Obama Denounces Wright

Barack Obama just finished an extraordinary and much needed press conference, in which he denounced Jeremiah Wright's insulting performance at yesterday's National Press Club - insulting to the American people, the political process, as well as Barack Obama.

Obama said he found Wright's statement that AIDS was introduced into the African-American community by the US government "ridiculous," and Obama took exception to Wright's praise of Louis Farrakhan. But most significant was Obama's denunciation of Wright's mocking of the political process in which all Americans are now engaged.

Obama distinguished between Wright in the Bill Moyers interview and Wright at the National Press Club in Washington yesterday. I found the Moyers interview helpful - as I wrote here on Sunday - as did Obama. I also found Wright's talk to the NAACP in Detroit on Sunday to be informative and entertaining.

But Wright's performance at the National Press Club yesterday was appalling. Far from putting the sound bites that ignited this controversy in context - as Wright did in the Moyers' interview - Wright in Washington yesterday stepped up his insults and contempt for the American people. Obama was completely right to describe these as "ravings".

Obama needed to do this. It could not have been easy. But he stepped up to the camera, denounced and divorced Wright, and answered every question.

His hope is that the remaining primary campaign can now return to a focus on issues that need resolving - the economy and the Iraq war. Wright will no doubt not go quietly. But Barack Obama has shown he has the steel to do what was needed in this crisis.

Rev. Wright in Better Context in Bill Moyers PBS Interview

I just saw Bill Moyers' lengthy interview PBS interview with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - Barack Obama's former paster, who has been the center of considerable controversy for his "God damn America" and other inflammatory statements.

I urge everyone to see it, because the sound bites that the media have presented, up until now, have taken Wright's comments seriously out of context.

Let's look at his "God damn America" sermon, as one example. Now, I think America is the most free country in the history of the world. Despite its many flaws, I feel happy and lucky to be living in the nation that Thomas Jefferson helped create. So those three words, taken on their own, were and are highly offensive to me.

But Rev. Wright did not say those just those three words in his sermon. He started that part of his sermon with a list of nations whose abuse of power, whose attempts to act like God, made them "fail". He mentioned Germany, Japan, Russia, and England (actually, the British Empire).

Then he got to America. He spoke of our massacre of Indians, our enslavement and auctioning of blacks, our enforcement of their poverty, poor education, second-class citizenship even after they were finally freed during the Civil War. And clearly, when you see that entire part of his speech, Rev. Wright is damning not America but those things that America did. And who would disagree with that? Who would say that there is not a crucial difference between America's finest ideals - "all men are created equal," as said in the Declaration of Independence - and the scourge of slavery and racism? Who would say that slavery and racism should not be damned?

Now, I might have put the phrasing a little differently were I making such a speech. I would have said slavery and racism are perversions of America, distortions of what is said in the Declaration of Independence, and God damn those destructive perversions of the beautiful American dream.

But that is nonetheless what Rev. Wright meant. That's clear when we see the whole passage and not just a clip.

The media, as a whole, have once again in this campaign done Americans a disservice by presenting small pieces of sermons out of context. Kudos for Bill Moyers and the Public Broadcasting Service for doing the right thing. As Jefferson the author of our Declaration of Independence foresaw, the free, open flow of information eventually brings out the truth.

PS added on Sunday (April 27) evening: I saw Rev. Wright's speech given to the NAACP in Detroit. I found it sage, inspiring, and highly entertaining.

Further Thoughts on Obama's Speech on Racism: Its Lasting Significance, and the Need to Keep Politics and Religion Separate

I offered my first impressions on Tuesday of Obama's speech on racism - I said it struck me as an extraordinarily frank and important step forward in America's struggle to understand and overcome racism, and may in the long run make the damage done to Obama's campaign by his relationship with Rev. Wright insignificant.

I've tried to let this settle in. Here's what I think about all of this now:

1. I'm more convinced that ever that Obama's speech was a major, unprecedented, and ultimately enormously helpful breakthrough on racism in America. I think we'll be seeing the good consequences of Obama's probe of racism - of whites to blacks, and blacks to whites - for years to come. It's nothing but helpful to get these issues - the resentments, the ways of talking and thinking - out into the open, on the table. Obama's speech has been compared to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream," but, in some ways, Obama's may be even more important in our current day and age. King's was a magnificent plea for justice and hope and courage. Obama's was the beginning of an astute analysis, a dialog, for just why that's so difficult to accomplish. Both are surely needed. But what Obama has contributed was pretty much missing until now.

