the front page where they have been for quite some time.
“I just looked at the Trinity United Church of Christ website and all references to adherence to the black community, black family, black work ethic, black institutions, black leadership, black value system, etc. etc. seem to have been removed.”
They were still there when I looked a moment ago. The links are right on the front page where they have been for quite some time.
The TUCC home page has no significant text on my computer.
The closest I can find is the ‘About Us’ page. The language has been changed by my reading with no direct references to ‘black leadership’ and the rest.
I’ve been wrong on things like this before. Perhaps you can help me find the current page that references adherence to the black community, black family, black work ethic, black institutions, black leadership, black value system, etc. etc.
Bill,
There’s a link at the bottom of the home page, look for: “click here to read about The Black Value System.”
cleek: do we know his kids have been going there “every week” that whole time ?
I haven’t looked it up, but I’m sure there is something on the record about how often he takes his family to church…
hilzoy: About hearing this stuff every week: my understanding is that this isn’t what Rev. Wright talks about most of the time.
ac: what you are seeing is a hit piece of the most vitrolic and most “radical” of Pastor Wright’s more recent sermons. It is in no way indicative of the entirity of Pastor Wright’s career.
I’m sure that’s true. OTOH – those statements didn’t seem to be a “one-off”, but rather sentiments that would tend to influence (I said “color” here but then the PC filter kicked in) a lot of what he would say…
His sermons are on DVD? Expect a big surge in sales there as a lot of people start going over every single one…
I do not go to church – the last time I did was shortly after Nixon resigned. But I know people who do – and based on what I know from them, it is complete BS that you could be a member of a congregation for 20 years and not be well aware of crap like this.
Turb: Did you have something particular in mind?
God Damn America?
Look – this isn’t a deal breaker for me, but… Frankly I don’t understand exactly what people get out of church or religion in general. But many people who I know and deeply respect find it to be very important to them. Therefore I tend to respect it even if I do not understand it. At the same time, I know that these very same people tend to let the church direct their lives in many ways that are incomprehensible to me. Again, that is something I do not understand, but I can respect them for believing in something enough to base life decisions on, even if I scratch my head and say WTF…
This man has obviously (and admittedly) been a large influence in Obama’s life. This does matter and should not be swept under the rug…
It’s not a deal breaker but it does make me stop and wonder… I have to admit that I find it to be a little disturbing.
Now – OT but better news…
I’ve been in Philly the last couple of days and Obama is absolutely owning the radio market there. He has a pretty good commercial playing. Primarily he is targeting young people and college students. Go and register to vote as a Democrat in PA. You have to do it by March 24. It doesn’t matter if you are a college student from out of state (there are a lot of schools in the Philly area) as long as you will be 18 by Election Day, you register by March 24, and you will still be residing here for 30 days. Hope, hope, and hope – just go and register as a Democrat by March 24th so you can vote for me (HOPE).
Now I heard this ad about 15 times in 48 hours. The weird thing is that my favorite radio station up there is classic rock – not exactly the demographic this ad was targeting. (93.3 WMMR! Oldest rock station in the country – 40th anniversary coming up. Pierre Robert! Hello citizens!) So I started flipping around to other local stations. It was everywhere. It’s a good ad and if he is saturating the Pittsburg market the way he is saturating the Philly market he is going to own PA. Total Clinton ads heard? Zero.
Good grief.
Given how many of the absolute monsters have endorsed Bush and now McCain – Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, Bill Donahue, etc – why on earth is this even an issue? Ugly bigots all, with major political influence clear and stark in Bush’s actions while in power.
The main distinction I can see is that the above “Christians” aim their bigoted attacks at those who lack power and influence – whereas Reverend Wright’s political opinions are very much directed against those in power.
About hearing this stuff every week: my understanding is that this isn’t what Rev. Wright talks about most of the time.
But don’t you still find it just a little troubling that is was some of the time? I know I would. I know I wouldn’t spend almost 20 years attending services and supporting the pastor.
Given how many of the absolute monsters have endorsed Bush and now McCain – Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, Bill Donahue, etc – why on earth is this even an issue?
Because none of these men were Bush’s or McCain’s pastors.
It is a whole lot easier to distance yourself from remarks, when the guy just says “I support you for the position” than when you attend their church, are an active member, and support the pastor by giving to them monetarily.
Pastors aren’t perfect, and they often put their feet in their mouths up to their knees, but there is a certain line where it isn’t just an accident.
And OCSteve is right-I can’t imagine being a member of a church for 20 years, and not being aware of controversial stuff my pastor had said.
I will say that I don’t see this doing much to affect the outcome of the race-mostly I think this is one of those things where supporters will say “it doesn’t matter” and those who support somebody else will just nod their head and say “well I knew I didn’t like him, and this confirms it.”
I’m going to see how long it takes for EVERYBODY ON THIS GODDAMNED THREAD who has condemned Obama for taking his children to this church to let loose with the outrage over, say, this. Come on, let’s hear it! I bet I could sit here all day and not hear a single word about it. Or about people who take their kids to anti-gay churches. Or, hell, to the Catholic Church, which, um, has had some problems with kids over the years. Or to churches which preach that women must be subservient to men.
Come on, you double-standard-wielding hypocrites. Let the condemnations fly. Let’s hear it. It’s out there now, so let it rip.
>>>crickets<<< Yeah, that's what I thought. A bigger bunch of bullsh*t concern trolling I have never seen.
Pastor Wright speaks the truth. What, exactly, is so controversial about that?
Because none of these men were Bush’s or McCain’s pastors.
No, that’s right, they weren’t. Bush and McCain were not longtime members of community churches in troubled communities led by these men. Instead, Bush and McCain went out and actively sought the support of some of these monsters with whom they otherwise had no connection to or obligations to whatsoever. So you tell me which is worse.
See, that’s partly why I wrote this: I find it completely easy to imagine going to a church whose pastor I disagreed with, sometimes strongly, for years. The only problem for me, is that I’m not sure “imagine” is the right word; “remember ” would be more like it. And it was the same kind of disagreement: iirc, my pastor was, in a lot of ways, exactly the person people at RedState might be thinking of when they talk about ‘blame America firsters’. I was 15, I was not at all happy about Watergate, Vietnam, etc., but I thought: *this* is just too much.
But that just wasn’t relevant to why I went to church. I sort of took it for granted that I would form my own political views, that people didn’t have to agree with me, etc., and my minister’s political views seemed to me about as relevant as, say, my soccer coach’s.
My minister was in many ways a good guy. His heart was in the right place. It was a good church, though (for the reasons I mentioned in the piece) not as good a church, I think as Wright’s. And I was sincere when I said: if I had stumbled into Wright’s church, I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven.
Because it was always a big missing piece for me, and got bigger over time: our congregation was not inclusive, and we didn’t do a lot of local good works. (About inclusive: I have no doubt that we would have welcomed anyone who came, in our WASPy way. But if we were seeking people out in places where poor, or even lower middle class, people are likely to be found, it would be news to me.)
Compared to that, a minister’s political views would have been nothing to me. I never went to church for political education; I was, even then, taking care of that on my own. (As you might imagine.)
Phil: let loose with the outrage over, say, this.
No problem. That is outrageous and I condemn it. That is actually much worse, as it is parents unloading their kids on “camp” without in most cases (I assume) knowing exactly what it was. Even worse if they did know exactly what it was.
Or about people who take their kids to anti-gay churches.
I condemn that. 100%. It makes me angry that any parent would expose their children to that.
Or, hell, to the Catholic Church, which, um, has had some problems with kids over the years.
Well, if I had kids, I certainly would not allow them to be unsupervised around clergy of any denomination that requires celibacy. IMO that leads directly to the types of abuse we have heard so much about.
Or to churches which preach that women must be subservient to men.
I hadn’t heard of such a thing, but I condemn it.
Guess what? I hope Fred Phelps rots in hell for all eternity (if I believed in hell anyway).
But that just wasn’t relevant to why I went to church.
Maybe a worthwhile point, but the problem is that you are going to have a hard time convincing me that this church is the only one in Chicago that met the community outreach desire.
I went to church, and I still go to church, and I have to say that I wouldn’t trade an offensive pastor for community outreach-the pastor is the head and leader of the church.
Maybe that is where my problem is with this story lies. I can’t imagine sitting in a pew for 20 years and listening to those kinds of comments. Probably because I know having a solid pastor who doesn’t cross the line and community action aren’t mutually exclusive.
As for the Jesus Camp film-I admit I haven’t seen it, have only seen comments about it and to date haven’t sent my kids to it, or anything close to it. They don’t even go to church oriented camps or any kind.
Maybe that is where my problem is with this story lies. I can’t imagine sitting in a pew for 20 years and listening to those kinds of comments.
see, that really is your problem with the story. you don’t have transcripts of every sermon the guy gave for “20 years”. you don’t know what he said. you’re imagining the worst.
I keep hearing people say “I wouldn’t sit there for 20 years listening to this type of crap.”
First of all, prove to me that he was saying GD America for 20 years. Go ahead, I’m waiting.
Secondly, primarily black churches have a long history of high rhetoric. So what?
There was nothing racist in what Wright said.
People don’t like to see angry black preachers, and there is a fear that underneath his calm exposure is an angry black Obama. That is what this is all about, nothing else.
Trinity is one of those primarily black churches in Chicago that actually has a lot of money and is also multi-cultural. It probably has more non- African Americans attend on a regular basis than all the rest of the AA churches in Chicago combined.
It occurs to me that there is such an underlying fear of Obama that anything that may underpin that fear is grabbed and held on to. This is one of those.
But I think Obama realized coming in that he would be held to a different standard, even more so than Clinton.
BTW, OCSteve, celibacy is irrelevant concerning abuse of children by religious leaders.
Just me, my daughter goes to catholic school. Sometimes she and I spend an hour discussing why monsignor was full of it during the sermon. He’s not a bad man, just a product of his generation (in his case, shortly after the inquisition). But we have strong friendships there, we support their several community programs and, while I disagree strongly with some of the particulars, overall I’m catholic.
When I was a kid, Fr Silverman (a converted Jew) prayed at EVERY mass for the conversion of Jews. Everyone rolled their eyes and went on. Does that make me antisemetic?
If America is controlled by white racists as according to Wright how did Obama get to were he is today?
We white racist must really be slacking off.
This is so good to know. Now when I go to sleep tonight I can cower in the corner of the bedroom holding my .45.
According to Wright we haven’t yet had to give up our white privilege. Phew!
Wow, I can’t imagine being that way. When I had a problem with my pastor I talked with him and told him that I couldn’t go to church there anymore. (FYI, he was critizing Israel for not letting Christian Palestinians cross over during Easter. My pastor would not even admit the decision “might” be based on terrorists acts by Hamas and not just racism.)
I don’t find these statements all that outrageous:
The US is ruled by rich white people, not exclusively and totally, but come on …
Compared to the number of civilians the US has killed and helped kill in other countries, 3000 is a small number.
God damn America – well, occasionally cursing your own country is a actually quite a venerable tradition among thinking people.
First of all, prove to me that he was saying GD America for 20 years. Go ahead, I’m waiting.
Okay, I wouldn’t do it for 7 years either, actually I don’t think it would have taken too many sermons along those lines to get me moving on to a different church and a different pastor.
Maybe people choose churches for reasons other than I would, and that is their perogative, but if I found myself having too many conversations about the the things my pastor said in a sermon, I wouldn’t be sticking around.
Okay, I wouldn’t do it for 7 years either, actually I don’t think it would have taken too many sermons along those lines to get me moving on to a different church and a different pastor.
how many “sermons along those lines” did Wright deliver in those seven years ? and how many conversations did Obama and Wright have about them ?
there is a difference between being a in a population being controlled by white males and a population being controlled by white male racists. multiculuralism has blurred that distinction to our detriment.
I’m a world apart from hilzoy on sitting through Sermons preaching ideas I disagree with. I walk out.
how many “sermons along those lines” did Wright deliver in those seven years ? and how many conversations did Obama and Wright have about them ?
I don’t know how many, but I might forgive the first, but probably wouldn’t stick around for the second.
