Did Obama get the job done in denouncing Wright?

There was no question, as this day dawned, that Barack Obama was going to have to denounce his ex-pastor in unequivocal terms -- no more of that, Well, you just have to understand about the black church stuff.

Right now, I'm trying to decide rather urgently -- did he go far enough in what he said today? I don't mean "far enough" to satisfy me, or even you, necessarily. I just mean, did he do what he had to to save his candidacy? Because there's no question in my mind that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's statements of the last two days put the Obama campaign below water.

After failing with white middle-class voters in Pennsylvania -- and not least of all because of what we'd already heard from the Wright pulpit -- this latest stuff could not be allowed to stand.

Normally, I'd allow myself a little time to decide whether what Sen. Obama said today was enough. But at the moment, I've trying to decide whether it makes the Bob Herbert column I just put on tomorrow's op-ed page too outdated.

We have this problem with The New York Times. While The Washington Post, for instance, gives us its opinion columnists in plenty of time for us to run them the same day that the Post does, The Times takes a far more self-centered approach, not moving its copy until it's damned well good and ready -- which is generally hours after our next day's pages are done. Consequently, when we run columns by Herbert, Dowd, Brooks, et al., it's generally a day later. Which is not usually a problem. A good opinion is a good opinion a day later.

Anyway, Bob Herbert had a strong column on the Wright situation this morning, and I picked it for tomorrow over -- well, over a lot of things, but in the end, it was down to that or a Samuelson piece that's embargoed until Wednesday. I chose the Herbert. But his column says, in part:

    For Senator Obama, the re-emergence of Rev. Wright has been devastating. The senator has been trying desperately to bolster his standing with skeptical and even hostile white working-class voters. When the story line of the campaign shifts almost entirely to the race-in-your-face antics of someone like Mr. Wright, Mr. Obama’s chances can only suffer.
    Beyond that, the apparent helplessness of the Obama campaign in the face of the Wright onslaught contributes to the growing perception of the candidate as weak, as someone who is unwilling or unable to fight aggressively on his own behalf.
    Hillary Clinton is taunting Mr. Obama about his unwillingness to participate in another debate. Rev. Wright is roaming the country with the press corps in tow, happily promoting the one issue Mr. Obama had tried to avoid: race.
    Mr. Obama seems more and more like someone buffeted by events, rather than in charge of them. Very little has changed in the superdelegate count, but a number of those delegates have expressed concern in private over Mr. Obama’s inability to do better among white working-class voters and Catholics.

Then today, Obama comes out swinging on the issue...

So right this moment, I'm trying to decide whether to run Herbert because he still makes good points, or ditch him because Obama has at least tried to do something Herbert says he needed to do.

Right now, I'm at the coin-toss stage...

Comments

[Lee Muller]

Obama continues to try to justify Wright's hate speech, by "putting it in context" of whites being oppressors.

He also refuses to explain his communist buddies, the hateful essays of his father, his own racist screeds in his autobiograpy, but the media is giving him a pass on that. The Republicans won't.

[faustd]

Nope. This was too little, too late.

Obama could have done this 4 weeks ago when the truth about his pastor and mentor was first brought to light. Instead, we got the "I could no more renounce..." nonsense. This was then followed slowly and agonizingly by 3 or 4 permutations and contextualizations until Obama was finally forced to do what he obviously hated today. His outrage today was not genuine, because Wright had said nothing new to bring on this reaction from Obama. What changed was Obamas' calculation that his association with Wright was lethal to any remanining presidential hopes.

Americans, apart from the swooning groupies and black idolaters, are too intelligent to be taken in by todays' latest iteration of the poisonous Obama-Wright blood brother relationship.

Obamas' candidacy is DOA. As I said on another string, my hope now is that he is tied irrevocably to an increasingly vocal and irratable Wright who continues to spew anti-american, anti- white venom. And that he fails to realize he's finished and continues to campaign against and suck the blood from Clinton. Wow, what a summer! Dr. F

[faustd]

oops!

IRRITABLE

David

[just saying]

"but the media is giving him a pass on that. The Republicans won't."

It's pathetic when someone on one side (be it right or left) criticizes the other side for not weeding out the hate-mongers, bigots and racists... but then ignores them on their own side.

[Brad Warthen]

Well, I kept it, but not without misgivings. There's still plenty of value in the column, and at the moment I think that outweighs the more dated parts.

I might think differently even a few hours from now, but this is a bidness in which you have to act on the basis of what you think NOW...

[Joshua]

Obama acted Presidential.
He IS No-Shock-Barack...No-Drama-Obama.

By not playing the kind of drama-games one finds in high-schools, he will sometimes seem drowned out, but that is just the way of it. He's not Kerry, changing his mind for the smallest political expediency. Obama takes the time to think about things, like a good NYTimes opinion article.. sometimes a little late, but measured and insightful.