2. What of Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright? It occurs to me that our wise Founding Fathers were at their wisest when they insisted on separation of Church and State. Politics and religion do not mix well, because the first is completely public, and the second, in its deepest and more important elements, is private. All I need to understand is Obama's - or any candidate's - political positions. Not their religious beliefs and actions. This is because I don't think I really can understand anyone's deepest religious beliefs, or lack of, except my own and those of close members of my family. In my case, for example, I'm culturally Jewish - my family and I enjoy celebrating the holidays. I don't put much faith into the religious teachings. I wouldn't put any rabbi's advice above any other person I deemed to be intelligent. My deepest religious beliefs are transcendentalist - similar to Ralph Waldo Emerson's - that is, I think that if there is a divine force in the cosmos, it expresses itself through every human being. I recognize that there is much that I and no human is likely to ever understand - such as what existed before the beginning of the universe - but I don't know if that recognition is something I should pray to.

So - what does this have to with my political views and actions? Not much, as far as I can tell. And I think Obama's similarly have little to do with kind of President he would be. True, Obama's pastor Wright did make outrageous political statements - such as America getting what it deserved on September 11 - but there is nothing in Obama's record that suggests that he agrees with such a view even in the slightest.

So I am comfortable with leaving Obama's religious beliefs and actions to Obama, and judging what he does, and says he will do, politically.

And, on that score, Obama's speech about racism leads me to believe he will be a great President. I hope the people who are voting in the remaining primaries, and then the super delegates, see that. And I expect America as a whole will see that in November.

Barack Obama's Speech about Racism in America: First Impressions

I just finished seeing Barack Obama's speech about racism in America, delivered in Philadelphia. It was the most extraordinary speech I've heard about racism - about its roots and realities in black and white America, about the legitimate grievances and fears of both communities - delivered by anyone, let alone someone running for President.

Obama also talked about Rev. Wright. I don't know if Obama can ever give a satisfactory explanation for why he kept this man as his pastor for so many years. Obama cannot now go back in time and undo that. However much he now condemns what Wright said, however much Obama wants to stand by him as a friend and a human being - none of that can change what Wright said, and Obama's relationship with him for so many years.

Bur Obama's speech this morning was so important, so courageous and perceptive in what it addressed, that Obama's relationship with Wright may no longer matter.

As Obama stressed many times, America can never move forward unless those issues are publicly addressed - reverse discrimination, which whites are, and feel they are, subjected to; and discrimination, which blacks are, and feel they are, subjected to. Both of these realities need to be considered and discussed in our political campaigns. Otherwise, we will indeed never move forward.

Barack Obama has been presenting himself as a new kind of candidate. He demonstrated that eloquently, magnificently, today, and certainly showed why any American who truly wants to move into the 21st century should vote for him.

See also: Further Thoughts on Obama's Speech on Racism, and the Need to Keep Politics and Religion Separate

Obama and the Demented "Uncle"

Barack Obama said on MSNBC's Countdown tonight that the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. - pastor of Obama's Church, and a longtime religious mentor - was akin to an "uncle," a member of the family, who says something that "you really disagree with"...

Here's some of what this "uncle" has said ... September 11 was "chickens coming home to roost" for America ... "God damn America" ... and, about the Clintons, "Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty." (You can see it all on YouTube videos.)

Obama has said he deplores those statements. He says he was not present at the sermons in which they were made. Wright, as of this evening, no longer has any connection to Obama's campaign.

Where does that leave us?

1. Obama and Wright are not the same person. Nor did Obama ever endorse any of Wright's statements. And Wright's statements never went out under Obama's name (as racist statements did under Ron Paul's).

2. But the fact that this raving hater was Obama's mentor for so long remains a concern. Obama's denunciation of Wright's statements is welcome, but it does not explain or excuse their long spiritual relationship.

Human beings are flawed - including those who run for President. No President or candidate for President has ever been perfect. Obama's gifts are no less inspirational today than they were last week.

But Barack Obama has taken a hit from the vicious, intolerant statements of his pastor. He will have to work that much harder to prove he is the best person for President.