You second question s an interesting one, and one really only Obama and/or Wright could answer and to date they haven’t.
However, if they had conversations about them, I wouldn’t mind knowing what was said, and after discussing them, why Obama stayed.
What do you think the topic of conversation in African-American churches all over this country will be this weekend? The fact that the media paraded a respected black preacher all over the TV for saying what many of us African-Americans believe about oppression and imperialism or the fact that no Democrat stuck up for him?
As a young girl Hillary’s pastor took her to see Martin Luther King speak. As a result of her faith and values she soon left the Republican Party and became a lifelong Democrat.
As a young man Obama joined a church whose pastor preached hatred of white people and black victimization.
It is oftens said that we are judged by the company we keep.
Obama’s political career is over.
I was raised as a Presbyterian and attended church and Sunday school. I stopped @around the age of 13-14, via fake stomach aches as I lay in bed on Sunday morning, while my mother stood over me and tried to make me feel guilty by saying she was ashamed to go church alone.
The problem with that strategy is that I had used up the fakery that could have been better expended avoiding the algebra test on the following Thursday that I hadn’t studied for.
My brother in the bed across the room would just say “No!” to both, but he’s a hardhead.
When I sat in church, I had maybe two things on my mind: my baseball cards (secreted in my inside sports jacket pocket), and girls, all of them arrayed like flowers and looking outrageously fetching throughout the congregation sitting beside their parents.
The ache I experienced was not one of sought redemption, but merely the ache of trying to understand how it is that if girls are not to be “engaged with”, then why do they walk around all day naked underneath their clothing? All around me. In church no less.
Methinks, methought to myself, everyone doth protest too much. What do they know that I don’t know, and if they know it, how come they are not bursting into flames or turning into pillars of salt — right now?
Fascinating
I might have smuggled a book or two in, probable some Nietzsche, who had he the chance to play baseball, probably could have taken part in my ruminations in church on the all-important question about who was the better all-around centerfielder — Mays, Mantle, or Snider.
Mantle was a more tragic figure to me than Christ.
If Obama’s kids, or anyone’s kids, get more out of church than a talent for stifling irrisistable killer yawns for one hour, than I’ll eat DaveC’s 1963 Valiant.
I was like Stephen Daedalus — I could have the crap scared out of me by all of awful punishments of Hell one week, and a week later think maybe on the other hand the temptations ought to be experimented with, just in case, of what, I don’t know.
I will say that I paid attention twice in “church” as a kid: at a friend’s barmizvah
(cake and punch in church that was not the blood or body of anyone; a wonderful notion) and when I attended a Catholic service with my Papist (according to my grandmother) girlfriend; at least Catholicism had all of the cool gimcrackery of religion at which to marvel, as opposed to the clean lines of my denomination.
Obama’s political career is over.
nonsense.
among many other ugly things, Falwell literally blamed 9/11 on America. when Falwell died, President Bush declared a day of national mourning.
Limbaugh has said things that should make him anathema in even the most-conservative of all the people self-righteously gnashing their teeth over Wrights words. Bush called Limbaugh a “national treasure”. Cheney has made multiple visits to Limbaugh’s show.
how’s Bush doing? still have the undying support and approval of his party? yup. would they run him again if he wasn’t term-limited? yeah, probably.
One thing we can all be thankful for now is that Hillary Clinton has the wisdom and foresight not to listen to the creeps demanding she drop out of the race.
ken:
“It is often said that we are judged by the company we keep.
Obama’s political career is over.”
Were Martin Luther King running for the Democratic nomination today, Hillary Clinton would appear on a Sunday morning news show and remark, “King is not a Communist or an adulterer, as far as I know.”
If Obama’s political career is over, then J. Edgar Hoover is spinning with joy in his grave, wearing a low-cut prom gown, pumps, and a tiara.
If Clinton wins the nomination, I’ll vote for her even when, not if, the McCain campaign, McCain having given the Republican base the butt-kissing the Viet Cong couldn’t get out of him, runs political ads of the Maoist, Feminazi Hillary in grainy video pushing Monica’s head into Bill’s lap.
Why? Because I know exactly what Lee Atwater thinks of Condi Rice and Colin Powell, regardless of their achievement.
The way this is going, when Obama is giving his inauguration speech next January, I hope it goes something like this: “My fellow Americans, the chickens have come home to roost. And as my friend and comedian Dick Gregory once said in a slightly different context, you may not serve Negros around here, but that’s O.K., because whether you like it not, I’d rather have the chicken.
If that constituted help for you, I’m sorry. Me, I don’t categorize people by racial tags, so it’d be similarly tough for me to tell you the names of prominent Asian, ethnic Swedish, or Semitic politicians, CEOs, etc.
And no, until recently the name of David Patterson was, to me, just as obscure as that of Jeff Kottkamp. I couldn’t tell you what color Jeff Kottkamp’s skin is, either; nor do I much care.
Which probably makes me a racist, but so does everything else.
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
Thomas Jefferson
I don’t see that much daylight between Wright’s comments and Jefferson’s. Wright’s just angrier. Being a black man in this country, he’s got more reason to be angry than Jefferson did.
If a minister saying “God damn” in church freaks you out, you better stay well away from the prophetic books. Seriously.
If saying “God damn the US” in church seems too unpatriotic for your taste, you will probably not want to attend that church.
If Obama’s association with that church is too much for you to accept, there are other folks to vote for.
Everyone and their dog will do their utmost to turn this into some kind of slam against Obama. Welcome to American politics.
Obama has said that Wright doesn’t speak for him on this issue, that he doesn’t agree with these particular statements of Wright’s, and that Wright is his pastor, not his political advisor.
I think, really, that that should about cover it. It might make some folks happy if he would stop attending the church he’s attended for 20 years, or if he would personally condemn his pastor, but he doesn’t seem to be inclined to provide those folks with that level of satisfaction.
So, those folks will just have to make what they will of it. It is now their problem, not Obama’s. He’s made his position clear.
Thanks –
That’s great that you feel that way Slarti, and I don’t doubt that you do, but the fact remains that, were someone to start reading off the names of the Fortune 500, and asking you what color each company’s CEO was, you’d have a 98% chance of being correct every time if you said “white.” That’s not a number I’m making up — 490 of the 500 CEOs in question are white. Five are black, and five are of Asian descent. (Two of the latter are women; there are fewer than 20 female CEOs total in the 500.)
Similarly, if I asked you to name every black Supreme Court Justice ever, you’d be finished in less than five seconds. If I asked you to name every white Supreme Court Justice ever, I don’t think you could.
Roughly the same thing is true of every other category that was brought up: Senators, governors and what have you.
You may genuinely find these facts insignificant. Members of those groups tend to differ, and often with good reason. But you being glib about it probably isn’t a solution to any of it.
Thanks for the lecture, Phil. Believe it or not, I do have some passing awareness of the problem.
Consider it the equivalent of your recent advice re: Sadly, No! Equally welcome and equally valuable.
How do you manage to have even a passing awareness of the problem, Slartibartfast, when you “don’t categorize people by racial tags”?
In order to have even passing awareness that the number of white Supreme Court justices, or Fortune 500 CEOs, exceeds those of any other race, you would have to categorize these people by the racial tags of “white”, “black”, etc – if you genuinely don’t, you can’t. And if you do, why claim you don’t?
If everyone was accountable to sever their connection with any person or institution that expressed any bad views, the world would be a poorer place.
I’m a Catholic who supports birth control and gay marriage- but I stay in my church because the good outweighs the bad.
The college where I teach part-time has a “no discrimination based on sexual orientation” policy. What’s happening to Obama is as though my college were to tell me “You can’t teach here as you haven’t left your church which says that gays are ‘objectively disordered’. The fact that you’re still Catholic proves that you’re a homophobe!”
Oh, dear. I almost said exactly what Jes just said, but I didn’t. I’m simultaneously amused and aghast that she did — it’s like she was reading my mind.
I didn’t only because I assume one can generally be aware of the state of race relations and the history of black/white power structures without oneself paying overmuch attention to what skin color or ethnicity individual people are or doing head counts.
But it isn’t my place to speak for Slarti, so I’ll let him choose to deal with it or not.
Jes, aren’t you supposed to be spending the weekend away from people being wrong on the internet? It’s Saturday night already there!
Yeah, I was trying. What I need is decaf tea. Honestly, though, it was pretty egregious – a two comments close together both claiming the moral high ground, one on the grounds that Slarti doesn’t pay attention to race, the other on the grounds that Slarti does pay attention to race.
But the spectacle of a bunch of people who didn’t get this worked up over a monster like John Hagee endorsing McCain, and McCain embracing him and loving him up, but getting freaked out over a pastor who gets mad when the US doesn’t live up to its ideals of equality and justice for all? Well, that was a big flaming beacon of wrongness.
But I will go make myself a big, big mug of decaf tea and work at not caring.
Maybe I’m strange, but it wouldn’t bother me for my (non-existent) children to hear such language. As a Christian, if I had children, I would definitely spend time telling them the same thing. More specifically, I would tell them because of our beliefs, we won’t always agree with the government or social norms around us, and when that happens, we have to hold to what’s right. That means that when the US government or the American people do things that absolutely contravene our values, well, I don’t think God will approve.
The point is that I don’t think America should be blessed by God no matter what and I don’t think I should be calling for God’s blessing on America no matter what. I believe that the US has done terrible things that have lead to the deaths of 1 million+ Iraqis and I sure as heck don’t think God should be blessing us as a nation for such a holocaust.
I don’t know about Chicago, but when my wife and I looked for a church in Boston, we found only one Episcopal church that really fit us. I suspect that for people who aren’t particularly religious, it is easy to see the many many churches around you and assume that there are lots of choices, but in practice, especially if you’re looking for churches that are 1. theologically rigorous, 2. inclusive, AND 3. doing serious good work in the community, there are very very few choices. Obama can certainly find another church in Chicago, but I doubt he could find another one that meets his family’s criteria.
“God damn America” is fine with me. I probably agree with most of what Wright thinks (though not that HIV is an evil plot), but disagree with some of the particular ways in which he phrases things, but “God damn America”, when discussing American support for terror overseas or our racial record seems appropriate to me. It’s like William Lloyd Garrison publicly burning the Constitution and calling it a pact with hell on Independence Day.
My fervent prayer is that god may grant us an atheist president in our lifetimes. Unlike believers of various stripes, atheists don’t have “pastors”.
Alas, we are for now condemned to this ridiculous purgatory where a man (or woman) must profess to believe in a Big Daddy in the Sky in order to have a shot at the White House — and attend church to PROVE that s/he believes it.
Oh well, at least we’ve made progress enough to stop burning witches. There’s hope for the long run.
— TP
More from Obama. Nice.
Obama can certainly find another church in Chicago, but I doubt he could find another one that meets his family’s criteria.
Either black churches are not providing enough choice for marketplace of people looking for churches, or the marketplace is telling us that all black people damn America…
This is not a accusation, but for anyone who feels that Wright’s comments were deplorable and beyond the pale, did the thought cross your mind, even for a moment, that Wright should leave the US and go back, well, you know? I don’t know what is in anyone else’s mind, but if the thought even flitted by for a moment, I think that one’s feeling of outrage needs to be calibrated.
I’m an atheist but used to attend Unitarian Universalist churches so I find this idiotic pretence that people agree with everything said in their church particularly funny. Given the diversity of views in any UU congregation, to apply that to a UU would require repealing the logical law of the excluded middle!
One of the aspects of this manufactured “scandal” that really sticks out is the unspoken agreement that Wright must be shunned and denounced and etc. as anti-American and unfit for a Presidential candidate to know because he says, impolitely, that America can really suck sometimes.
Very few people are saying, “Waitaminute! You know, America *can* really suck sometimes. And in fact, there are times when I’ve said, or thought, “God *damn* this country, for one thing or another. And I’m not even a black person, so I can just imagine how much worse things can suck for a black person, and how much more strongly tempted they would be to say God damn this country.
This is what gets me about the brouhaha over Wright; the Victorian-style denial that he could possibly have any good reason to be angry, or to express that anger.
