The Best Discussions I've Heard on Reverend Wright

NPR has two current events programs whose hosts are Harvard-educated African American women: Tell Me More and News & Notes. And since I was away last week, I took the time over the weekend to catch up on some of the segments covered in my absence. (I am an admitted NPR junkie actually as they have so many programs that I try to listen to or download regularly. In fact, for people like me they have a mapquest-like feature for roadtrips that shows all of the NPR stations along the way between points A and B.) Listening from NPR's website is the best way to hear all the news, choosing only those segments that you want to hear, which is better than a podcast really, but I digress. Needless to say, both shows have offered some much needed perspective on the whole Reverend Wright blowup.

On Tell Me More, host Michele Martin had the best rejoinder I've heard yet about the sanctimony of the commentariat who claim that they would have surely taken a stand had they heard such language in church. Puh-lease! How many of us have sat mute in the presence of another--be they friend, family, co-worker, or stranger--who has uttered something offensive and we have chosen to say nothing. Martin makes the most cogent argument I've seen so far to tell folks they need to get off their high horses.

On another episode of her show, Martin had two scholars explain Black Liberation Theology and the possible context of Wright's sermons. They explained that the snippet we heard is most likely just part of a sermon in which the reverend is heard condemning the American government (which does not equate to white people) but in the end Wright would likely have offered hope of deliverance or uplift for his congregation. That is, if Wright had been preaching in the oratorical style of the Black church, the sermon was most likely not one long anti-American polemic. This type of fiery sermonizing in the Black church according to the scholars usually ends with a message of hope, but of course context and nuance are not what the U.S. media care to offer us.

Testify, my sister!

Peggy Noonan Gets It! Do You?

Peggy Noonan is one of my favorite political pundits. She is a conservative speechwriter and committed Republican from the Reagan years. But she is not some blowhard partisan who is unwilling to look at the faults and flaws in her own side (like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, etc.). It comes as no surprise that she is not a Hillary fan. But the beauty and clarity of her writing is such that even if I don't agree with her conclusion I can appreciate her line of reasoning and her perspective. Her column this morning illuminates Hillary Clinton's candidacy in a way that makes me wish I'd written it myself:

"But either you get it now or you never will. That's the importance of the Bosnia tape. Many in the press get it, to their dismay, and it makes them uncomfortable, for it sours life to have a person whose character you feel you cannot admire play such a large daily role in your work. But I think it's fair to say of the establishment media at this point that it is well populated by people who feel such a lack of faith in Mrs. Clinton's words and ways that it amounts to an aversion. They are offended by how she and her staff operate. They try hard to be fair. They constantly have to police themselves."

Her description of how the press may feel in covering Clinton is how many of us now feel about President Bush. We are so over him and his presidency and the mendacity of those he has surrounded himself with that we are eager to move ahead with someone new, just NOT someone named Clinton. I am so fearful of another four years of cynicism that I just cannot bring myself to support her. The press and the country are obviously ready to move past oligarchy if she would just get the hell out of the way, er, I mean, step aside.

The cable news channels have got to change!!!

I've decided that the media has trained us to rush through life...I wish with all my heart that we could get news with at least 10 minutes of information rather than 30 seconds. I have changed to watching CSPAN!

The View from Around the Web on Obama's Speech

Needing to address head on the repugnance felt by most Americans to comments made by his pastor of 20 years, Barack Obama gave a speech in Philadelphia and repudiated the divisive, anti-American tone of Rev. Wright's most extreme comments while standing by the man. Harkening back to the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, he built on the idea of what it means "to form a more perfect union" and deal head on with the nagging issue of race, describing it as America's original sin. Politically, he may not have gained the support of those working class whites with whom he showed great empathy in parts of his speech, but still, most are acknowledging it as the most profound speech on race since the generation of Martin Luther King Jr. Having written the speech himself, Obama put to rest any notion that his speeches are just words. Words do matter.

Below is a smattering of opinions from around the web. Most are laudatory, but Obama will always have his detractors.

