Obama: Excusing the Inexcusable

As the race and religion debate continues to swirl around him, Senator Barack Obama is having trouble keeping his story straight. His close relationship with his self-described spiritual advisor, Jeremiah Wright, has become a lightning rod for criticism and condemnation by people across the political spectrum. His association with the David Duke of the black religious community is causing Obama to attempt to excuse the inexcusable and justify the unjustifiable while contradicting himself in the process. 

On My Faith and My Church

“The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.” – – Barack Obama 03-14-08

I promptly labeled this the “ignorant boob” defense.  The “I didn’t know nothin’ “argument lasted about four days to be followed by the “everyone’s racist, throw Grandma under the bus, I knew about it all along but that’s ok” defense. 

Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.  – Barack Obama 03-18-08

This, of course, was a direct contradiction of his Sergeant Shultz Huffingtonpost statement issued just a few days before. I wish he’d make up his mind. Will the real Barack please stand up? Which is it? You can’t have it both ways. And will the press be as observant as myself or just swallow the excuses hook, line and sinker? The American people should demand answers and the truth about a major presidential candidate having a bigot as a spiritual advisor.

It would also appear that Mr. Obama is woefully uniformed on what actually comes forth from the average pastor, priest or rabbi. If anyone has actually watched the various clips of the good Reverand at his best it is amazing that Barry could stand ten minutes of that, let alone twenty-three years worth. My educated guess is that the fear of the possible (and probable) existence of a tape showing Barack nodding along to a radical and racist tirade by the good Reverend Wright helped him to change his mind in a hurry. So much for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, aura that the Senator from Illinois had been so careful to cultivate.

The increasing panic in regards to these most recent revelations and Rev. Wrights racist rants was almost palpable. Most of us could not get away with having a twenty plus year relationship with an anti-Semitic, anti-American mentor, but we are being asked to excuse that simply based on the candidate’s race and ‘rage’ at past injustices or something or other. The concept that African American pastors, and candidates, should get a free pass on disturbing behavior and speech simply because of their race is not an argument that I am willing to concede.

Either Barack Obama was just using Jeremiah Wright as a tool to gain acceptance in the black community all these years, or he actually believes this garbage and thought it was acceptable to expose his young children to such divisive and bitter sentiments, or he has just showed extremely and incredibly poor judgment over the last quarter century. I guess it’s just a case of picking your poison.

Certainly any of these reasonable conclusions casts some dark doubts onto whether or not someone like that is even remotely qualified to be the President of the United States. I am pleased that it wasn’t just me who noticed the flip flopping and ‘contradicting’ (to put it nicely) from He who can do no wrong. I guess in all the gushing, swooning and tear wiping over the new Gettysburg address, many forgot to ask the most important question of all. What about the lying and deceiving?

Buried in Eloquence, Obama Contradictions About Pastor

Buried in his eloquent, highly praised speech on America’s racial divide, Sen. Barack Obama contradicted more than a year of denials and spin from him and his staff about his knowledge of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s controversial sermons.

It increasingly appears that mere eloquence may be all it takes for one to find one’s way to the white house. The gushing in response to the throwing Grandma under the bus because we used to have to ride in the back of it speech was interesting to watch.Some have indeed been nearly giddy over Obama’s version of Mitt Romney’s well received Mormon speech earlier in the year.

“[It was] best speech ever given on race in this country… I think this is the kind of speech I think first graders should see, people in the last year of college should see before they go out in the world. This should be, to me, an American tract.” —MSNBC’s Chris Matthews

While others have been less than impressed:

“[Barack] Obama says Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright is no longer among his campaign’s spiritual advisers.’ Obama should not be asked which of Rev. Wright’s outrageous statements he disagrees with, but rather which ones he does agree with. That Obama remains a member in good standing of Trinity United Church of Christ indicates that he prefers the company of many people who have demonstrated that they believe what their pastor has said.” —Cal Thomas 

It remains to be seen if Sen. Obama managed to get the upper hand in this controversy while issuing enough reassurances that his crazy “uncle”  is just an excusable contradiction to his public persona that he has so carefully constructed over the last few years. While this may satisfy the faithful that he is not just an easily led empty suit rubbing shoulders with radicals and racists, the entire situation does put a few more doubts in the minds of the so-called ‘moderates’ who increasingly see Sen. McCain as the only adult in the race watching the children wrestle in the mud.

It does appear that this speech was all the Main Stream Media needed to excuse their favorite presidential candidate from his unsavory associations and more than questionable judgment in the matter. Whether this was ‘too little, too late’ remains to be seen and whether this episode was enough of an excuse for superdelegates to break for Hillary despite the protestations of their constituents will be an interesting thing to watch for at the Denver Democratic convention.