Well, that, and the equally idiotic “logic” that suggests Obama hates America, or white people, because his pastor has expressed anger at both.
Revivalist preachers on the tent circuit have long condemned America to hell for her wicked ways, in terms far more graphic than Wright. The difference is that they preached against sins of the flesh (which particular ones depended upon the era) and not racial injustice.
A church exists as a community of worship. Obama could have found a church to worship in that did not preach resentment against whites and black victimhood.
Social do gooding is at best a secondary criteria for Christian churches after its primary mission of worshipping God.
If Obama could not find an alternative church that offered both worship service and community service he could have looked elsewhere. For anyone who wants to join a community of good hearted citizens actively working to better thier own community one could join the ELKS, the LIONS, the Masons, or the Shriners.
Here’s an interesting op-ed on Obama, by Cass Sunstein, who’s a colleague of his at the U. Chicago Law School, a stellar legal theorist, and by all accounts an immensely decent guy.
The Masons? Seriously?
The Elks’ temple & world headquarters is in Chicago! But it is in Lincoln Park, not the South Side. I have never gone insider, but somehow, I doubt they are quite as involved in the community as Trinity. Somehow.
Either black churches are not providing enough choice for marketplace of people looking for churches, or the marketplace is telling us that all black people damn America…
Again, I think that there are very very few churches that offer the things that Obama’s church does. When my wife moved to northern Virginia, she spent months looking and found zero outside of DC proper. She wasn’t even looking for a church that met the criteria I described above; she just wanted one that made some attempt to integrate the state of the world into a religious context and made some effort at doing good work in the community. She also wanted a community that was not completely 100% white, but she knew that was impossible.
Look, Obama used to teach constitutional law and his wife was a high powered executive. These are smart people, and, in my experience, most churches of any kind tend to be theologically and intellectually vacuous. People go to church in order to nurture their own spirituality and its hard to do that if the guy at the pulpit is so small minded that he never addresses what’s happening in the larger world outside the church or if he feeds you that prosperity gospel pablum crap that is so common these days (honestly, turning Christianity into a crappy version of the Secret sucks).
A church exists as a community of worship. Obama could have found a church to worship in that did not preach resentment against whites and black victimhood.
As a church-going person, this strikes me as completely wrong. For many people, worship means a great deal more than just sitting passively through a religious service. It means devoting every aspect of your life to God, and that may mean talking about history and state terrorism and civil rights in a sermon. Many Christians struggle to integrate their spiritual beliefs with their understanding of how the world works and has worked in the past.
Just as I start getting a head of steam up about something Thullen comes around and deflates me so thoroughly I’m left scratching my head at what the hell I got so worked up about to begin with.
It’s not surprising to me that so many commenters agree with the “God Damn America” attitude. I’m not going to say that they aren’t patriotic, but lookit, there is some evidence. That was a 1967 Valiant, by the way. So anyway, the “God Damn America” stance might appeal to people like Michelle Obama who gets paid $313,000 as a PR person, but has all these problems arranging play-dates for her children. Hey, things are tough all over, Michelle. If you can figure out a way for your husband to hire a “household management team”, (which I need, by the way), then go for it. Just don’t be ashamed of America because there is no Department of Play Dates in the Cabinet.
The Masons??
For the love of God, Montressor!
interesting that Clinton is now the superior candidate in an election against McCain according to the average poll results.
How things change eh…
I guess this sort of stuff has hurt him.
*Sigh*
If only Rev. Wright had patiently explained as did McCain’s moral advisor Rev. Hagee did that God was helping terrorists attack America because of the tolerance Americans show toward gays and abortion and uppity womenfolk then there wouldn’t be a furor at all. Rather he’d be trumpeted on Fox News as a moral leader. After all, there’s more than one way of saying “God Damn America.” Rev. Wright should have spent more time watching old video of Falwell or Robertson.
Obama has more problems. I think he’s about to get Wolfowitzed.
Barak Obama blatently lies about knowing about the vile and dispicable racist sentiment of his close personal friend and pastor:
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/8/8/194812.shtml
An excerpt by an eyewitness to Obama being present when Wright was preaching:
>>>Wright laced into America’s establishment, blaming the “white arrogance” of America’s Caucasian majority for the woes of the world, especially the oppression suffered by blacks. To underscore the point he refers to the country as the “United States of White America.” Many in the congregation, including Obama, nodded in apparent agreement as these statements were made.<<<
Nice link Hilzoy. The Sunstein.
I can see why Obama spooks some people. As if he’s too perfect; our submersion in the effluence of consumerism leads us to doubt the possibility let alone likelihood of genuine humanity in any public figure.
The one thing that always nags at me is his statement in an interview early on (don’t have the link at hand, it may already be familiar) that he’s aware of being a blank canvas for people’s hopes. Note he didn’t speak of it as a tool of manipulation, nor in my judgment has he displayed any evidence he sees it so. That is, he hasn’t used his strength to twist things. ken for certain will disagree, and who knows who else. But those of us who admire him, must find his abilities wonderful and daunting.
Dan Riehl notes
ah, Rheil… the very model of the modern D-list conservative shill. nothing has ever come out of his mouth (or gone in, i’d wager) that wasn’t in service of the GOP. he’s like TownHall without the ad revenue.
…also applause for russell; consistently fine posting.
And appreciation for Turbulence. Admirable thought well expressed.
crr,
You’ve got to be kidding. According to the 2006 annual report, the UC Hospital system took in $884 million and spent $871 million. And you think they care about a measly $1 million grant? Do you have any idea how large organizations that deal with real money work? Do you really think that an institution that has assets well over a billion dollars is willing to risk a corruption investigation in order to secure a measly $1 million, especially when they know that the Bush administration has politicized the justice department?
Also, on a side note, the UC Hospital system is huge. It delivers a tremendous amount of care to the people of Chicago.
If only Rev. Wright had patiently explained as did McCain’s moral advisor Rev. Hagee did that God was helping terrorists attack America because of the tolerance Americans show toward gays and abortion and uppity womenfolk then there wouldn’t be a furor at all.
Yes, Hagee confines his god-damning to the city of New Orleans and, on a bad day, the Catholic Church.
Thanks –
A question for the Democrats reading this thread. Which do you find more troubling: (1) the over-the-top rhetoric of the Rev. Mr. Wright (which Senator Obama has repudiated), or (2) the endorsement of Senator Clinton, for purposes of the Democratic Primaries, by Rush Limbaugh and Limbaugh’s efforts to procure votes for her (which the good Senator has never repudiated)?
If the Rev. Mr. Wright and the blowhard Mr. Limbaugh were both drowning and you had but one life preserver to throw, would that be a difficult choice?
Turbulence and cleek,
I appreciate the fact that neither of you disputed the details of the post.
Can you guys please point to some links that might actually dispute it?
My questions, which will be asked for months if Obama wins are as follows:
Did he get an earmark for a million bucks to the hospital where his wife works?
Did she double her salary in such a short time?
Why don’t you guys do him a favor and put this to rest now?
Turbulence,
Since you seem so “smart” on how large organizatoins work and I am just a moron maybe you can answer the above questions and give me a little educatin’.
Why? You need a website for common sense?
By the way, market rate for a VP at a major hospital is wayyyy more than a measly $125K. That figure doesn’t pass the sniff test.
gwa,
No I don’t need one for common sense. However if I was looking for one for jerks I think I would no where to go.
C’mon people. Quit attacking the messenger. Is this really any different than Wolfowitz. Her salary doubled. No one here is curious about that at all?
If that’s the case it certainly isn’t me that lacks common sense.
So if Hagee is a monster what is Wright? Just curiuous. Do you consider him a monster also?
crr: some of the stuff you ask can be easily discovered by either reading the papers or googling. However, just to start you off:
So: no, he didn’t get the earmark for the hospital where his wife works.
I googled “Obama wife earmark” to find that, and clicked on the first news story I saw, on the first page. It’s pretty easy, once you get the hang of it.
Turb, Cleek, Gwa do you know many people that have doubled their salary in a year?
Has anyone here had their salary double in a year?
Ironically, I will be the first to admit that mine has. Due to a startup business. But I don’t know anyone who has doubled their salary working within an organization. Maybe this is common.
Please feel free to let me know if you think that is normal.
It’s going to come back an haunt him in the general election. If this is the best defense you guys can come up with good luck convincing people on the fence.
If I may, I’d like to change the subject to the latest outrage from She Who Must Be Obeyed.
The CLinton campaign has encourged some multi millionaire Florida donors to demand their money back if the Florida delegates don’t get seated.
Since I’ve gone from not liking her much to disliking her heartily, I don’t think I have a very good perspective for assessing this. will this be seen as blackmail? Will the supers finally get sick of her? I wish the would.
crr: note that I dispute at least one implication of Riehl’s post. I assume that when he says “Looks like that raise was worth it.”, he means it was worth it because they actually got the earmark, and not because, for instance, she was a good employee and they were lucky to have her, or something similarly innocuous.
Since they did not, in fact, get the earmark, that implication is just wrong.
As I said, this stuff is not so hard to find, since it’s in today’s NYT. Riehl could have, you know, done some research before hitting the post button. As, needless to say, could you.
Yes.
And you figures STILL don’t pass the sniff test. For example, MedCorp, a group of hospitals in Fredericksburg, VA, with revenues about half that of UC Chicago, paid salaries to VPs and upper execs in 2003 that were $200-400K. That was before a 30-40% raise on top of that. A $121K salary seems suspiciously low.
Hilzoy,
So after she got her big raise he did try to get it. He put it in the bill, but then two days ago it got killed due to others and not himself.
So the story was accurate, but I should have said, “Did he try to get a million bucks for the hospital his wife worked at?”
Thanks.
Geez, you guys are a touchy group. I can only imagine how your heads are going to explode come November.
I just wanted to make clear that the line about black churches not being able to provide enough choice was supposed to be a wry comment.
No one here is curious about that at all?
Sure. A link would be helpful.
So if Hagee is a monster what is Wright?
Hagee is a guy whose religious beliefs lead him to think that all gays are going to hell, that the Pope is the antichrist, and that God sent Hurricane Katrina to punish the city of New Orleans for allowing a gay pride parade.
Wright is a black man who is pissed off at the way other black folks are treated in the US, and at the way the US conducts itself in the world.
I don’t call either guy a monster, personally, but I do see a difference between the two. You can sort it out for yourself.
Just as an aside, but I hope noone here would be shocked to know that the basic level of anger and frustration voiced by Wright is not at all uncommon in the black community. It’s not all milk and honey out there.
And yes, lots of professional people have had their salary double in a year at some point in their life.
Not saying there’s nothing to your claim, I’d just like to see more than a couple of graphs quoting Dan Riehl. I’m sure you can understand my skepticism.
Thanks –
Not saying there’s nothing to your claim, I’d just like to see more than a couple of graphs quoting Dan Riehl.
among those that had been killed were his request in 2006 for $1 million for an expansion of the University of Chicago Medical Center, where Mr. Obama’s wife, Michelle, is a vice president.
crr — dude, never mind.
Thanks –
crr: I’m not touchy because you criticized Obama. I’m annoyed because you came here without bothering to do your own research, and then expected us to do it for you.
I don’t have this reaction when someone just asks: what’s up with this? But when someone comes on and just starts listing questions which, for some reason, s/he expects other people to answer even though s/he could find out the answers quite easily, and being all combative and “ha, if this is the best you guys (sic) can do”, I find it mildly irritating.
There’s something mighty familiar-like about that crr character…
Really? Most of the usual suspects aren’t that incompetent.
Russel,
Down in flames, I think not. He’s going to get Wolfowitzed whether you guys think a million bucks is no big deal and a huge increase in salary is common.
Hilzoy,
I only responded about the research because neither one of them dealt with the details of the post. Not because I really wanted them to do my work. I admit to not catching the update in the NY Times, but c’mon that was just all released. It’s easy to miss something like that given the timeline. Even you said it got cut out on Thursday.
So all this came out around Thursday. Perhaps we could cut him and myself a little slack.