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has a daily roundup of headlines from the newspapers and blogs. It's the first thing I read every morning, especially the day after a major political event. Naturally his column the day after Obama's speech was devoted to Obama's speech: "Barack Obama didn't take the easy route. The safe course would have been to just denounce the ugly comments of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and move on to a generalized appeal for racial unity. But he didn't do that. He said he could no more disown his pastor than he could his white grandmother. He talked about how Wright came from a generation of African Americans that was understandably angry about racism and segregation in this country. Then he pivoted and talked about white anger, about resentment toward affirmative action. He also took a couple of swipes at the media before reaffirming his belief that America can still make racial progress."

NY Times Editorial: "There are moments — increasingly rare in risk-abhorrent modern campaigns — when politicians are called upon to bare their fundamental beliefs. In the best of these moments, the speaker does not just salve the current political wound, but also illuminates larger, troubling issues that the nation is wrestling with."

NY Times' Maureen Dowd: "In many ways, Barack Obama’s speech on race was momentous and edifying. You could tell it was personal, that he had worked hard on it, all weekend and into the wee hours Tuesday. Overriding aides who objected to putting race center stage, he addressed a painful, difficult subject straightforwardly with a subtlety and decency rare in American politics."

Wall Street Journal Editorial: "In Philadelphia yesterday, the Senator tried to explain his puzzling 20-year attendance at Reverend Wright's Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, while also using his nearly 5,000-word address to elaborate on the themes that have energized his candidacy. It was an instructive moment, though not always in the way the Senator intended."

Shelby Steele in the WSJ: "The novelty of Barack Obama is more his cross-racial appeal than his talent. Jesse Jackson displayed considerable political talent in his presidential runs back in the 1980s. But there was a distinct limit to his white support. Mr. Obama's broad appeal to whites makes him the first plausible black presidential candidate in American history. And it was Mr. Obama's genius to understand this."

LA Times Editorial: "It may have begun as an exercise in political damage control, but Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia on 'A More Perfect Union' was that rarity in American political discourse: a serious discussion of racial division, distrust and demonization. Whether or not the speech defuses the controversy about some crackpot comments by Obama's longtime pastor, it redefines our national conversation about race and politics and lays down a challenge to the cynical use of the 'race card.' "

LA Times' Tim Rutten: "Just as every seasoned political hand in 1960 knew that, sooner or later, Kennedy would have to tackle the question of his Catholicism head-on, it's been clear for some time that Obama would have to speak explicitly to the question of race in this campaign. Still, polished orator that he may be, no one could have predicted an address of quite this depth and scope."

Washington Post Editorial: "Mr. Obama then described the resentment among some whites over affirmative action, busing, crime and a shrinking job base, saying those feelings also 'are grounded in legitimate concerns.' He talked about the need for whites to recognize the lingering problem of racial discrimination -- and for blacks to embrace the 'quintessentially American -- and yes, conservative -- notion of self-help.' "

Washington Post's Eugene Robinson: "Yesterday morning, in what may be remembered as a landmark speech regardless of who becomes the next president, Obama established new parameters for a dialogue on race in America that might actually lead somewhere -- that might break out of the sour stasis of grievance and countergrievance, of insensitivity and hypersensitivity, of mutual mistrust."

Washington Post's Michael Gerson: "Obama's speech in Philadelphia yesterday made this argument as well as it could be made. He condemned the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's views in strong language -- and embraced Wright as a wayward member of the family. He made Wright and his congregation a symbol of both the nobility and 'shocking ignorance' of the African American experience -- and presented himself as a leader who transcends that conflicted legacy. The speech recognized the historical reasons for black anger -- and argued that the best response to those grievances is the adoption of Obama's own social and economic agenda. It was one of the finest political performances under pressure since John F. Kennedy at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960. It also fell short in significant ways."

Politico.com's Roger Simon: "Where it was strongest was in appealing to the better angels of the American spirit: the notion that we can all come together. Where it was weakest was in explaining the very reason for the speech: how the inflammatory, even repugnant, comments of Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are understandable."

Can we get past race with politics?

Here is a man that presented a speech about his experience of being biracial and the best thing people get from it is that he threw his grandmother under the bus! I just can not wrap my brain around how focused people are in finding fault! Why are the standards that he has to achieve so much higher and demanding? I guess some will relate to this historic moment and some will not. Will he win the presidency? I don't know. Is what he said needed to be said? Absolutely! He put a lot of trust in the American people, black, brown, and white, to take the high road.

