Wright, wrong and hypocrisy

I haven’t commented on the “controversy” over the former senior pastor at Barack Obama’s church, partly because I didn’t have the same reactions as some other people claimed. But the main reason I haven’t commented is that I didn’t want to do anything to reward the efforts of those who are trying to exploit the situation for political gain.

The clips of Wright on YouTube are there to promote a political agenda. Comments by the many posters include “Wake Up America! Obama belongs to a Cult”; “quick video with clips from his sermons. (personally i think he should not be called an american )”; “Spiritual Advisor to Barack Hussein Obama (black supremacist?)”; “the pastor, who often gives racist and anti-american speeches”. Similar (and much worse) can be found in the comments to the various clips. The theme in these caricatures of Wright is that he’s some sort of monster.

Sound familiar? Back in 1988, Bush the First used Willie Horton as the big scary black man to tap into the latent racism of white American voters. This year, neither Hillary Clinton nor John McCain can get away with portraying Obama as the scary black man, so instead the campaigns are using Wright and Farrakhan. Those men say things that are racist and scary to white folks and so, the detractors imply, Obama must be the same. It’d be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic.

Barack Obama is being held to a standard that no other candidate is facing, and no matter what he says or does he can never denounce Wright (or Farrakhan) enough to satisfy his detractors. Worse, no one else is required to do the same as Obama.

John McCain once had an open feud with Jerry Falwell over Falwell’s extremist hate speech, but made up with him to run for president. McCain has never been asked to disavow Falwell’s hate speech (including that 9/11 happened because of legal abortion and gay people in the US). Or what about John Hagee, who endorsed McCain and whom McCain calls a spiritual adviser? This man said that god destroyed New Orleans because of the “homosexuals”. McCain has never distanced himself from such hate speech, he’s never disavowed Hagee’s views—he’s never even been asked to.

Why the double standard? Why is the right so angry with Wright, but McCain’s extremist preachers get a free pass? Why do Hillary Clinton’s supporters promote the right wing agenda by going after Obama’s connection with Wright?

Fortunately, they haven’t been successful. A CBS News poll found:

Sixty-nine percent of voters who have heard or read about Obama’s speech say he did a good job addressing the issue of race relations, and 63 percent of voters following the events say they agree with Obama's views on race relations. Seventy-one percent say he did a good job explaining his relationship with Wright.

Despite the best efforts of the McCain and Clinton supporters, seventy-one percent of Americans are happy with Obama’s explanation of his connections with Wright. Maybe ordinary Americans can see through the politically-motivated attacks on Obama over this issue.

Of course, extremist rhetoric on the part of any preacher of any race or ideology is always wrong. A candidate of any party who is supported by such preachers has an obligation to denounce the rhetoric. Obama did that, McCain has not and hasn’t been asked to distance himself even a little.

Something is seriously wrong with this picture, and it’s not that the former pastor of Obama’s church said stupid things. It’s that McCain and Clinton supporters see nothing wrong with playing a racist game because they think it will help their candidate.

We deserve better. Apparently, a clear majority of Americans thinks so, too.