Can I assume you are okay with the fact that cleek responded to me with no substance… just accused him of being a shill and Turb responded by accusing me of not knowing how large organizations work? Is that acceptable to you? Are posts that assume the other is ignorant and don’t deal with someone’s actual post more appropriate?
I responded back by pointing out they had no substance and suggested how they could respond with substance. I wasn’t trying to get them to do my work. I was trying to suggest that name calling isn’t a really an effective response.
Anyway, I do find it interesting that at the time Obama’s million bucks gets denied for his wife’s employer he releases his earmarks. That worked out pretty good. Really good timing.
Innocuous? Hey what’s a little innuendo between friends. I’m sure you have played that game a time or 2.
But, I am having a hard time with the math.
If in 2005 she made about 121 grand and in 2006 she made 316 grand is that’s between a 100% to 200% raise, right?
If she got a 200% raise that would be 121+121+121 grand or 363 grand.
That’s too much.
If she got a 160% raise in one year that would be around 121+121+72.4 or around 314 grand.
Is that right? About a 160% raise in one year?
I’m bettin’ good money this haunts him for quite a while.
That’s doesn’t raise anyone’s eyebrows in the slightets?
It’s simple:
Mr. Obama did your wife get over 160% raise in her job?
Mr. Obama did you try to get a million bucks for her employer.
Over and over again. And then maybe again.
I admit that I can’t stand Hillary, but she’s the only dem who has a shot at winning in the general election. Love her or hate her she’s already been vetted. We’ve only just begun with Obama.
we are in the woods now.
through Rev. Wright we are about to find all of the complaints, hopes and dreams of black people projected onto obama, and, as white people… we just can’t vote for that.
it will be interesting to see if White America can tolerate knowing that there is even a tiny bit of truth to complaints by blacks as to how they have been treated in this country by white america.
Evidently this was the promotion which gave rise to the pay increase:
“Michelle Obama has been appointed vice president for community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals. Obama, who was previously the executive director for community affairs at the Hospitals, will be responsible for all programs and initiatives that involve the relationship between the Hospitals and the community. She will also take over management of the Hospitals’ business diversity program.”
It’s no concern of mine really, but if the Dan Riehls of this world can make useful propaganda out of Michelle Obama’s pay increase, then the American people might as well outdo Caligula and elect the winner of the Kentucky Derby. Give them the government they deserve.
Hilzoy,
Is this more the type of post you prefer?
Kevin,
I’m not saying that she didn’t deserve it. But can’t we admit that it does look highly suspect?
That’s a might big raise in 1 year.
Generally, if you get a better job, you get higher pay. You obviously don’t know what are market rate salaries are in the profession, even after given a hint.
Really think you DO need that web site on common sense.
OK, now THAT passes the sniff test. Director level pay is generally low six figures, particularly in a major metropolitan market. VP/top ten executive in a major organization is often mid to high six figure. Climbing a substantial run on the job ladder often brings with it a substantially higher salary.
“It’s not surprising to me that so many commenters agree with the “God Damn America” attitude. I’m not going to say that they aren’t patriotic, but lookit, there is some evidence.”
Hey, go for it, DaveC. Your definition of patriotism may not match mine, so by your definition who knows how I’d rank?
I think a lot of what is called patriotism in the US is actually a form of idolatry. A person should love the country they live in, just as they should love their family, but if a family member is a thief, a wife-beater, or something like that, you’re supposed to get angry, and if another family member says “God damn this disfunctional family”, you may want to listen to what they have to say rather than act all shocked and appalled by the language.
Though that said, I may not read your response. Like Jes, I’m trying to decide if people being wrong on the Internet is worth my weekend.
I’m starting to think that maybe it all really does make sense.
Buy house for $300 grand under market.
check
Wife more than double her salary.
check
It’s a pretty good business plan as far as I can tell.
If you can’t get the stuff Riehl talked about right, why in heaven do you think you’re proving anything by another quote that may be as poorly researched and brain dead stupid as that one was? And why would WE think you were anything else but brain dead stupid?
Maybe you can clarify this:
A thief? What has been stolen? Have any charges been brought?
If only we could invade a country that had a lot of oil, then we could take it all and bring down the cost of oil in the US. That might help our economy some
Wife-beater?
Who has beaten their wife. Are you referring to Iraq and/or Afghanistan?
If Iraq maybe you should read UN resolution 1441. I only wish Hussein had fully opened up his country for inspections. All of this could have been avoided if Hussein had done so.
Afghanistan? Remember we are all Americans today.
I’m just not sure what you are referring to for it to be justified in damning America.
Hilzoy?
Hilzoy?
Hilzoy?
That’s my online impression of
Bueller?
Bueller?
Bueller?
Name calling… who can argue with that?
Regarding Rezko, Obama is the one who said me made lapses in judgment.
If he can admit he screwed up why should his defenders deny it?
Crr, if you’re not familiar with the sorrier aspects of US foreign policy than you have led a sheltered life. We’ve supported mass murderers and torturers and on occasion even genocidal killers and the 9/11 terrorists, horrible as they are (or were), are no worse than some of the people we’ve supported. Wright mentioned South African violence and Israel’s violence against Palestinians (much of which has nothing to do with legitimate defense against Palestinian terrorism). There’s a long list of countries–Chile, Angola, Indonesia, East Timor, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Turkey, Iraq and others–where innocent people have died with our help.
Now what you’re supposed to say is something like “We had no choice” or we chose the lesser of two evils, or something along those lines. You’re not supposed to make it sound like you’ve never even heard that the US has ever done anything wrong.
Anyway, arguing against people being wrong on the internet–I probably do have better things to do.
To the point. Don’t know, maybe this was brought in before. Olberman asking Obama about Wright and Rezko.
It’s not so much the images of Wright. It’s the images of Obama’s back-slapping and whooping congregation buddies.
Obama, after locking up the delegate count, has now been defined as the angry black candidate in the minds of many. He will get soundly beaten among white and Hispanic demographics in the contests going into the convention. He will arrive in Denver as damaged goods, having distanced himself from a large part of the electorate. Whoever engineered this is pretty smart.
The Democrats have three choices:
1. Move forward with damaged goods in the form of Obama and probably lose (flag image, Michelle statements, Wright, forthcoming Iraqi financing Michelle’s garden scandal)
2. Move forward with damaged goods in the form of Clinton and experience riots and the loss of the black vote.
3. Pick an outside candidate. One who has experience in the Executive branch, operates a profitable carbon-credit business, and holds a Nobel Peace Prize.
This is becoming interesting.
Well, grr, kind of gave yourself away there.“I admit that I can’t stand Hillary, but she’s the only dem who has a shot at winning in the general election.” and“A thief? What has been stolen? Have any charges been brought?”
Right.
Slimy slippery snaky. Puberty a present problem perhaps?
Bill, I suppose I should admire your vigorous cynicism, your devotion to sophistry.
Plus I can see how you would oppose Obama, because he opposes everything you ‘stand for’.
That’s what we who admire him admire him most deeply for.
Damaged goods? What you’re showing is a low-grade MadAv mind. Wouldn’t recognize integrity if it sank its incisors in your gluteus.
Good luck with your eye problem.
The entire incident is blown so far out of proportion as to make it ludicrous. That and why doesn’t Hagee get equal treatment? Of course it makes great 527 fodder that the superficially involved voter may kneejerk to when going to vote, but those are the voters the Republicans desperately need to show up at the polling places come November. Obama will have to go on the offensive early in the general to mute the effects of the slime this will generate.
Be careful about defining your personal value systems around Chicago politicians felix culpa. Especially ones with fund-raising buddies currently going through discovery.
I’d advise the Federalist Papers as a better place to start.
“Puberty a present problem perhaps?”
No, I don’t think so. Based upon reasoning power, it is something to look towards though.
Let’s put it this way. Chicago journalists, despite what you may want to believe, would love to uncover the dirt that destroys Obama’s campaign. Specially two fo them, Carol Marin and Lynn Sweet.
I think they have dreams of Pulitzer in their future.
Today, after long sitdowns with Obama dealing with Rezko issues and Wright, they both have said there is nothing really there. Oh, they make little stabs, but it is obvious that the stabs are only out of desire to seem upset about something.
A little point about Obama and Wright. When the whole Enron thing went down, there was a lot of talk about how Bush and Lay where such friends, immediately denied by Bush.
Obama is sticking with both Rezko and Wright because he does believe in a little thing called loyalty, not in the sense that Clinton and Bush view loyalty, but in the real meaningful way.
And to anybody who outright calls Obama a liar about all this, and states they don’t believe him, without any evidence to the contrary and a lot of evidence to support what he says, then you have basically lost all credibility with me.
I hereby call you all liars on any statement you have made about yourself. Prove me wrong. You can’t, not to the level of proof you appear to be requiring.
Dan Riehl Democrats are the new swing group. They will be the key to the general election. Our only hope is to beg Hillary for mercy and hope she will pardon us and take us back into the fold.
If we are lucky we will be granted a vision of the future: a health-care mandate stomping on a human face forever, perhaps.
Also, we have always been at war with East Obamasia.
crr found a nut.
Before everyone gets too exercised about the earmark for the hospital, they might want to actually read Senate Rule 37, which governs conflicts of interest.
The relevant paragraph is here:
“4. No Member, officer, or employee shall knowingly use his official position to introduce or aid the progress or passage of legislation, a principal purpose of which is to further only his pecuniary interest, only the pecuniary interest of his immediate family, or only the pecuniary interest of a limited class of persons or enterprises, when he, or his immediate family, or enterprises controlled by them, are members of the affected class.”
Please take note of the phrase, “principal purpose,” as well as the word, “only,” which appears three times.
crr: it wasn’t an update in the NYT; it was in the 3rd para. of the article. And I have no idea what you meant by this: “Even you said it got cut out on Thursday.”
I don’t see any objection to calling Reihl’s post incompetent. It was. He hadn’t bothered to do the most basic checking. Whether that term applies to someone who just repeats Riehl’s post without bothering to check it out him- or herself, I leave to you.
Myself, I think it makes a difference whether that person writes: “I just read this; does anyone know anything about it?” (polite, entertains possibility of error), or something more along the lines of: “ha! ha! got him now!” In the latter case, I think some attempt at fact-checking would be in order. Ymm, and plainly does, v.
Clinton lost more ground to Obama today, as the county caucuses in Iowa saw seven delegates flip from Edwards to Obama.
Garth and Phil — Thanks for calling the bullshit as you see it. I think Barack’s response was wimpy and he needs to do a whole lot better on responding to this crap. This denouncing thing is getting old and annoying. He didn’t do anything wrong or suspect by attending TUCC, and Wright didn’t do anything wrong in his sermons. I thought there was something called freedom of religion and expression in this almighty and wonderful country. Here again, this
As I read all these blogs about the “manufactured scandal” as CaseyL put it, I can also see a profound and wilful ignorance about the relationship between race, religion and politics in American life. Membership in a congregation cannot be just about spirituality in a racist society. For those of us, especially white folks (sorry, I disagree with you on this hilzoy) who think that church/worship can be divorced from the political in the US, just check out who you are worshipping alongside. Chances are, if you’re christian, you are participating in a a racially or economically segregated group. Ironically, this is far less likely to be true for Muslims…go figure.
Black people don’t go to church “just” to worship; the act of “worship” is itself a social practice that is tied up with rituals and feelings of belonging. Being black matters a whole lot at TUCC and is part of that experience. If you don’t like and have an affinity for black people, you can’t worship there. That goes for white folks, black folks and others. By the way, you all really really should do your homework about TUCC. The depictions, even among the more sympathetic posters here, are stereotyped and so completely inaccurate as to be unrecognizable. I would know because I am a member of that church.
Every time there is a discussion about the relationship between religion and politics for black people in the US, the same pernicious and racist ideas are reared and played out in the media and among white liberals: that black people are mindless sheep, who cannot think for ourselves, and who are controlled by our all powerful male religious leaders like Farrakhan, Wright, King et al. Check yourselves, please.
