Obama on Wright

(Community Matters)

The press report:

My mother-in-law called yesterday, outraged at Rev. Wright.

What Andrew Sullivan had to say:

[commenting on Rev. Sharpton attacks on Obama too] I think that is part of Jeremiah Wright’s view of Obama as well: he will never forgive him for winning so many white votes, and breaking the pattern and ideology of victimhood and marginalization that forged Wright’s identity. This dynamic is very powerful in minority circles. In the gay world, for example, the younger generation faced enormous hostility at first in their desire for civil marriage. We were regarded as sell-outs, heterosexists, patriarchal fascists. I will never forget having a bookstore picketed by gay activists on a book tour for “Virtually Normal.” As integration deepens, the generation whose identity was created by separation can feel left behind, betrayed, and lash out … at other members of the minority.
Obama is a nice, and empathetic guy. He may have moved beyond the old racial politics, but he understands the pain that brought African-Americans there. He is not inclined to condemn those people or cut them off (within the gay world, I’ve always been far less politic). But there comes a point at which the old school’s attacks on him merit a response that can remind many what Obama’s candidacy still represents. I hope open-minded conservatives can see this: between the cynicism of Clinton and the polarization of Sharpton, Obama’s vision is a great one for his party and his country. He mustn’t be sacrificed to the wolves of the past.

What Rush Limbaugh had to say:

I watched some of Reverend Wright this morning at the National Press Club. It seems obvious to me that he’s doing everything he can to wipe out Obama’s candidacy, and I’ll tell you why I think it is. I think that people like Reverend Wright — and I think there are a lot of other race business hustlers out there, by the way, who think this — really upset that if a black candidate is elected president, that they’re going to be somehow diminished in their task, at keeping everybody in their flocks all revved up and angry about the ages old sin of slavery and the ongoing discrimination.
So it appears to me, if you look at Reverend Wright, listen to what he says and analyze it from the context or perspective of what’s best for him, which is clearly all he’s interested in, what’s best for him is that if Obama loses, because then it’s easy for him to say, “See, the white power structure doesn’t want a black man to rise to the pinnacle of power in the United States of America.”