It is up to the media to let Obama's message come through, or to repeat drama prone, gossipy talking points thrown out all the time.

[Randy E]

Lee, it's clear who the racist is...at least around here.

[Joshua]

I am disappointed that you kept that article. But I will bookmark your site.. I've just stumbled onto it.

[Marie in Tampa]

Lee Muller writes: Obama continues to try to justify Wright's hate speech, by putting it in context of whites being oppressors.

Surely, you cannot believe that whites never oppressed blacks. So, your statement is pointless.

[Randy E]

Faustd, "Obama's campaign is DOA"?! Clinton had the Pennsylvania machine, there was Bittergate, ABC journalistic malpractice against Obama, and more Wright yet he cut the lead from 20 to 9...hardly DOA.

[just saying]

Randy E: Careful throwing around the R term.

Just because someone uses terminology the same way the racists do, spends a lot more time harping on one race's problems then another, and never admits their own has a flaw... that doesn't _necessarily_ mean they're racist. They could just hate everyone and have run out of venom before they nailed everyone else.

[Dr. F]

Joshua, you say it's up to the media to let Obamas' message come through, but I'm not so sure. Apart from his vacuous droning about undefined "change," his assurances that he will sit down and make nice with known terrorists and thugs, and his promises to raise taxes on dividends and incomes to be somehow more "fair," I don't think he has a message.

If he does have a message beyond these dangerously ridiculous and damaging promises to carry out a staunch leftist agenda, I'd like to know what that message would be.

Fact is, he doesn't have any message other than the old and worn out liberal talking points we've heard repeatedly and that we know is devastatingly harmful to average people. Dr F

[Brad Warthen]

Marie, Joshua, thanks for joining us. Sorry you're disappointed, Joshua, but bear with us. And Marie, what part of Tampa are you from -- I went to high school for two years there. Robinson High. A long, long time ago.

It occurs to me to give y'all a quick primer on what we're about here. I'm the editorial page editor of South Carolina's largest newspaper. We (the newspaper's editorial board) endorsed John McCain in the GOP primary, and Barack Obama in the Democratic -- and had the happy satisfaction of seeing both of our candidates win.

I think the possibility of an Obama-McCain contest in the fall will be the closest thing to a no-lose situation that I've seen in my adult lifetime -- and I first voted in 1972.

This doesn't mean being blind to either candidate's faults. I'm turned off by McCain's pandering on gas taxes, and Obama has a problem with Mr. Wright -- no wishing that away.

Sometime folks come here and have trouble getting their bearings, trying to decide whether this blog goes to the right or the left. Neither. I'm the founder of the UnParty, sometimes also known as the Energy Party -- depending on the subject at hand. I've also been known to call it the Grownup Party. I'm basically fed up with both the Democrats and the Republicans, although I like some individuals in both parties.

Anyway, welcome.

[Joshua]

Dr F

On the contrary,

Obama represents change in a way that you have not quite perceived: Obama is not the change. We the People are the change.

Let me explain: Obama is an organizer at heart. He's good at it, evidenced by his impressive grass roots organization, but also Obama believes in it. Obama believes in grassroots, in democracy in action..of ordinary citizens working for change.

You ask: How would this work?
Answer: By not working against those self-organized grassroot citizens, as is usual in our politics these last decades. Obama, unlike Bush, would not seclude himself from opinions and opinions that are contrary to his own. He does not intend to let himself be surrounded by yeahsayers, and groupthink. He will not seclude his mind from protesters and activists. He believes in it.

When pro-life activists interrupted a rally last year, and the crowd heckled them, Obama chided his supporters, and stood up for protesters.. saying that it took a lot of guts to come here and work for change like that.

THAT is the change he is working for. Letting the citizen back in.

A president is not a legislator, the President is a leader that points the direction, and the direction Obama is pointing it to us.

Us. He says We the People are the direction. He is leading us back to Democracy.

Obama is Lincoln returned to heal America, and make it We the People.

[faustd]

Obama likes terrorists and enjoys associating with them.

He thinks the way to deal with the external terrorist threats to this country is sit down and dialogue with those who have made the threats and carried some of them out.

His mentor and pastor is a flaming anti-american bigot and Obama can't force hiself to repudiate this hate monger until he (Obama) realizes he's absolutely got to if he's to have any chance to be taken seriously as a pres candidate.

He's never seen any abortion he didn't like, no matter how gruesome, and he has consistently voted that way; and he certainly doesn't want his daughters to be limited by any pesky pregnancy.

When questioned about his stance favoring raising the taxes on dividends, he admits that it isn't about increasing revenue to the government but about raising taxes solely to be "fair," with no acknowledgement that he could just as easily reduce taxes on the ones whose unfair situation he was attempting to correct.

