I'm a Pundit Too

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Is Reverend Wright Sabotaging Obama's Campaign?

Is the Reverend Jeremiah Wright purposely sabotaging Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign? After weeks of not hearing a word from Obama’s former pastor, and the media playing a real life version of “Where’s Waldo”, Wright resurfaces to give an interview with Bill Moyers, and deliver speeches at the NAACP convention and the National Press Club. The furor over his controversial statements in his sermons had almost completely died out. What would draw this man back into the limelight? Some have speculated that the good Reverend was hurt by his most famous parishioner’s remarks in Philadelphia on race. Others have suggested that he was upset about being pushed into the shadows by Obama’s campaign. I believe that Reverend Wright believes that there is nothing wrong with his outrageous comments and that he deserves to be in the spotlight, even at the cost of an Obama presidency.

I know the Obama loyalists will attempt to persuade us that there has been no damage done to their sainted one, and that this issue is behind them. The facts, unfortunately for the Obama camp, tell a much different story. Obama’s lead in North Carolina has quickly evaporated over the past week. One poll even shows Hillary Clinton winning North Carolina. Clinton is now leading the polls in Indiana as well. This coming Tuesday will show the true measure of the Wright fiasco. If Obama wins big, then he may finally be able to say that it is in the past, but if he loses or barely squeaks out a victory in a state that he has enjoyed double digit leads, he may as well start packing up his campaign. The Clinton camp will have more than enough ammunition to use to persuade super delegates to switch sides.

Obama believes that he has adequately separated himself from Reverend Wright, but a simple glance back at his statements and positions on Wright’s comments causes more questions to arise. When the first videos of Wright’s sermons were aired, Obama claimed to have never heard these statements and to have been absent from church on those particular Sundays. A few short days later the story had changed slightly to the party line that the words were taken out of context. Then he claimed that Wright was like an uncle that occasionally made outrageous statements, but that he couldn’t disown him. A few days later his pastor was asked to leave the campaign as an official advisor. Last week, Wright shows up on TV and not a word from Obama. Wright goes on to the NAACP convention and makes some of the same comments made famous by the video sermons, but silence from the Obama campaign. Wright goes on to the National Press Club and makes the same claims that he has made many times before, and Obama is now offended.

What took the Senator so long to become offended? There are reports that the campaign conducted polls after the Press Club event and the poll results are what spurred the press conference to denounce Wright. Even if those claims are not true, why did he wait until now to denounce his pastor? After 20 years of listening to this man preach, why were his comments of this week so surprising? If we assume that Wright was not always so controversial, the sermons over the past few years that were made public two months ago contained the same controversial claims that apparently offended Obama a few days ago. Obama’s waiting game calls into question his integrity. Is he really a candidate of change and hope? Or is that just campaign smoke and mirrors to hide the true nature of the man? This whole mess could have been behind him months ago, if he had handled it properly, but as Reverend Wright pointed out this week, Obama is a politician and will say what he needs to say to get elected.

1 Comments:

  • I used to like Obama, he seemed the best choice, but I really dislike how he went back and denied that he had any ties to Islam - it's stupid because his father was Muslim and you have this guy trying to plead with everyone that he has nothing to do with Islam. It's sad that he has to ignore and deny a part of his ancestry just because a few racist and narrow-minded Americans can't get the difference between a religion and some fanatics that use the religion for their own purposes (sounds familiarly like the US).

    Anyways, I think Reverend Wright is being demonized too much, a lot of what he said was pretty accurate - not the CIA aids stuff, but the stuff about how we involve ourselves in foreign affairs that have nothing to do with us, and how we do fund acts of terrorism and attrition. There's too many people living under a rock, too ignorant to accept that America is overly aggressive.

    Anyways, Obama is still the best choice - Hillary would be horrible, MCCain's a racist lunatic hell-bent on profiteering, and well the only other option is Ralph Nader - but let's be honest, he's not going to win.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, At May 5, 2008 at 11:36 AM  

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