Now about Rev Wrights words being Anti-American. They sucked! But that is the beauty of our country! People have free speech and the right to disagree and think that our country has done and does bad things! I can't be sure, but because most Americans (mostly white) are not use to a black image saying such things. The man has become a threat some how? I can say those that condemn homosexuality and say that we are turning into sodom and gamora and God condemns America instills in me an uneasiness. Yet these preachers are not condemned. The opinions of this issue are part of the race problem. Can we fix it all now? No. But we can start by being more aware and objective and admit that prejudice exists on all sides? We need to recognize our own contributions to the problem! Is this what Obama wanted us to see? But if you look at him with untrusting eyes, nothing he has said will move you towards healing wounds...discounting the truths of race in this country could be Anti-American. Wanting to ignore that we have a problem is not the kind of American values for me! There is no answer to correcting the past...except to pass on to the next generation hope that we can overcome this problem that has been a weight on us all. I love my country. I love my freedom. I love my fellow Americans...the good and the bad that comes with all of it. I am thankful that the worst conditions I deal with is a few misconceptions of what I'm about.

Be aware of your own contribution to making change...Mr. Obama made us aware and once you are aware it becomes difficult to turn away.

The Best Speech in American History

The Proper Role of "Super" Delegates

Stanley Fish is a law professor and online opinion columnist at the New York Times. His column of March 16, 2008, entitled "Memo to the Superdelegates: No Principles, Please," takes up the question of whether the superdelegates should cast their votes according to some agreed upon standard. Ironically many pundits have characterized leaving the decision of who will become the Democratic nominee to the superdelegates as decidedly undemocratic. Fish points out many parts of our democracy that could be considered undemocratic. I would add to his list of our undemocratic practices the fact that electors from the states, choose the presidential winners in their states. Never mind that this led to Bush winning the presidency in 2000 even though Gore had more of the popular vote. And it also seems inherently undemocratic that voters in so called battleground states get disproportionately more attention from presidential campaigns than voters in non battleground states, defying the concept of "one man, one vote." And we all know that the Supreme Court intervened in Florida to effectively stop the voting recount in certain Florida counties.

I could not agree more with Fish's two concluding paragraphs. Editorialists and pundits are consumed with finding out from superdelegates by what standard they will vote at the convention. They feign shock and dismay that the "democratic" party has such a seemingly undemocratic process for ultimately choosing the nominee and that there is no agreed upon method for casting their votes. I for one would not want there to be such a standard. Let every superdelegate vote according to his/her conscience and political interests. That is the same democratic principle by which we all vote. Why should all "super"delegates vote according to some agreed upon standard that I myself would not submit to? That sounds like some Soviet-style election in which the outcome would be pre-determined. Being unable to predict the outcome of an election means that democracy is at work and not some super imposed standard that delegates must align with whether they like it or not.

As usual in close elections, the ultimate choice will hinge on how the undecideds break when their votes must be cast. This gives all sorts of anxiety to both Obama and Clinton supporters who believe that superdelegates should not use their votes to overturn the outcome of primary process in terms of pledged delegates or popular vote (Obama) or that the superdelegates should exercise their judgment and vote for the candidate who will be the best candidate to win in the fall (Clinton). We already know how many of the superdelegates will vote and Hillary has a slight edge, but it's total delegates that matter and the vote of a superdelegate is equal to the vote of a pledged delegate. There is little surprise that most of the undecided superdelegates wish that one of the candidates would break ahead in the count of pledged delegates so that they will not have be the deciding factor and perhaps pay a political price. This democracy thing can be so difficult!

Can We Please Acknowledge the Obvious?

So I was listening to one of my favorite NPR programs on WAMU in Washington, DC and the guests were discussing race and the Democratic presidential campaign in light of the comments of Geraldine Ferraro and the embattled Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick. In particular, a guest that day on the Kojo Nnamdi Show posited that Geraldine Ferraro's now infamous quote was meant as code to white voters like some of those in Pennsylvania who might look at Obama as an affirmative action presidential candidate, and, resentful of blacks who've benefited from the perceived lack of fairness in affirmative action in general, might actually reject Obama as just another black guy who's gotten ahead (of themselves) because of his race. Whew! That's a lot to read into one quote from a newspaper that serves a community in southern California "from LAX to L.A. Harbor!"

