When Wright is Wrong
I was willing to stick up for the Reverend Jeremiah Wright when clips were being played. I believe that it is relatively easy to misconstrue the meaning of a sermon by listening to a couple sentences. Immediately after the controversy, the Wright was conspicuously absent from the public eye. I think this was a good thing. I think that his return to the public stage by being interviewed on PBS’s the Bill Moyers Journal was also a good move. His interview with Bill Moyers was thoughtful and illuminating.
If all you wanted to do was tell your side of the story, you were done. You are finished. Clearly Wright had other things in mind. Exactly what these other things were, only Wright can tell us that. We could speculate it probably has to do with enjoying the national stage and/or wanting to cash in on his 15 minutes of fame. Again, I would like to stress that I do not know the Wright’s motivations.
Following the Bill Moyers Journal, Wright was the keynote speaker at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner. Wright took this opportunity to distance himself from the thoughtful pastor, we saw just 24 hours earlier. He was, by far, more over-the-top. Finally, his performance at the National Press Club was simply out-there. I’m not sure what he was trying to represent but he seemed to resemble some of the patients that I saw while working in the psychiatric unity that were off of their medications. I’m not the only one with this opinion. I’m not the only one in the black community with this opinion.
There is a rumor that Reverend Barbara A. Reynolds (pictured above) invited Wright to the National Press Club where she is on the selection committee. Interestingly, Reynolds is also a supporter of Senator Hillary Clinton. Therefore, the conspiracy theory goes like this: Someone in the Clinton camp asked the Reynolds to entice the Wright to speak and speak openly about his deepest feelings on race, religion and America. I believe that this is hogwash. I don’t think that Clinton’s camp had anything to do with this. I have no data to back up my feelings, it is simply my opinion.
Maybe, Wright did Senator Barack Obama a favor. By acting so completely unhinged, Obama has been allowed to completely and totally distance himself from Wright. Therefore, if Obama wins the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, it will be extremely difficult for the Republicans to break this up and have it stick. Today, Obama formally denounced several of the ideas that Wright was expounding on. Maybe Wright’s 15 minutes of fame is now over and we can get back to talking about lapel pins.
You already know where I stand on what Wright claims, and his latest appearance was rehash of old news. So I won’t go there.
I will say there are different possible motives. One is maybe to get back at Obama. Another is that he believes what he says to be true and as pastor, given a forum, he feels he has no choice but to answer the questions directly asked out of him on national stage, lest he be seen as insincere or hypocrite. That part I can respect if that is reason why (even if I think he has always been out there).
Or both- which means I would have mixed feelings.
But regardless of what his motive is, he did make one huge blunder.
He mentions his private prayer moment with Obama.
I do have a problem with that. Now remove my right wing hat off.
My problem isthis. I don’t care if people see it as proof of association between the two that runs deep. I actually want them to disregard that.
Why?
There is a reason why there is a word PRIVATE in the term PRIVATE prayer time. It is because it is PRIVATE.
Wright has no business throwing out something that is PRIVATE between the two of them.
I don’t care about Obama’s politics either way in this regards. He was wronged there by Wright.
Wright has a responsibility as a pastor not to betray that kind of confidence. And he did that on center stage.
That is throwing a member of his church (forget who he is for now) under the bus. Not acceptable for any pastor to do.
I won’t judge his heart. Maybe he got caught up in the moment and said something that is betrayal that he did not mean that way.
But still he should know better.
And if I was Obama when asked about this prayer time, I would tell the reporters who asked to go ask his ex-pastor. Obama did not throw out that moment where it is suppose to be confidential. His pastor did. Obama should not have to answer something that is supposed to be confidential in the first place.
We also have to take into account the other two appearances after Moyers did not have Moyers to guide him through the interview processes so he was asked different questions Moyers did not ask him and were much probably hard questions, so probably less prepared to answer. Maybe, though I admit not much of an excuse since he should have known they were coming. I guess we will never know what goes on through his mind.
I do buy that Obama is badly hurt by Wright btw. I don’t buy that he did not know what his pastor preaches, but I can buy maybe he disagreed with him at some point in the 20 years but did not want to completely turn on his friend even before he became senator. I can also buy that he was angry and sad because of betrayal of confidence and words that might question Obama’s character by referring to him as politician (I think he said that in Moyers interview, too).
So I disagree with alot of fellow conservatives in this. Obama’s look of hurt looks real probably because it IS real.
Truth -
I totally agree with things that you and your pastor agree are private should stay private.
Thanks for your comments.
One more thing….what the reverend should have said in regards to Obama instead of using the politician line is say “he has his opinions, and I have mine. End of story.”
That would have been true enough. No one will be able to figure what he exactly mean by that since it could mean they agree on most things but not all things. Or it could mean they totally disagree but are still friends. And guess what? Neither Obama nor Wright have to explain what they say to each other in private on political matters.
By making Obama out to be politician as a way of explaining Obama’s repeated statements rejecting what Wright said, that in a way also betrays what Obama said to Wright in private, if that is the case of Obama not being forthright.
I do think there is a line. In this area, it might be more gray area, but I probably would have erred on the side of not insinuating that Obama might be lying about rejecting some of the things Wright said.
My conservative, right-wing does show a bit here in that I am old schooled and see things in terms of righ and wrong, no compromise. I see something wrong here about even when it hurts the other side in politics.
The downside in the era of the Internet and youtubes for anyone caught in this situation. If this was like 15 years ago, Obama breezes into showdown against McCain, since none of this would have been on air for all of America to hear and see.