Victor Davis Hanson suggests that this whole issue might well cost Obama the election, and gives three reasons why:
First, he can never quite come clean about his past. Obama seems to claim that the problem with Rev. Moss and Trinity is the sudden attention given these men of faith and the difficult spotlight put upon them as a result of the Obama campaign.
But such public attention is NOT a problem for Trinity and Co.—only a problem for Obama. When the crowd rises to its feet to shout approval of a racist like Wright or Pfleger it is not because of sudden public attention, but because they wish to hear such racist scape-goating that apparently serves as some sort of collective catharsis…
…Two, Obama situates these scandalous incidents in terms of himself. So Wright is wrong for showing “disrespect” for Obama. Pfleger erred by “disappointing” Obama. But these reprehensible figures are not wayward disciples whose straying hurts the messiah, but rather hard-core calculating politicians who know precisely the cost-benefit ratios of their own rhetoric…
…Third, can’t Obama’s advisers warn him that he is falling into a disturbing pattern? When a dubious figure of his past courts controversy, he should not, in anger and in hyper-sensitivity, counter with blanket praise (cf. his kind words about Wright and Trinity) and then slowly qualify that until he reaches the ‘disowning’ phase. By now all of America knows the truth: Wright, Trinity, Moss, Pfleger, et al have never changed one iota. They are intellectually honest and candid in their extremist views; the only one who changed is Obama. So the question always arises-WHY?
One thing we have to be clear on here is that for all of Obama’s claims that Trinity is somehow mainstream in the Christianity practised by African Americans, the fact of the matter is that most African American Christians are, well, Christian – as an example, black minister T. D. Jakes notes a very traditional, evangelical set of beliefs for his ministry. As a Catholic, I could argue some of the theology, but I would – also – not feel unwelcome at Jakes’ church, nor would I feel even in the slightest that the church was other than Christian, and filled with my brothers and sisters in Christ. There is nothing there about “black values” or other racist claptrap we saw over at Trinity. The point here is that Obama didn’t have to join such a church as Trinity – he didn’t have to sit there for 20 years while the minister spewed racist, anti-American hate – he didn’t have his marriage performed and his children baptised by a hate-mongering con artist.
But he did – and he did it entirely by choice and because he thought it was a good thing. It is only as Trinity became a threat to his Presidential prospects that he started to modify his views on it – and then only haltingly and only taking the final step when forced to it by a racist “sermon” against Hillary Clinton, directly. Being there for 20 years means that either Obama is, himself, a racist or that he was just being politically expedient. Given that Obama’s mother is white, I discount racism as a motivator – so it falls to expediency. Given the nature of Chicago Democratic politics (corrupt and very leftist), Obama probably figured that his best way in was to latch on to the most leftwing expression of black politics in the city. And it worked splendidly – State Senator, United States Senator, millionaire author; everything went just fine until Obama had to step out of Chicago Democratic politics and present himself to the American people. At that moment, Obama discovered that the rabble-rousing racism of Trinity didn’t play well outside the hothouse of Chicago leftism. Obama was in a position akin to Wallace giving his “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” speech at the NAACP. Obama wants change – and the first thing he had to change was his dirty, Chircago laundry.
Obama still has the upper hand in Campaign ’08 – he is still the favorite to be the next President of the United States of America, but Trinity is like an acid eating away at his public persona, day by day. Unless and until Obama can fully explain to the American people why he latched on to racism and figured it was good for 20 years, that acid will eventually destroy him – the only question is whether this destruction will be prior to or after the election.
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