There are many ways to pick apart this whole flap and my finger would first point at the Obama campaign itself and their crackerjack opposition researchers who were no doubt scouring the web for some quote to be used out of context to make Clinton's supporters (and by extension, Mrs. Clinton herself) look bad. That this story got so much attention unfortunately proves that the Obama campaign has not transcended race and is all too willing to play the race card to score political points. They certainly hit paydirt with Ferraro and the Daily Breeze, but come now, it's not as if she'd spoken on Meet the Press and said what she said. A reading of the original article shows plainly what happended: ahead of a paid political speech to be given in Torrance, CA, a reporter from Torrance's hometown paper, the Daily Breeze, called Ms. Ferraro to get an advance story on what her talk would cover, which naturally included her take on how the Democratic primary race is progressing as well as her role in the Clinton campaign.

While it's true that Obama has not closed the sale with white voters (see this Washington Post Story on the subject) whose support he will definitely need to win the presidency, it is not true that Ms. Ferraro was acting as a campaign surrogate in making her remarks. She was giving her own political analysis of the Democratic race and naturally expressed some frustration that the candidate she supports is not the frontrunner. One might think that someone steeped in Democratic politics who is also a Fox News Contributor would have been more mindful of her remarks. While inartfully expressed, hers were not anywhere near the level of coded language that President Bill Clinton used in trying to marginalize Obama as a Black candidate following Obama's decisive victory in South Carolina. In fact if President Bill had stuck to the script, Hillary might have clinched the nomination on Super Tuesday. But instead the media spotlight on Bill's reckless comments moved Black voters (including this one) en masse to supporting Obama, who just a year ago was perceived as "not black enough" by many.

Let me say that as a 42 year old African-American male, I take NO offense at Ferraro's comment. It is a statement out of context that ignores her political record. And shame on the Obama campaign for injecting race into the campaign only to imply that Ferraro is racially insensitive. The Obama campaign played the media like a fiddle as the story reverberated for three days, thanks in large part to Ferraro having the temerity to defend herself in the same race-baiting media outlets that were happy to have a controversy to cover. But for anyone to believe that Ferraro--who has acknowledged that her gender was a principle factor in being chosen as a vice presidential candidate--meant that Obama's race is the ONLY reason that he has gotten so far is laughable. It is obvious that part of Obama's appeal is the very positive view of race that his candidacy represents. A reconciling of our past, ugly racial history with the potential of a post civil rights candidacy of this highly qualified African-American is embodied in Obama. Rather than suppose that Ferraro's comment was anti-affirmative action code directed at whites suspicious of Obama as a black candidate, let those voters speak for themselves. If Obama is as gifted and sincere as his supporters believe, then he should be able convince those voters that he is the genuine article. Merely to discount their votes as somehow impure or racially tinged is irrelevant. Our man needs to make the sale to all voters. That's what campaigns are for and if Obama can't convince his detractors to vote for him (how many weeks until the Pennsylvania primary?), then perhaps Democrats and superdelegates should pause and consider which of our two highly qualified choices is the one more likely to WIN in the fall.

The Mind-Altering Media...

I'm so disturbed by our media. It is so opinionated and slicing. I am forced to surf and surf to really get to the meat of an issue. Sound bites and clips always leave out the full story. It makes me wonder how much we all really know about these candidates. If anyone out there is reading this, do yourself a favor and watch an entire Obama speech, watch and entire Clinton speech and even John McCain and tell me how different an experience it is from catching the news after 7pm....

I'm a Barack Obama supporter and I do appreciate is style AND his substance.

I can appreciate Hillary's substance, but not her style.

McCain I disagree with most of the time and am not moved by his style. So there you have it.

This is why I voted for Barack Obama. If I were watching only the cable news, I would be lost to who said the wrong thing first or who better retaliated. I would have no idea who supports what. The pundants (sp) are so distant from regular America... the only thing I use them for is voting results and drama.