Redstate

By Jeff Emanuel Posted in 2008 | Obamafiles | Politics as usual | Rev. Jeremiah Wright — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Sen. BarackObama's spiritual mentor and pastor for over twenty years, source of the "HopeChangeHopeChange" mantra that has become the messianic core of his empty campaign, and giver of the Obama couple's nuptial vows, recently gave an interview to Bill Moyers about the recent dustup caused by the revelation to the general public that Wright has frequently used his pulpit to preach a racist, hateful, and intolerant brand of so-called "Christianity" to the members of his megachurch, including the surprisingly-not-so-post-racial Obama clan.

In the sit-down, one of the less-coherent segments of which was treated by RedState's absentee earlier today, the Reverend Wright made a very interesting comment about his former flock-member's Philadelphia speech on race and religion, made in the head of the Wright-gate media frenzy.

More below the fold, including video, and an accurate analysis from a most surprising source.

In that March speech, Obama claimed that the rest of the country (read: the white part) couldn't understand Wright's demonization of white people because they weren't black, and that those racist white people that make up a chunk of the American population, whose only crime was the color of their skin (sound familiar?), had a long way to go to become as "post-racial" as he was.

Perhaps most notable in that Philadelphia speech was Obama's refusal to throw his racist, hateful minister under the bus. Whether out of a deep, abiding agreement with the "God Damn America!" message offered by Wright, or out of a sense of obligation to the black-church pastor whose early tutelage and endorsement helped the not-quite-black-enough Obama gain the street cred he needed to first gain Chicago public office, Obama refused to denounce Wright, saying "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community."

Rather than pay back his star former pupil in kind, Wright used the Moyers interview to utter a phrase that served to toss Obama and his beyond-politics-as-usual campaign message under that same bus that Obama helped Wright dodge only a month ago.

Said Wright (emphasis added):

He's a politician and I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician and I say what I have to say as a pastor, those are two different worlds. I do what I do, he does what politicians do so what happened in Philadelphia, where he had to respond to the sound bites, he responded as a politician.

The video is here:

Now, I could, of course, use my own words to explain the obvious, major problem with this description by the man who knows Obama better than perhaps any other of how the supposedly post-political candidate thinks, acts, and speaks to the general (read: gullible) public.

However, it's just so much more fun to let the head-exploding lefties over at MyDD do it for me. So, quoth Todd Beeton (forgive the English in the quote, as he appears to be less than familiar with how to actually communicate in our nation's unifying language):

I don't know of a bigger slam against Barack Obama, considering the entire message and rationale of his candidacy, than to call him just "a politician" doing what "a politician" does. The implication, of course, is that any criticisms of Wright that Obama may have expressed in his speech, oh he didn't really mean them, he was just doing what politicians do. In other words: he's no better than all the rest of them.

Obama didn't throw Wright under the bus during his Philadelphia speech but...Wright very much did so to Barack Obama in this interview. What was Wright thinking and more to the point what is the Obama camp thinking not keeping this guy on a shorter leash? Have they learned nothing from the loose lips of their clumsy surrogates and advisors over the past couple of months? If this is the sort of message discipline the Obama campaign is going to insist on holding their friends to, i.e. none, then this is going to be a long general election campaign if he's the nominee.

Yep. And when it comes to evaluations of Obama's status-quo-politician status, I'll take this moment of honesty from the man who has been the candidate's spiritual adviser for two decades, even if he is a fire-breathing, America-hating racist.