If Obama cannot defend the rights of Black people to worship as they choose, he will lose our respect, even as he will lose in the run for presidency. And yet, as we are seeing right now, many white people are just crazy afraid of black people who have a positive self-identity. I would rather Obama lose and come out of campaign looking like a person of integrity rather than someone willing to condemn their own grandma (and pastor!) in order to get a vote. That’s just disgusting to me.
“Be honest, Slarti: before he got his name thrust into the limelight very recently through no doing of his own, did you even know who David Patterson was? Heck, I live in New York, and wouldn’t have been able to identify Spitzer’s Lt. Gov. to save my life!”
“And no, until recently the name of David Patterson was, to me, just as obscure as that of Jeff Kottkamp.”
Um, no offense, but apparently you guys still have no idea who the former Lt. Gov., now Governor, is.
(Well, you’re hot, anyway.)
(And one can’t have lived in NYC very long without knowing Basil Paterson, although one could certainly miss his son if one knows nothing whatever about the State government, which is to say, ~94% of the population.)
Branch Rickey asked, no pleaded, no demanded, that Jackie Robinson take all of the crap the Enos Slaughter’s of the world could dish out during his rookie year.
Jackie did.
Mr Rickey was a very smart man. He knew how to get Robinson through that primary year.
But after his first year with the Dodgers, after having stayed above it all, and agreeing with Mr. Rickey that staying above it all was the best way to forge change, you did not want to be the guy covering second or third with Jackie Robinson coming in hard, spikes up, aimed at your shins, your crotch, and your throat.
You did not want to be the pitcher when Jackie Robinson was on third, dancing half way down the line during the stretch and into the wind-up, and you did not want to be the catcher when stay-above-it-all Jackie made you look like a pantsless Barney Fife when somebody finally figured out to throw you the ball.
By the time the ball got to home plate, Jackie had scored and was in the dugout and even Enos Slaughter, well maybe Solly Hemus, said to himthemselves that’s how you play the game.
As to Michelle Obama, a number of years ago a black man (I’m sorry, I don’t recall his name) was named manager of a a major league team after lots of back and forth about his suitability and a few problems in his past, blah, blah, blah, and one day soon after a reporter stuck a microphone in Frank Robinson’s face (he having broken new ground as the first black manager of a major league baseball team in 1975) and asked him what was up, how come this guy got the job … and Frank took it all in and looked at the reporter and said:
“The guy got a job. What exactly is the problem?”
Russel,
Down in flames, I think not. He’s going to get Wolfowitzed whether you guys think a million bucks is no big deal and a huge increase in salary is common.
Two l’s in Russell. I’ve never met a real live Russell who spelled it any other way.
Thanks.
Wolfowitzed, nothing.
Obama is going to be Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored, John O’Hara’d, McNamara’d, Rolling Stone and Beatled till he’s blind.
He’ll be Ayn Randed, nearly branded, Communist cause he’s left handed.
That’s the hand he uses, well never mind.
Or, whatever the current version of all of that is.
Obama is going to be put through more wringers then you have ever imagined in your faintest dreams. His wife’s raise and whatever relation they bear to any earmarks he may have brought back to Illinois are just the tip of the iceberg.
The Rezko proceedings are sure to be full of entertainment for us all.
That’s the way we do things here in the good old USA. Thanks for playing.
My issue with you isn’t that you’re bringing accusations against Obama. My issue with you is that you quote a couple of paragraphs from Dan Riehl and expect us all to go “Oh, snap!” and then stand back in admiration at your wit and wisdom.
You need to bring more to the table.
Thanks –
Off topic!
I was googling The Dwarves and got AstroBoy , which is pretty cool.
That’s what the choir at my ideal church would sound like. Mind you, I am aware of some of The Dwarves other songs, and I completely disapprove of them. And I wouldn’t play those songs for my children, or take my children to a Dwarves concert, either.
“!) So I started flipping around to other local stations. It was everywhere. It’s a good ad and if he is saturating the Pittsburg market the way he is saturating the Philly market he is going to own PA.”
Radio ads are, unsurprisingly, far cheaper than tv.
Um, my.
“I can’t imagine sitting in a pew for 20 years and listening to those kinds of comments.”
How familiar would you say you are with African-American culture?
If anyone’s interested, this is the Chicago Trib‘s verdict on Obama and Rezko. (You probably need to register to read it, if you haven’t already.)
Oh, my, Tracy Morgan just gave quite a reply to Tina Fey on “b*tch is the new black.”
Also, OCSteve.
Incidentally, I’m just back a while ago from the Boulder County Democratic convention, which I was going to say something about (which I don’t want to do at my own blog, because I have local political folk who might read it, and I’d rather be honest. :-)); but there isn’t an open thread. Oh, well.
Gary: please, feel free to use this one. 🙂
Can I copy a comment from another blog? OK, no , but anyway at Althouse they are discussing whether wearing a veil empowers Muslim women:
You’ve gotta love that, even if it is from Trooper York.
Oh and also this link was there:
which I am all for.
I am supporting and behind Kristen.
crr – can’t you read your own quotes? “Below asking price” is not the same as “below market price.” If you have ever bought a house, you paid less than the original list price, am I right? Everybody asks for more than they can get, everybody lowers the asking price.
Has anyone on this list ever paid MORE than the original asking price for a house? IF so, did you feel a bit foolish in retrospect?
Obama said it was a dumb move because the guy who he split the purchase with was under criminal investigation at the time. That WAS dumb, for a politician. The reason it was dumb, is that it gave people like you the opportunity to create guilt-by-association scenarios, and ignore the actual facts.
“I can’t imagine sitting in a pew for 20 years and listening to those kinds of comments.”
How familiar would you say you are with African-American culture?
Well, that’s the problem, innit, Gary?
Not a whole lot of imagination of how to deal with other subcultures, of how non-whites actually FEEL, of how other groups might use righteous anger in ways other than they’re used to in order to motivate, of how—
Aw crap…folks haven’t learned much since the 1960s, have they? Same old BS, without even bothering to change the wording…
I love it when people who are upset about Rev. Wright say, “It’s high time we had a national conversation about racism in this country.”
I’ve got news for them: We’re having it. And it’s not going particularly well.
Trilobite — in the community where I live, at the time we bought our house (2002), the standard thing was for houses to sell above their asking price — it was not unusual for “bidding wars” to occur raising the price substantially over asking. We paid approximately 5% over the asking price for our house and did not feel foolish about it. In this time of declining values it is still worth more than what we paid. (Hopefully that will remain the case going forward, all I can do is cross my fingers.)
Gary: How familiar would you say you are with African-American culture?
I’d say not very, or rather that the African-Americans I know fairly well would probably not be considered representative of this Chicago congregation. But for me I think it’s more a matter of being unfamiliar with the church/religious culture. What I know of it is second hand – via my FiL. Based on discussions with him, I find the concept to be rather strange. As a peer group, they seem to exert an awful lot of pressure in shaping his life. That is, he makes most if not all decisions in his life based on “what the people at church would think”. I have to admit that is a totally alien concept to me.
But understanding how influential such a group can be is the reason this whole thing bothers be a little. I’ve said a couple of times that the negativity coming from the campaign bothers me (building a market for hope) and now I think that the basis for it (at least partly) is this church.
Again – not a deal breaker, just something I find a bit bothersome.
[i]It’s not so much the images of Wright. It’s the images of Obama’s back-slapping and whooping congregation buddies.
2. Move forward with damaged goods in the form of Clinton and [b]experience riots[/b]and the loss of the black vote.[/i]
Shorter Bill: N****rs sure is rowdy.
The Modesto Kid: That was the experience when my wife and I lived in the DC metro area as well, and were thinking about buying a house. The very act of listing a house would usually generate an average of 10 offers in the first 72 hours, all of them above the asking price. That persisted for a good 3-4 years. But DC is an unusual combination of demographics, zoning and demand that results in that kind of weirdness.
“Well we have to be sensitive to people’s religious concerns. It would be same thing if someone in Barack Obama’s church is caught talking to a white person. You could understand how the congregation would shun them. We have to be respectful of other people’s cultures and religious practices.”
That’s from DaveC, quoting Trooper York. Since there are white people who go to Obama’s church, I fail to see why DaveC posted this unless we are supposed to be appalled by the white racist ignorance on display.
I’ve said a couple of times that the negativity coming from the campaign bothers me (building a market for hope)
OC, can you unpack this a bit? I’ve read it a couple of times now, and I’m not following.
How is “building a market for hope” negative?
Thanks –
OCSteve: Often, things you write make me recognize assumptions I hadn’t brought to light, for which I thank you. (This is utterly non-ironic.) In this case: I was assuming (based on everything I’ve read, especially his first book) that his church would mean a lot to him, as a community, but that he is, in general, the last person on earth to rely on any community to tell him what to think.
It’s one reason I thought my church experience might be relevant, though obviously it differs in a zillion ways: I always took it for granted that it wasn’t my church’s job to form my political opinions. (I mean: it might do so indirectly, the way any experience, and in particular any experience involving a set of conversations, might, but it wouldn’t do more than that.)
I took this for granted because for all my many faults, not being able to figure out how to come up with political opinions for myself has never been among them. This was as true when I was 15 and looking for a church as it is today. I’m not in need of someone, or some community, to tell me what to think, and if someone tried, it would be pretty unlikely to work.
Again, I don’t think Obama and I are alike in a lot of ways, but I think we are probably alike in this one. Lack of independent-mindedness is not his problem, and I can’t imagine any community playing the role you describe, for him.
Again, this is how I imagine him, so I’m not saying something like: I am necessarily right. Just: this is how I was thinking about it. But I hadn’t made this part clear to myself until I read your comment.
russell: How is “building a market for hope” negative?
If the main product you are selling is “hope”, then convincing people that everything is a mess is building the market for your product. That’s not to say this is anything new or that Obama’s campaign is doing anything other than what politicians have done since the first caveman convinced his tribe to let him be chief.
I just don’t agree that Obama’s main message is positive or uplifting. His main message (to my ears) is that “your life sucks right now, but I have a big old bag of hope right here”. I understand that other people aren’t seeing this the same way – but that’s just my opinion.
hilzoy: for which I thank you
My pleasure. 😉
Actually FWIW I don’t think that Obama’s opinions are controlled by his church. But belonging to a congregation is a foreign concept to me and what I know of it comes via my FiL. His church does control his life, to an extent that I find downright scary. So that shades my thinking on this I’m sure.
He doesn’t have to manufacture discontent–even despair–with the way things are right now. Obviously I’m speaking for myself here, but I don’t think it’s just that: have you been following the “is America on the right track or wrong track” polls in recent years? They basically plummeted after 2004 & have remained there. Here’s a chart
I’m jumping into the conversation in midstream, because I’ve been too busy too keep up with these threads. But I can’t pass by without responding to the idea (from OCSteve) that Obama’s message is “negative” because:
His main message (to my ears) is that “your life sucks right now, but I have a big old bag of hope right here”
First, a disclaimer. I have a lot of baggage around people calling other people “negative.” I’m not going to launch into a long autobiographical digression, I’ll just say that I spent a lot of my earlier life around people who felt — insistently and sometimes in my opinion after the fact abusively — that naming a problem was “negative.” Hence the elephants — the whole zoo — in the living room could never be addressed, because even just mentioning that it was there was “negative.”
I say that to (try to) make it clear that if I edge off into snarkiness, it’s not aimed at you, OCSteve (I don’t feel that way about what you write here), but flowing along on the energy of my own past experiences.
Bottom line: People don’t need Obama to tell them that “their lives suck” — as you put it. Or even if their lives don’t suck yet, they may start sucking any day now.
Between the war, the economy, the fear of climate change — in more concrete terms, stuff like the price of gasoline rising visibly practically every day, and raising the price of just about everything else along with it; severe cuts in services for people most in need (happening now, where I live) — the list could go on and on.
It isn’t negative to say aloud what’s happening, and invite people to come together to deal with it. In fact, that’s just about the most positive thing I can think of. Obama’s idea of “hope” seems to be firmly tied to the notion that “hope” comes from rolling up our sleeves and working together to deal with the (pretty much eternal and universal) fact that life tends to be a mess.
