Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Obama’s problem has nothing to do with race
I have a problem with Barack Obama and it has nothing to do with race. To be honest, I don’t even think of his race until someone brings it up. It’s not something I identify him with. My problem with Barack Obama has to do with his judgment. It’s about choosing someone that says despicable, awful things to be his minister. To be his “moral compass”.
It’s an issue of judgment, not race.
I’m bothered that Obama would associate himself with someone such as Rev. Wright. The person I thought I was voting for in the Maryland primary wasn’t the type of person that would choose a dick like Rev. Wright to be his minister. Evidently I was wrong.
I’m also bothered that he would also expect anyone to believe his excuse that he wasn’t sitting in the pews when Rev. Wright said any of those things. That’s incredibly hard for me to believe. How stupid does he think we are? He had to have known that his paster of 17 years believed such things.
If not, he was incredibly duped.
He has used the analogy that Rev. Wright is like an uncle that sometimes says outlandish things. People don’t pick their uncles. People pick their pastors.
People also pick their candidates. It appears I didn’t do a very good job.
I’m heartened to see that liberals also aren’t buying Obama’s “explanations” regarding his long and very close association with the loathsome Reverend Wright.
I think most of them are Mark. It’s become very clear to me from perusing the liberal blogs and message boards that I am in the minority when it comes to Rev. Wright.
I’m with you, Rick - I don’t buy it.
But then, Obama was never my candidate.
What exactly is your problem with Rev. Wright? What did he say that was “despicable”?
Ryan, I know you weren’t asking me that question, but I’d like to offer an answer: I have difficult with Wright’s comments about Hillary Clinton, in particular. Wright states that Hillary “fits the mold” of rich and white, and continues on with statements about how Hillary has never had a cab pass her by because of her skin color, and Hillary has never been called the n-word. My issue here is Wright’s implication that Hillary has never suffered any form of discrimination or ill treatment, a statement which he shouldn’t be able to comfortably make unless he’s spent a considerable amount of time with her. And if he’s done any amount of reading on Hillary, he’ll know that she regularly receives insults that are sexist, misogynistic and homophobic (she’s been called a dyke multiple times, despite the fact that she clearly isn’t).
I think what happens here is that we risk getting into comparing victimology - “my experience of discrimination is worse than yours” - which Obama has publicly refused to do (see his response to questions fielded during the HRC / Logo panel discuss, specifically his response to “Do you feel that the Gay Rights Movement of today is parallel to the Civil Rights Movement?”). I think when a person chooses to make statements s/he knows are going to be inflammatory - and you can’t tell me that Wright didn’t know that - that is the sign of a person who is not as compassionate or careful as one might like to believe.
This Rev Wright story came out too early to help the GOP. If you think they won’t resort to The Race Card when the election is upon us, think again.
It’s only going to help the GOP if the superdelegates decide to make Obama the nominee. In that case, more and more of this type of stuff will come up. Its not like ABC News had to really dig to get these videos. They went to the church’s store and bought them.