Obama and the Audacity of Damage Control

Senator Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech yesterday in Philadelphia attempted to stem the tidal wave of negative publicity generated by the release of videos and audio of his Pastor's sermons, alternately damning America and slandering Whites and Jews. While the Illinois Senator's gifted oration is acknowleged without question, what remains unanswered is the effect that this speech will have on his campaign for the highest office in the land and the effectiveness it will have in distancing himself from the vile bloviations of his deranged cleric.

The full text of the Senator's speech is contained here.


It's guaranteed that Obama's flowery prose delivered in the City of Brotherly Love will be discussed, analyzed and re-analyzed by the media and its pundits over several news cycles. For me there are several things about the speech. I offer my humble impressions of the subtext to the Senator's message.


Obama starts out with a short history lesson about the founding of the country two hundred and twenty-one years ago by patriots who began our Constitution with the words, “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.” made official their "improbable experiment in democracy." Obama tells his listeners that the Constitution, "was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations."


Obama's free ride for white supporters hoping to be absolved of the nation's original sin ended with that statement. Then Obama provides the listener with a way out from the burden of guilt by rightly pointing to the ultimate triumph over injustice.


Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.


And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.


The Senator transports us back to the unfulfilled promises of equality and the days of the civil rights movement.


This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.


Obama now tells his listeners that his candidacy has been about race and views it as an extension from the days of the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties. Obama has here-to-fore run as the post-racial candidate but now reveals that when he looks at America he sees great racial, ethnic and economic divisions in the country and states that the country does not have enough of the freedoms that have made it great. The country needs more justice, more freedom, more caring and gosh-darnit, more prosperity.


Coming from the leading candidate of a party which has worked long and hard to capitalize on, magnify and create strata upon sub-strata within our society of different identity groups these are strange words indeed. First, remind people of their differences, then present yourself as the unifier of the masses.


The Senator goes on to flatter his listeners by stating that he has, unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.


Obama then goes on to present his bona fides as a uniter based on his unique view of the world begining with his mixed heritage and moving on to his extended family, life experiences in being raised in a poor country and educational experiences that take him to the pinnacle of academic and professional achievement.


Then the Senator gets to the crux of the matter; Jeremiah Wright.


I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. 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.


But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.


The Senator tries to equate the hate-filled remarks made by his confidant and Pastor with spiritual disagreements you may have with your Minister, Priest, Rabbi or Imam. Nice try Senator but the detestable rhetoric spewing forth from Reverand Wright has little to do with the niceties of Liturgical interpretation.


Obama then refuses to disown Jeremian Wright and his crazy outbursts and even goes so far as to equate Wright's racist advocacy from the pulpit before thousands with the uneasiness he claims his elderly grandmother confessed to him when passing black men on the street. The Senator however omitted the context for his sainted grandmother's angst. Sweetness and Light quotes from Obama's first book, "Dreams from My Father" on page 46.

I took her into the other room and asked her what had happened.

“A man asked me for money yesterday. While I was waiting for the bus.”

“That’s all?”

Her lips pursed with irritation. “He was very aggressive, Barry. Very aggressive. I gave him a dollar and he kept asking. If the bus hadn’t come, I think he might have hit me over the head.”
I returned to the kitchen. Gramps was rinsing his cup, his back turned to me. “Listen,” I said, “why don’t you just let me give her a ride. She seems pretty upset.”

“By a panhandler?”

“Yeah, I know — but it’s probably a little scary for her, seeing some big man block her way. It’s really no big deal.”

He turned around and I saw now that he was shaking. “It is a big deal. It’s a big deal to me. She’s been bothered by men before. You know why she’s so scared this time? I’ll tell you why. Before you came in, she told me the fella was black.” He whispered the word. “That’s the real reason why she’s bothered. And I just don’t think that’s right.”

Obama omitted the part of the story where his grandmother had been bothered by aggressive panhandlers in the past while waiting for the bus. The woman obviously wasn't a racist since she loved and cared for him and his mother during the time of his mother's illness. Very convenient if you're trying to run your campaign as the "great uniter" of the masses.

Barack Obama has a disturbing habit of saying one thing before cameras and privately working against it in private or twisting events to suit the construct of political correctness and personal expediency. Barack refuses to disown his lunatic Pastor and completely disassociate himself
with his divisive church. One can only surmise that despite his public "denunciations" of "the statements in question" that the Senator implictly endorses the anti-American and racial world view of his Pastor of twenty years.

The Senator has defended Jeremiah Wright in the past and in essence his viewpoints and can be expected to continue to defend him in the future.