How about this: Wright’s comments are a boon to Obama. He gets to denounce (etc.) his pastor’s statements, which gets played in the media as “disowning” his pastor, thus distancing Obama from any statement the pastor has made that might be seen as controversial, even if Obama might agree with them.
Maybe that’s too crazy.
Also, being depressed about the state of the country & thinking your own life sucks aren’t synonymous. Obviously a lousy economy is going to make “wrong track” #s worse, but I think what first drove them into the cellar was:
(1) Iraq
(2) Katrina
Intriguing, the opposed perspectives from which OCS and I approach Obama’s appeal.
This in a context of an apparently not-wholly-divergent manner of speaking of the experienced world. Our differences are doubtless manifold, but we both are able to feel at home here, and often see or at least acknowledge differences, to speak and to be spoken to by a community of voices.
But to those who see things as OCSteve describes them, Obama is ‘in the game’ for the same self-interested low-minded reasons we would both associate with a lower form of life.
By contrast, others here see in Obama the embodiment of extraordinary qualities we associate with the best, balanced in, given the scope of his vision, a deeply admirable way. An outrageous embodiment of possibility that things must not necessarily head for Hell in one big handbasket.
An alternative to sorrow and regret while looking toward humanity’s future.
As before, yet again; having just become an official senior, any political idealism I’ve retained has found no nourishment, or at least none immediately memorable, since the excitement over McGovern. And that was a puff of warm air through a crack in the door compared to the fresh wind of change coming in the window now.
Always interesting how differently similar eyes can see things. (hoping you don’t feel tarred with my sharing a brush.)
“Gary: please, feel free to use this one. :)”
Thanks. It was last night, after I finally got home, that I was really too wired to do other than talk about it, though.
Uh, let’s see. I got to shake a lot of hands, including several congressional reps, former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, and more state officials than I can count.
The slightly embarrassing moment was when this fellow shook my hand and said “Hi, I’m “this name,” and I hadn’t recognized him until then, despite my knowing perfectly well what he looks like.
I just hadn’t expected to find him at the other end of my hand, which was silly, really, because half the Democratic state politicians were there.
There was a great deal of disorganization, and very bad organization, and everything ran over 5-6 hours late, which made just about everyone but me mad, it seemed. I just expected that as a sure thing.
I was particularly amused to sit back and nod quietly and patiently while several people bitched like mad to me, as a sympathetic listener, because it’s usually me bitching, but I’ve learned not to have high expectations about these things; b) I’ve long learned that while all the bitching may be correct, it doesn’t do any good now save where there’s something left to change.
And in this case, few of the problems were last-minute fixable.
Although the most amazing moment came for me during our breakouts in Congressional Districts to elect our delegates, finally, as the last order of business, to the CD and State Conventions next month, and it turned out that, aside from all the other wacky non-procedure, the following was going on:
We were given written ballots with the names of everyone who had gotten in their paperwork by March 10th. People self-nominating at the Convention were to stand up, and say their names, so everyone could write them in, if desired.
But nobody thought of having people sign, or identify themselves, on their ballots, until I pointed out that there was no possible way to validate them, otherwise, or do a re-count, or prevent someone from submitting 20 ballots, otherwise.
The experienced people running the meeting looked shocked and surprised when I ran up and pointed this out quietly. (The ballots should have required us to put in our Convention ID numbers, as well.)
So they belatedly announced a signature requirement. Sheesh. Genius.
Moreover, the people running our CD meeting were also simultaneously plumping for their own organization’s ticket (“Grassroots for Obama”), and seemed utterly unaware that that’s was a complete conflict of interest, and that it was utterly wrong to, as officials, be telling people to please vote for this particular slate, and why we should.
It was largely of a par like that, so I’m glad I wasn’t seriously interested in advancing in the process.
And there was, of course, all the silliness.
I have a shiny new apple, from our millionare Congressional candidates, with the unlikely name of Jared Polis. He can afford many apples.
But I’m supporting his opponent, former State Senate President Joan Fitzgerald.
I have to say that at least two Obama people were rude, though, regrettably.
One interrupted former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb’s speech for Clinton towards the end by shouting “In conclusion….” That was just rude.
The other did something similar, I forget what.
It’s true that Webb went on for about 20 minutes, rather than the 5 he was entitled to — which also happened with the Clinton representatives at the precinct caucuses too — but still, not nice. We all have to work together in the end, most of us hope, no matter who the candidate is.
Oh, then there was the mother-daughter team running for the state convention dressed as bees….
“We’re the B Team!” With bee deely-boppers, and all yellow and black striped costumes.
Then there was the 8 year-old on stilts, with signs for Obama on each stilt.
And there was a kid maybe 13 that I pegged to several people as our future governor.
He was asking *everyone* if they’d like an Obama sticker, ma’am, sir?
Something like, ten times each, he’d ask everyone, over the course of the day. He was a [verb]ing steamroller.
I also got to feel Very Old, talking to all these kids — some of the delegates were literally teenagers, including my ~20-year-old co-Precinct Captain, who seems like a wacky combination of a Zapatista-supporting Young Republican (which I didn’t want to say at my own blog) — and I ended up in various conversations where I was literally being asked stuff like “Gary Hart — what year did he run again?” and “remember when Walter Mondale ran against Ted Kennedy?,” and the like. (Yeah, that latter never happened, if you were wondering.)
And so on and so forth.
OCSteve: “But for me I think it’s more a matter of being unfamiliar with the church/religious culture. What I know of it is second hand – via my FiL. Based on discussions with him, I find the concept to be rather strange. As a peer group, they seem to exert an awful lot of pressure in shaping his life. That is, he makes most if not all decisions in his life based on ‘what the people at church would think’. I have to admit that is a totally alien concept to me.”
Me, too, but the same is true for me of lots of normal stuff lots of folks believe.
In this case, though, I was referring largely to understanding part of why African-Americans may hold some anger over their contemporary treatment in American society on a day-to-day basis at times, as well as the recent past, as well as the more distant past.
I tend to think that the more familiarity one has with the African-American, or simply dark-skinned, experience in America, both in my lifetime, and even right now, the more one understands being angry about it to one degree or another, and being apt to take it out and share it more when not around pale-skinned people who are apt to, please forgive my characterization, clutch their pearls and wonder Why These Folks Are So Angry, And Isn’t It Disturbing?
It’s actually more than reasonable anger, and it doesn’t actually result in many riots these days. It’s a highly good thing to try to learn more about the basis of that anger, in my view, and a good thing to try to get past any defensive feelings (hey, I and my family haven’t taken anything away from any other folks!) that might otherwise be engendered.
But it’s only my view, of course.
Obama also doesn’t strike in the least as someone prone to relying on what a mass of other people think to figure out what he thinks.
I support Obama, felix culpa, but I sure don’t see him as you do. I don’t necessarily blame him for running away from Wright, or rather, I blame the country more. Though maybe he (and I) are misjudging the country.
In a better world (by my lights anyway), Obama would have said “I disagree with some of the specifics my pastor has said, and in other cases I think he could have expressed his views without giving unnecessary offense, but fundamentally, he is right to be angry at many of the things America has done at home and abroad.”
Obama could, of course, do a much better job than I can expressing those sentiments. But anyway, Obama apparently feels that many voters are too childish or immature to hear “radical” points of view–they are unable to stop and wonder if Wright might be making legitimate points, even if they don’t like how he does it. So Obama distances himself from his pastor’s remarks and doesn’t dare do what hilzoy did in part 1 and maybe, from the viewpoint of winning the election, this is the correct decision. Frankly, I hope this is a political calculation, but it depresses me to think that this is what I consider to be the more optimistic interpretation.
To be fair, Obama is running away from his pastor’s remarks, not the pastor himself. I would prefer that Obama say that his pastor is making some legitimate points, perhaps not in the best way to reach some Americans who need to hear it.
But my advice would probably sink his candidacy.
Modesto Kid — fair enough, I sometimes forget just how intense the sellers’ market was for a few years. No offense intended.
But most of the time, the price goes a little down, not up. That’s for houses, not necessarily for lots — I don’t think it’s strange that Rezko paid full price for the lot, and nobody has found any evidence that it was some kind of special favor for Obama. In fact, there was a competing buyer for the lot, but not for the house, which both explains why the price of one but not the other went down, and tends to confirm that the lot was worth buying, no special explanation needed.
IIRC, the house had been on the market for quite a while, because it was an awkward size/price, which is why the owner was trying to split the house and lot in the first place.
Basically, the deal shows that Obama is a good negotiator and problem solver.
Oh, and: “I’ve said a couple of times that the negativity coming from the campaign bothers me (building a market for hope) and now I think that the basis for it (at least partly) is this church.”
I don’t see any basis for that in the slightest, except pure imagination by you, I’m afraid.
There’s more than enough horribly negative out our nation as it is, let alone after 7+ years of G. W. Bush.
And that’s without even touching on the African-American experience.
With respect, OCSteve, maybe you’re just sensitive about hearing America spoken of in critical, let alone harsh, terms?
Which would be unreasonable. America has been a great force for good in the world, and also responsible for the slaughter of innocent millions of people around the world over the past century or so, even if we just started with the Phillipines Insurrection, and went on through all the foreign interventions, and foreign oppressions we supported and aided (need I list dozens of names of countries and dictators and wars and revolts and slaughters?) and didn’t count anything like mere human chattel slavery, genocide, or Jim Crow apartheid, on CONUS.
It’s equally important to be fully aware of the details of both the good and bad America is responsible for: not just one, if you’ll forgive me slipping into lecture mode.
There’s an awful lot of both. One could spend a hundred thousand hours listening just to lectures on the good or the bad.
Feeling all pearl-clutchy at the truth isn’t a useful approach for understanding the truth.
Sounds like Christian heaven is a place where all ‘whites’ are castigated for the plight of all ‘blacks’ through eternity.
That promoting and perpetuating institionalized black ‘outrage’ and white ‘blame’ is still alive and well in most AA churches?
Which half of the chicken has come home to roost – his black half or his white half?
What about the number of blacks and Asians board-of-directors, those who decide the policies of Fortune 500 companies, including who becomes the CEO ? Although still disproportionate to the general population, blacks and Asians have been quickly increasing in number over the past decade. African-Americans now hold 8.1 percent of the board seats on Fortune 500 companies. And the percentage of Fortune 500 companies with Asian or Asian Pacific Islanders increased to 15% in 2006 from 11% in 2005.
So, blacks who make up about 12% of the population are still under-represented (but catching up), and Asians and Pacific Islanders, who make up about 4% of the populations, are over-represented.
Why are Asians doing so much better then Blacks, not only in appointments to Fortune 500 directorships, but across the board, in almost all professions? Does the ‘White Male Power Structure’ like them better? Or are there other factors involved – like differences in ethnic educational values, for instance, and more willingness for Asians to play the ‘let’s get ahead on our own merits game’ instead of the ‘blame the generic white male game.’
From all us agnostic-atheists, amen, brother…
And, yes, community service organizations are good options to engage in community work to help people (I recommend the Lions Club; our primary mission is to aid people with vision problems, and though meetings are generally opened with the pledge of allegiance, you’re not required to recite it; and those of us who are free-thinking non-believers are free to leave out the ‘in god we trust’ part).
And here’s an interesting follow-up on Obama’s campaign contributions (“Its a little tin box, a little tin box, that a little tin key unlocks.”) and his $2 million dollar home purchase (“But I know I’m a lucky man, God’s given me a pretty fair hand, Got a house and a piece of land, A few dollars and a coffee can.)
Donald, I don’t want to convey any loss of critical faculties (even as those losses no doubt exist). I respect Obama for his qualifications, and admire him as one opening the window.
My principle disquiet may be with him seeming too perfect. Imperfections of judgment don’t signify catastrophic failure as a matter of course, though under the various magnifying and distorting glasses of the campaign, most bets are off.
Deep inside me something is cringing against the day his clay feet turn to mud. Something else is patting its back and saying Don’t worry it’ll be okay you’ll see.
Can’t say I’m really sure of anything. My enthusiasms are often misguided. But Obama rings more properly-tuned bells than I would have imagined possible. To this ear.
