Pastor James Meeks
While John McCain has been hammering Barack Obama on the issue of Bill Ayers and ACORN, he has apparently taken Jeremiah Wright off the table. Apparently, McCain thinks that the issue of Jeremiah Wright is known to everyone, and there is no need to bring it up again.
I have three points for consideration:
In addition to Wright, one figure who has received little publicity is another radical preacher in Chicago, Reverend James Weeks. Weeks is cut out of the same cloth as Wright. A few years ago, at a rally in Chicago, Weeks said (actually shouted) this:
“We don’t have slave masters. We got mayors. But they still the same white people who are presiding over systems where black people are not able, or to be educated.”
“You got some preachers that are house niggers. You got some elected officials that are house niggers. And rather than them trying to break this up, they gonna fight you to protect the white man."
Meeks is another man who Obama has, in the past, identified as a spiritual mentor. For a while, Meeks appeared on Obama's campaign website. He was part of Obama's exploratory committee prior to his run for the presidency. While running for the US Senate, Obama campaigned in Meeks' church.
We have also been treated to sound bites from another radical "man of God", Father Michael Pfleger, the radical Catholic priest of Chicago's St Sabina Church, who mocked Hillary Clinton in racial terms in a sermon at Wright's church and physically threatened a Chicago gun store owner at a rally a few years back.
You might never have heard this tape also recorded at Wright's Trinity United Church :
"It's time to move on. It's like saying to a woman who's been repeatedly raped over, and over, and over, and over, over, and over,... You need to get over it. The HELL I do. Get the sucker who's been raping me and make him pay. Well America has been raping people of color and America has to pay the price. America has to pay the price for the rape. I dare you say get over it."
As for Wright, there is one little fact that has appeared on various blogs, but escaped attention from the general public. Remember when the Wright tapes first surfaced, and Obama claimed he had never been present during the more controversial sermons by the fiery preacher?
Cut now to Obama's first book, "Dreams of my Father", first published in 1995. The book never made a dent until it was re-published in 2004 subsequent to Obama's electrifying keynote address at the Democrat Convention.
In the book, Obama describes "The Audacity of Hope" speech by Wright, which he (Obama) borrowed for the title of his second book.
Obama quotes Pastor Wright as describing a world "where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere. ... That's the world! On which hope sits."
And then,
"Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policymakers in the White House and in the State House."
Don't take my word for it. You can read it in Obama's book or hear it on tape. (a taped audio version of the book in Obama's voice is available.)
The point here is not to bring up another inflammatory statement by Wright. The point is that Obama wrote about these statements as far back as 1995. Then, during the campaign, he told us he never heard them.
John McCain may have decided not to bring up the issue of the "spiritual mentors" who Obama has associated with. It cannot, however, be shoved to the side and neglected as a legitimate issue as we choose our next president.
One of the reasons for Obama's astounding success, in my view, is the fact that so many millions of Americans desperately want to put our troubled racial history behind us. Most all of us do-including those of us who will vote for McCain. I, for one, have a hard time believing that any person who comes from this kind of church background is going to "bring us together."
6 comments:
All of the other tenuous connections that the right has tried to lay on Obama have worked out great for them so far, good idea continuing that strategy. Oh wait...
Bryan,
The right has not tried to lay any connections on Obama. They are his associations over the years.
Let's assume you were right. Even if that were the case, this strategy has still failed miserably.
Face it, Rovian politics is dead (thank God). I'd say the Internet is probably what killed it. The majority of Americans know it. Heck, even lots of Republicans know it, from what is being privately admitted off the record and publicly stated by brave men such as Colin Powell. McCain's campaign managers (and yourself, apparently) haven't woken up to that fact yet, though.
Bryan,
"Let's assume you were right. Even if that were the case, this strategy has still failed miserably."
Mccain's strategy is to leave this issue alone (Wright et al). I question that because Wright has hurt Obama greatly and nearly cost him the nomination.
Secondly, while you may not believe it, I don't reaaly know what Rovian politics is. All I know that he won 2 elections for Bush, which won him the undying enmity of the Dems. Like Bush and Cheney, this man has been absolutely demonized during the past eight years. So what is Rovian politics? Putting out negative ads on your opponent? If that is your definition, you might call it Jeffersonian politics. That predated Rove by a couple of centuries.
Along those lines, be careful what you call a fact-vs opinion.
As for Powell. general Powell showed his courage in combat in Viet Nam and to a lesser extent by identifying himself as a Republican-which led to charges of being an "Uncle Tom" by people who couldn't carry his epaulets. Was it courageous for him to endorse Obama? I am not so sure. It may have been more courageous to not endorse Obama. I also suspect he was engaging in a bit of payback.
You're right, McCain has decided to take Wright off the table (although I am reading he might be reconsidering that). My point was that the McCain campaign's strategy has been to try and attack Obama through his associations, and it has utterly and undeniably failed. This is more of the same.
Generally speaking, Rovian politics has been to smear your opponent with outright vicious lies. It is gutter politics at its worst. For examples, see the 2004 "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" or Bush's own campaign against McCain in the 2000 primaries (ironic, isn't it?). The reason it is now dead, I believe, is the further widespread use of the Internet, which means more people can fact check everything and gain access to the news they want, not the sensationalistic stories that the mainstream media latch on to.
Bryan,
Unfortunately, attacks tend to work no matter how much the public says they hate them.
You think Rove invented attack ads?
As for the Kerry swift boat stuff, I tread carefully here because I would never question Kerry's military service. He was in Viet nam while I was in germany. It would not have been proper for Bush or his campaign to question his service in VN. I am unaware of any role in that played by Rove.
As I recall though the swift boat ads were from other Viet Nam swift boat veterans who had every right to voice their opinions. I remained neutral on that issue. I had plenty of other reasons to oppose Kerry, who I think is a pompous jerk.
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