Brilliant Fraud
Charles Krauthammer looks the big speech that Barack Obama gave this week and pronounces it a brilliant fraud. Harvard-tinged sophistry meant to misdirect listeners away from the real issues, the speech played on two major themes: moral equivalence and white guilt. Krauthammer is having none of it.
His defense rests on two central propositions: (a) moral equivalence and (b) white guilt.
(a) Moral equivalence. Sure, says Obama, there's Wright, but at the other "end of the spectrum" there's Geraldine Ferraro, opponents of affirmative action and his own white grandmother, "who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." But did she shout them in a crowded theater to incite, enrage and poison others?
"I can no more disown [Wright] than I can my white grandmother." What exactly was Grandma's offense? Jesse Jackson himself once admitted to the fear he feels from the footsteps of black men on the street. And Harry Truman was known to use epithets for blacks and Jews in private, yet is revered for desegregating the armed forces and recognizing the first Jewish state since Jesus's time. He never spread racial hatred. Nor did Grandma.
Yet Obama compares her to Wright. Does he not see the moral difference between the occasional private expression of the prejudices of one's time and the use of a public stage to spread racial lies and race hatred?
(b) White guilt. Obama's purpose in the speech was to put Wright's outrages in context. By context, Obama means history. And by history, he means the history of white racism. Obama says, "We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country," and then he proceeds to do precisely that. What lies at the end of his recital of the long train of white racial assaults from slavery to employment discrimination? Jeremiah Wright, of course.
Go read the rest, it is well worth it. For myself, my issues with Wright have nothing to do with the man's race, everything to do with his public venom spewed against this nation. If he is a role model for Obama - as Obama claims - he certainly is not one for a candidate who claims he can change things. Obama is supposed to be the healer. Wright is a divider and a serial America-basher.
By ted goldman, Friday, 21 March , 2008 @ 8:12 am
Since Obama continues to support his racist, America-loathing Pastor, we are left to conclude that Barack Obama shares these feelings. Certainly Obama’s wife Michelle hates America too, despite her many affirmative action benefits.
Obama is a fraud (Krauthammer) and an empty suit devoid of substance and conviction.
By FedUp, Friday, 21 March , 2008 @ 10:28 am
It appears that the ‘real’ Obama is finally emerging. It is scary to think that he and his lovely wife may occupy our WHITE House as the ‘leaders’ of our country. I certainly hope that the cooler heads of the American people will prevail and evaluate the substance of our candidates and not how well they can speak.
By martian, Saturday, 22 March , 2008 @ 12:32 pm
Let’s hope this means his halo is tarnished beyond polishing and it ends His Messiahness’s campaign!