You say that a president is a leader and not a legislator, but I'd point out that junior legislating is all he has ever done, aside from being a lawyer/organizer in Chicago.

And for all of his dangerous, tired, old liberal positions ~ tightly held and firmly believed ~ what does it for you are his organizing abilities?

Wow. Good luck with that. Dr F

[just saying]

Dr. F: Do you ever discuss liberals without resorting to hyperbole and exageration. (Should the left liken all republicans who present themselves before a certain southern religious college as associating with slave holders, or extrapolate from all the actual video footage from Farenheit 9-11?)

Any chance of getting some actual informed opinions based on facts and not exaggeration so that actual discussion can take place here?

[Joshua]

DrF

Wow. Your post was like a protracted screaming rampage..hmm. Are you being hypocritical when you condemn Wright for inflammatory hate speech?

[Joshua]

I am actually pro-life, but I believe that Obama is reasonable, and willing to listen. Besides, a very effective, and obtainable way to drastically reduce abortions is through the consistent use of effective contraception. To do this, we need Universal Healthcare, and a very proactive effort to get that contraception out and used(preferably the types that don't require daily administration).

[Joshua]

I am actually pro-life, but I believe that Obama is reasonable, and willing to listen. Besides, a very effective, and obtainable way to drastically reduce abortions is through the consistent use of effective contraception. To do this, we need Universal Healthcare, and a very proactive effort to get that contraception out and used(preferably the types that don't require daily administration).

[Joshua]

Sorry about the double post.

[faustd]

Just and Joshua:

Exactly which of the things I said about Obama were untrue? (play Final Jeopardy song) Answer? None of them. Every single thing I mentioned came either directly from the mouth of Obama himself or from direct observation of him in the last 8 weeks. Sorry the truth is so threatening to you. You two are welcome to have your own opinions, but not your own facts.

Nothing I said above was hyperbolic. Nothing about it was rampaging. I simply spoke the unvarnished truth and look at what you two have to resort to: Name calling and fur around the hole.

People like you two are worrisome, because you represent a disturbingly large segment of the population who have become sycophants and toadies for this loser. Fortunately, Obama has done himself in before he could do damage on a national scale. Dr F

[faustd]

On the other hand however, I am rather enjoying the damage he is doing to the Democrat Party. Dr F

[Joe Bloggs]

Dr F asked:
Exactly which of the things I said about Obama were untrue?
Answer - for starters:

"Obama likes terrorists and enjoys associating with them."

"He's never seen any abortion he didn't like, no matter how gruesome,"

This is pure Dittodork hyperbolic right-wing-talking points. It's people like you who are a waste of time debating bc. your mind is so closed to anything other than the hateful bile spewed by gasbags like Rush Limbaugh, Hannity et al.

It's a real pity bc. I genuinely enjoy an honest dialog with an open-minded person of any political leaning.

[Lee Muller]

Communist Party claims connections to Barack Obama:

Professor Gerald Horne, a contributing editor of the Communist Party journal Political Affairs, talked about it during a speech last March at the reception of the Communist Party USA archives at the Tamiment Library at New York University. The remarks were posted online under the headline, “Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party.”

Horne, a history professor at the University of Houston, noted that (Frank Marshall) Davis, who moved to Honolulu from Kansas in 1948 “at the suggestion of his good friend Paul Robeson,” came into contact with Barack Obama and his family and became the young man’s mentor, influencing Obama’s sense of identity and career moves. Robeson, of course, was the well-known black actor and singer who served as a member of the CPUSA and apologist for the old Soviet Union. Davis had known Robeson from his time in Chicago. "

- from an article, Columbia School of Journalism, March 18, 2008

Barack writes about Frank Marshall Davis as another of is "mentors" in his autobiography.

PS, Randy: I voted for Alan Keyes, and worked registering blacks to vote in the Pee Dee for the Democratic Party the 1972 election, so your little attempted smear of us critics of Obama as racists has no legs.

[Randy E]

Justsaying, Lee Muller casts dispersions about Obama and blacks recklessly and has done so on different threads. He cited an article on socialism written by a Barak Obama in Africa in 1965 as evidence that Barak is a socialist. Guess Obama wrote it when he was 6 years old. He also claimed Obama "said last week he was a socialist", which was a lie. My point is his willful attack using fabricated evidence in the context of race.

Notice in his first post on this thread he speaks of his republicans holding Obama accountable for his "racism". I find it the height of hypocrisy that there is such outrage over Wright's "chickens coming home to roost" regarding 9-11 but the white pastor Hagee speaks of 1800 people dying from Katrina as God's judgement against gay people and he's given a relative pass.

Voting for Keyes is hardly a counterexample.