Indeed:
Here’s the audio of the interview. Here‘s the text. Here’s confirmation that “Previous owners confirm Obama’s description of home sale.”
Feel free to bring this clearing of Obama’s name to everyone’s attention, Jay. We Obama supporters appreciate your spreading the word as widely as possible, so I hope you’ll continue to do so. Thanks!
“That promoting and perpetuating institionalized black ‘outrage’ and white ‘blame’ is still alive and well in most AA churches?”
So it’s your view that there is no significant racism against dark-skinned folk in America today, and that anyone who claims otherwise, or “blames” anyone for such a thing is “racist”?
It seems clear that, regardless of whether or not it’s fair to label you a “racist,” you are blind enough to genuine racism, and its contemporary effects, and confident enough of your opinions in asserting that white racism, and being angry at white racism, are equally important and wrong, that your opinions about racism in American demonstrate little or no knowledge of what an actual minority or discriminated-against experience is like, and specifically that you have no clue whatever as to what the African-American experience is like.
That you are prone to breaking into denunciations of African-Americans for their alleged “racism,” while you simultaneously find it difficult to refer to Senator Obama other than with terms like “his skinny little rump” doesn’t add to your standing in being able to knowledgeably discuss the African-American experience, or to lecture African-Americans on how to behave in less uppity fashion.
I googled “Obama wife earmark” too, hilzoy, and the first news story I saw at the top of the page reported this:
“Sen. Barack Obama requested $8 million for a military defense contractor that has close ties to one of his most prodigious fundraisers.”
Guess there’s more than one pig’s ear in Obama’s pot to explain.
And earmark or no earmark, Michele Obama received a lucrative promotion within months of the time her husband became a US Senator — don’t you find that at all… er… coincidental?
Could someone please release from captivity the response I wrote to Jay Jerome?
Thanks.
“And earmark or no earmark, Michele Obama received a lucrative promotion within months of the time her husband became a US Senator — don’t you find that at all… er… coincidental?”
Jeebus, Jay, it’s fortunate there are no questions about the Clintons financial dealings, or her tax returns, or donors to his presidential library, or….
Obama has run an amazingly high-minded campaign; he hasn’t gone near any of this stuff.
It’s not really a line of questioning that favors Senator Clinton, this “I suggest there are underhanded and suspicious financial dealings of the candidate that should be investigated more, and we should make as many unsupported innuendos about it as possible,” approach.
But, fine, everyone should be as sensitive as possible to the appearance of financial improprietry, and the Obamas and Clintons should be equally fully forthcoming. I’ll be happy with the results of that.
When the Clintons release their financial information, tax returns, library donor info, and make themselves available for as many hours with the Chicago Trib reporting staff and editorial board, that is.
When’s that scheduled again, please?
felix culpa: “But Obama rings more properly-tuned bells than I would have imagined possible. To this ear.”
But it’s starting to sound like a lot more clunkers in the tune.
I agree 100% with that, Gary.
So, if the police track down a thief who robbed a house near Sunset Blvd. they shouldn’t charge him with the crime until they catch another thief who robbed a house near Vine Street?
G. Farber: “It’s equally important to be fully aware of the details of both the good and bad America is responsible for: not just one..”
I’m on a roll of agreement with you, Gary– now if you’ll kindly forward that advice to the Rev. Wright, and his successor at Trinity Church, that would be helpful.
Aaaaaaand Jay Jerome goes ahead and plays the “n*****s is stupid” card, confirming a) my decision not to interact with him is the right one, and b) yeah, he’s a racist.
felix culpa: Intriguing, the opposed perspectives from which OCS and I approach Obama’s appeal.
What I’d ask you to understand is that I’ve always been skeptical of politicians. And now I have lost my entire party. I am kind of floating out here. I hate the thought of McCain or HRC winning. I like Obama, I think he is a fantastic speaker, but the “hope is not a plan” business is getting to me. I’ve blindly voted for president before, and that got us Bush. I’m trying to be more critical this time. Still – it is Obama by a mile at this point.
we both are able to feel at home here, and often see or at least acknowledge differences, to speak and to be spoken to by a community of voices
Absolutely. This is where I spend 90% of my online time.
hoping you don’t feel tarred with my sharing a brush
Not at all. I thought it was a great comment.
Gary: I really appreciate your blow-by-blow descriptions of the process. I mean – it scares the heck out of me that this is how we actually do this – but I find your first-hand experiences invaluable. Please keep it up.
With respect, OCSteve, maybe you’re just sensitive about hearing America spoken of in critical, let alone harsh, terms?
Oh definitely. Feel free to call me Pavlov’s Dog in this respect. There are certain things that get my back up – and then I don’t always consider what is being said. It’s like you walk up to me – slap me in the face – and then want to talk about the price of gas… I know you have a valid point to make, but it is lost on me by that point.
if you’ll forgive me slipping into lecture mode
Wait! You have another mode?!? (I keed, I keed…) 😉
Simple: I don’t tend to categorize people that way, but others do, and do so in a way that’s quite hard to miss, even if you’re trying.
There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Understood Steve. Thanks.
*tosses OCSteve imaginary life raft, and also some bottled water, sunscreen, a change of clothes, and nice home-made cookies. Thinks: floating no fun at all.*
*Gratefully catches it all, climbs in raft, applies sunscreen, changes clothes, drinks half the water, and then sets out to try to fish for a cow using home-made cookies. (Hoping the cow comes with a hibachi, cutlery, and a baked potato.)*
😉
Jay:
“Which half of the chicken has come home to roost, his black half or his white half?”
That’s a pretty good question.
Tell me first which half of the chicken you think robbed the house near Sunset and which half you think robbed the house near Vine, and I’ll tell you which half of the chicken was minding his own business at the time but is under suspicion for robbing both houses.
Obama’s white half didn’t seem to mind his black half nodding his head in Church at Wright’s sermons. Both of your white halves (though it would be hilarious if you turned out to have two black halves; now THAT would be the threadjack of all time) seem to have a problem with it, not that both of my white halves don’t have a question or two.
What I really love about America (OCSteve, I see the promised land! ;)) is that a white man, Bill Clinton, gets to be the first black President of the United States, but if Obama, the black man (I did a poll of taxi drivers in D.C. with the help of Thomas Sowell; 92% of taxi drivers (even half white/half black drivers) would not pick up the white half of Obama because it is connected to his black half, which is why Thomas Sowell dresses as a plate of sweet and sour chicken when he’s hailing cabs), wins the Presidency, he’ll only be the
second black man to hold the office and the 44th white man to hold the office.
Jay, like felix culpa, but even more so, I know I’m going to be disappointed by Obama.
What else is new?
But I’m hoping with the inevitable bad news comes a fully rejoined chicken with a wishbone in the FDR pot.
If Clinton wins the primaries, with help from her husband, Aretha Clinton, I’ll vote for her even though I’m pretty much already disappointed with her previous chicken recipes, which are known quantities and a little bland for my taste.
Both are better than any Republican turkey coughed up so far and George W. Bush and the Republican Party have so been so foully corrupt and such a colossal bunch of bird droppings on the shoulders of the American people that I’d be a dodo not to want them to spend a good long time in the wilderness without a chickenless pot to pee in.
Hold the squawking, Ugh. I know I don’t deserve a feather in my cap when I’m such a quack in the pun game.
*would toss imaginary cow, but fears that flying cow might swamp life raft, and cause all sorts of havoc…*
I was appalled to learn that Jeremiah Wright bases his church’s views on “Liberation Theology” which developed in Latin America, particularly in Nicaragua in the 1970’s and 1980’s (refer to his interview on Fox News March 1, 2007). Liberation Theology was practiced by Catholic priests in Latin America and was one of the primary causes for the various guerrilla movements and civil wars that tore Central America apart in the 1980’s. This theology promotes among other things hatred amongst social classes, much like the hatred Mr. Wright seems to be promoting among races in the United States.
If he has been Senator Obama’s pastor and “spiritual leader” for 20 years, it is beyond me not to make a connection that Senator Obama must share some of these views which, as Mr. Wright states are a basic foundation for his church.
Latin voters should pay close attention to this. These hatred policies such as Liberation Theology have ripped apart Latin America for decades and are one of the main causes for the influx of Central America immigrants to the U.S., escaping the damage caused at home. This should not happen to the United States.
Let’s stop Obama now! This is too serious a matter to ignore and take a risk on.
Jesus Thullen… How do you do that time after time? I feel like I’m not worthy to even read your stuff much less dare to post a comment on the same thread.
But please keep doing it anyway. The coffee I just spit into my keyboard joins a few other mouthfuls. At this point when I get a new one I just tell the sales guy that my last one got “thullened”.
Latino Voter: Your wilful misrepresentation of liberation theology and its role in Latin American politics is appalling, ridiculous and politically motivated. And no, calling yourself a “latino voter” does not make your comment any more legitimate and thus not subject to question. Folks who want to know about liberation theology need to go do their own homework and come to their own conclusions.
Latino voter, could you provide some links for your assertion that Liberation Theology was the cause for civil war as opposed to oppressive policies by the regimes themselves?
And what precisely is the difference between Liberation theology and what was practiced with respect to Poland and John Paul concerning the Soviet Union?
Read several Jay Jerome comments.
Get up walk away from computer.
Come back ready to scream the facts to him so he gets off his hate wagon.
Realize it will do no good.
Give up.
Decide to say to OCSteve, who does listen and well, that I agree that “hope is not a plan.” But also that the plans that Obama does have will get nowhere if there isn’t some degree of hope behind them.
My problems are with those who say that Obama is just rhetoric without substance and talks about hope but hope alone gets you nowhere. That isn’t what he is about.
OTOH, you have Clinton supporters ytalkign about her substance, such as in healthcare where she supposedly has mandates. Of course, her plan does not have mandates in reality, so it is just rhetoric.
Or her portrayals of foreign policy experience, which may in actuality amount to 10% of what she claims it to be, therfore it is mostly rhetoric without substance.
Or her plans to freeze mortgage interest rates to help people, which is totally unconstitutional and therefore goes beyond just rhetoric to rhetoric that can actually hurt people.
McCain is another rhetoric without substance type of person, except his rhetorical skills are so bad, it doesn’t matter anyway.
John: I agree that “hope is not a plan.” But also that the plans that Obama does have will get nowhere if there isn’t some degree of hope behind them.
Awesome line John. Seriously. It made me stop short, and now I have to reconsider some things. Obama could do a lot worse than using that line verbatim.
Hold the squawking, Ugh. I know I don’t deserve a feather in my cap when I’m such a quack in the pun game.
Actually, that comment was so good I’ll forgive you.
Jay, the Obamas have released their tax returns and financial information, and Obama just sat for hours with the Chicago Trib.
But you know that. You have no interest in applying the same standards to the Clintons that you do to Obama, or anyone connected to him, and we’ve long established that.
OCSteve: “but the “hope is not a plan” business is getting to me.”
Reread the Cass Sunstein piece, and reread Hilzoy’s posts on Obama’s substance. I don’t see any basis in Obama’s hugely substantive approach for falling for such propaganda that he lacks substance, other than that you still seem extremely prone to believing implausible and baseless accusations from rightwing sources, and I really won’t be at all surprised if you find out before November that Obama really just does have shockingly disappointing qualities after all, and that you’ll just have to vote for McCain.
I’m not expecting that, mind. But I’m not going to fall over dead of shock if it happens, given your propensity for seeming to buy into so many of these claims, although certainly you don’t go for any of the truly outlandish ones.
Thanks for the nice words about my few remarks about our Democratic process here. You have no idea how many times I heard endless numbers of people, yesterday, saying to others variants of “I’m not a member of an organized political party, I’m a Democrat,” and agreeing that we have an ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory that can never be underestimated, and generally bitching and eyerolling.
One fellow I let vent to me for half an hour about how dumb caucuses were, and why couldn’t we just elect national delegates proportionally, and skip all this, and it was all so badly organized, and so forth, and at the end, he shook my hand, and said I’d made coming worthwhile, as I’d given him all these good reasons why caucuses were good ideas after all, and why Democratic ones worked differently than Republican ones, and the like. So that was nice. I had a number of encounters like that, which were nice.
It was easy to avoid the few annoying people, mostly, because there were very few.
Except for this one really loud woman, who complained about everything, and knew my new pal, Gillian, who gave me a ride home, and thus I got to hear all of it.
But she left a trail of pissed off people behind her, complaining about everything, and how they should have done it all her way.
She also had a lot of loud opinions about lots of other stuff, mostly fairly ill-informed. (Like, how her independent group didn’t have to report contributions unless they made a profit, which ain’t the way the FEC or IRS see it, if you cross their attention.)
I gently suggested 3 times that profit had nothing whatever to do with it, but she wasn’t in any kind of “listening” mode, as I believe it’s known.
So I gave up, and just nodded a lot.
More later.
OCSteve, thanks a lot. I am not usually created with “awesome lines.” But the sense remains true.
“I was appalled to learn that Jeremiah Wright bases his church’s views on ‘Liberation Theology’ which developed in Latin America, particularly in Nicaragua in the 1970’s and 1980’s…”
This is completely off the mark. Many of Wright’s statements and views are based on Black (Liberation) Theology, which stems from the writings of W.E.B. Dubois and other PanAfricanists active during the early and middle parts of the last century.
Liberation Theology is a Catholic spin-off, which has nothing to do with Wright’s Protestant denomination.
I assume you’re a troll who is busy peddling this misconception on numerous blogs, which is very sad.
Why do I suspect that “Latino” in this instance = “Cuban”?
Some of you writers remind me of the idiots in Germany in 1933 when they excused Hitler of associating with madmen. Hitler simply didn’t know how crazy they are they said. Hitler will unify Germany, they said. The same thing you are saying about Obama. He didn’t know his personal friend, advisor and pastor for 20 years hated America, hate white Americans and was happy to see white people suffer and die on 9/11. By the way, before Hitler gained power he too distanced himself from Julius Streicher who wanted to kill every Jew everwhere. Hitler said the same as Obama.”His views are not mine.” It’s amazing to me how moronic Americans have become. You people deserve Hussein Obama.
You forgot something Mae. You should have added that there is no substantial difference between “The Audacity of Hope” and “Mein Kampf” since both are about the up-hill struggle of people not naturally destined* to be world leaders.**
*as seen by the majority
**in case that anyone did not get it: This is sarcasm/snark and a violation of the golden rule of DNFTT.
Hitler will unify Germany, they said.
he was a uniter, not a divider.
I see no greater unifying message than that of freedom, peace, and prosperity, and that is what this campaign is all about.
oh, wait, that was Ron Paul.
the triumph of dope over expedience?
whoops, I meant hope over experience.
oh what a tangled web we weave
if first we rationalize, then believe
Yep: just like Hitler.
Except for the insanity, and the master-race bit, and the it’s-the-fault-of-the-Joos routine. Oh, and the toothbrush moustache, and the stint in prison, and the skin tone. Other than those trivial differences, just like Hitler. I mean, he even has the same number of chromosome pairs as Hitler. I figure we should bring him up on genocide charges right now, before it’s too late.
For the benefit of those of us who follow US politics from afar, can somebody (preferably the author) clarify what the “mae collins” comment is intended to convey?
Does the choice of name refer to Addie Mae Collins and, if so, is it just a joke in poor taste, or is there a serious point being made – or both, a tasteless joke to make a serious point?
Gary: I don’t see any basis in Obama’s hugely substantive approach for falling for such propaganda that he lacks substance, other than that you still seem extremely prone to believing implausible and baseless accusations from rightwing sources…
Most of the propaganda I hear these days is coming from the Clinton campaign. I’m sure she would appreciate the irony of being labeled a rightwing source. 😉
… and I really won’t be at all surprised if you find out before November that Obama really just does have shockingly disappointing qualities after all, and that you’ll just have to vote for McCain.
Gary, my choices are voting for O or sitting it out. There is literally nothing that could get me to vote for McCain.
The vernal equinox is fast approaching, so if this thread keeps going it will soon be … Springtime for Hitler!
Try not to mention the war.
I believe that in the responses to this post you have a statement of the casism that still exists in the country over how we look at race, what we each see as “radical speech”…what is pro or anti american. Sen. Barrack Obama is an intelligent, good human being, certainlly qualified for the presidency. Whether he is the most qualified or not is for the American people to decide. But as americans we will not be able to make real progress on the issues at hand until we all are able to honestly assess what is true, what is racist, what is right, etc..sometimes it seems that 6 of us can be looking at a event and come up with 6 different ways to explain what happened. and please, please , lets stop this idea that only Mr. Obama is getting grilled on these issues…There have been several other people that have been scruitized over there religous beliefs…and not being real about does not make that not a fact..
Or getting slapped with racist/sexist charges.
It’s another form of the Oppression Olympics, which i have a distaste for. Measuring who got more oppressed than who deflects attention from trying to undo that oppression (at least in my experience).
So anyway, the “God Damn America” stance might appeal to people like Michelle Obama who gets paid $313,000 as a PR person
A black woman whio rises from middle class America is supposed to say “Thank you, massa!” How dare she be so uppity!
===========
What I really love about America … is that a white man, Bill Clinton, gets to be the first black President of the United States, but if Obama, the black man … wins the Presidency, he’ll only be the
second black man to hold the office and the 44th white man to hold the office.
Dick Gregory did a great riff on this. We already had a “black president”! What do blacks have to be angry about? (It’s the white’s “turn” agian, isn’t it?)
What’s amazing is how white Americans defend blacks who despise and hate them. Obama’s wife was given every opportunity that’s possibe to give anyone of any race. And it’s still “God damn America.” No love or respect for the country that made her success possible. Instead, you get the stupid response of a white who justifies her hate and sarcastically says, she should say, “Thank you Massa.” Get real people and judge people by their actions and words and not their race. When people are God damning you and your country, listen to what they are saying and stop rationalizing hatred.
No Mae, I’d rather look for common areas of agreement. When a pastor says that the US has been guilty of supporting terror and should be condemned for this, I say “Amen, brother”.
Actually, that’s not true.
They may hate and despise YOU…but no one person represents their entire ethnic group (ego inflating as it may be).
Or you get the stupid response of a white who whines, “Amen, brother.”
Or you get the stupid response of a white who whines, “Amen, brother.”
Snap!
Well played, mae. Although I doubt Donald was whining.
Look, black people are pissed off and frustrated about a lot of things. They have good cause to be.
It’s all good to say that race shouldn’t come into it, but race does come into it. Black people aren’t treated the same as white people. They put up with a lot of crap that white people don’t.
If you want to judge by actions, White’s ministry in Chicago appears to have a long and solid reputation for constructive action in that city. So, there’s that.
I, personally, think White’s comments as excerpted in the videos we’ve all seen were ill considered and unhelpful. Perhaps self indulgent, given his office. We all get pissed off, but folks with public positions shouldn’t really use their office to vent.
Also, I’d say he was skirting dangerously close to endorsing a candidate, which I believe is against the law. Haven’t seen that mentioned here.
All in all, not a wise moment for Rev. White.
But factually they seemed pretty much right on. At least, arguable.
People get pissed and spout off when they shouldn’t. Happens every day. But it’s hard for me to see the overall ministry and work of White and see a hater.
As always, YMMV.
Thanks –
Spare me the “Oh the oppressed black” crap. Since the early sixties the blacks have been offered every conceivable opportunity no other ethnic group (Asians, Hispanics) have. Still there’s nothing but hate rhetoric from black leaders like Obama’s personal friend and advisor. It’s time blacks listen to responsible blacks like Bill Cosby who is a real American and is begging for blacks to go out and take responsibility for their lives. I’m sick of listening to the Al Sharptons and Rev. Wrights of the world crazily blaming white people for all the ills in the universe. The insanity of it all boggles my mind. Please no more of that “you don’t understand the crap they put with” bull. Never yet heard an Asian or Korean spout that nonsense. In fact, I’ve never heard any immigrant say “God Damn America.” The Mexicans, Koreans and Asians I know all say “God Bless America for this opportunity.” I have no time or good will for people like Obama’s advisor and friend who “God damns me and all Americans.” To me, it’s incredible that people like you support them.
…because they’re just like Hitler.
Gosh: why on earth aren’t African-Americans like all other immigrants?
I can’t think of a single reason why…
Except, of course, for the not being immigrants part.
I mean, it’s almost as though America hadn’t welcomed them with open arms after they bravely decided to come here in search of a better life than they could find back home on the Gold Coast.
Sheesh.
Sorry, no can do. Not when stupid people insist on treating blacks differently than whites. And other stupid people insist that it doesn’t happen.
And it really isn’t incredible that some people who happen to be white understands this.
You’re going to be hearing it again, and again and again because it happens to be occurring right here, right now. And plugging your ears and singing “la, la, la” isn’t going to change it.
Hm. Seem to recall hearing the same sort of words aimed at “Negro sympathizers” in the 60s and 70s.
By the way. Get to know more people. You’re shockingly ill-informed.
“Gary, my choices are voting for O or sitting it out. There is literally nothing that could get me to vote for McCain.”
Okay, then my fear is that you’ll disappoint me by finding plausible reasons to be too worried about Obama to vote for him.
I don’t really think you will. I think you have a ton of sense when you think about things for a bit.
And I know well about only figuring things out after a day or two or three or more.
But good to know about you and McCain. 🙂
(Me, I wish the guy an extremely happy retirement, maybe with lots of visits with the Doles, or even happiness in a continued Senate career, where he can continue to annoy more conservative Republicans. :-))
Never yet heard an Asian or Korean spout that nonsense.
An Asian or Korean?
In defense of OCSteve I’d like to say that the mere fact that there is an Osama hype makes me suspicious too, since my default setting is to distrust anything that is hyped. My alarm bells tend to ring also when someone is touted as a “moderate” (admittedly that mainly happens with GOP nominees for sensitive positions). I’d would at least see it as a reason to doubly check the background and stated intentions (and look for discrepancies).
All other candidates at the moment doing everything posssible to make themselves unelectable might help (Clinton going dirty and the Son of Cain going Hagee would be sufficient). I am not a US citizen (or resident), so I can just hope for a good or at least tolerable outcome. An Edwards/Obama ticket would have appealed to me (with an Obama/n.n. ticket as a future option) because it could have served as a testbed for the “untested” O.
Mae, I’m just devastated by your cogent reply. You forgot to refute what I said, but I’m sure that was an oversight.
I used to know people like this growing up, the defensive sorts who were constantly on the lookout for reasons why anyone who said anything about white racism against blacks was actually a racist or hypocrite.
HArtmut, please tell me that the last word, first line was an unintentional typo.
DJ, you are really being much too curteous to mae.
She is unread, does not want to check things out, and merely repeats hateful things she ahs heard elsewhere.
And it is obvious she really has no desire to learn the truth of things. She is best ignored.
ok.. so who whacked the troll’s nest?
As followers of Jesus Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit, true Christians say and pray “God Bless America,” and many are now saying and praying “God Please Help the US.”
However, the Holy Spirit of God would never inspire a true follower of Jesus Christ to say or pray “God Damn American” in any context, much less as part of a taped public sermon in front of children.
Holy Scriptures say to test the spirits (1 John 4:1). Reverend Wright obviously has a fiery spirit that is condemning at times, particuarly when he curses our nation in public sermons. It is certaintly not Christ-like or characteristic of the Holy Spirit.
Sentor Obama apparently does not say or pray “God Damn America,” but the crutial point is that most of his life has trusted and tollerated this particular pastor. Although Reverend Wright is retiring, he will remain as Senior Pastor, and his replacement essentially agrees with him in spirit and truth, and Senator Obama must agree with him in spirit.
There is reason to not trust the spirit in which Reverend Wright said the things he said, and so there is reason to question the spirit leading the youthfull Senator Obama as a professed Christian and prospective president of our nation. May God’s Holy Spirit be our guide.
Hope Page: http://itsallaboutjesusnotme.blogspot.com
So tempting, but IWNFTT