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Comments from an AP history
and government teacher in Raleigh, NC.
e-mail betsynewmark AT gmail.com
Commissions earned from selling items through Amazon will go towards buying materials for my classes. Thank you.
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
There are only two alternatives
So what does Barack Obama's angry denunciation of his pastor tell us. I see only two choices: either Obama was totally unaware of how insulting Wright could be about values that most Americans hold dear and thus is a total naif or Obama was lying when he told us that he hadn't heard the type of statements that Wright had made that angered so many people. Either way, it's not an argument for Obama's judgment and veracity.
And there is a lot of doubt as to Obama's position that he only just found out about the lengths that Wright goes to in his rhetoric. For example, Tom Bevan juxtaposes various things that Obama has said about Wright with what Wright has said. The real kicker is that the Obama campaign disinvited Wright from his campaign announcement. They knew a year ago that this was a potential problem, but they hoped (that word again!) that it would not become a campaign issue.
Bevan links to Sweetness and Light's transcription of the sermon that Wright gave that prompted the original Rolling Stone article that led the Obama team to disinvite Wright from that campaign annoucnement. And it's some strong stuff as he lists five facts about America.We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. And believe it more than we believe in God.Yet Obama maintained in the ABC debate that he hadn't heard any of those particularly controversial statements that Wright had made. Yet this is the sermon that Rolling Stone had written up and quoted from in February of 2007. And we know that Obama knew of that article at least, even if he didn't attend that day's sermon because he cited that article as the reason that he disinvited Wright from the announcement.
Fact number five: we supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians, and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic.
Fact number six: we conducted radiation experiments on our own people. You’re just finding out about that. We care nothing about human life, if the end justifies the means.
Fact number seven: we do not care if poor black and brown children cannot read and kill each other senselessly. We abandoned the cities back in the sixties when the riots started, and it really doesn’t matter what those nnn… [niggers] "natives" do to each other.
We gave up on them and public education for poor people who live in the projects. We with VCRs, DVDs, CDs and portable phones have more homeless than any nation in the world.
Fact number eight: we started the AIDS virus, and now that it is out of control we still put more money in the military than in medicine. More money in hate than humanitarian concerns.
Everybody does not have access to health care. I don’t care what the rich white boys in the Senate say.
[Garbled] listen up. If you are poor black and elderly — forget it.
Fact number nine: we only able to maintain our level of living by making sure the Third World people live in grinding poverty.
Fact number ten: we are selfish, self-centered ego egotists, who are arrogant and ignorant.
We pray at church and do not try to make the kingdom that Jesus talked about a reality.
And, and, and… in light of these in fact God has got to be sick of this sh**!
So we're back at the choices of deciding whether or not Obama is a naif or a deceiver. Perhaps he was naive about whether Wright would become an issue in his campaign, but he is a deceiver on how aware he had been about Wright's views and rhetoric. Perhaps Wright is right about one thing - Obama is just doing what politicians have to do.
The question is how much it will damage him. Obama may be very lucky in the timing of this story. It's late enough in his nomination battle with Hillary that she won't be able to catch him. And it's early enough in the whole campaign against McCain that this could be a faded story by November. But how many average American voters will still figure this story into their decision? We just don't know.
But the contrast between Obama's pastor story couldn't be starker than this story that Karl Rove tells today about when John McCain served as a chaplain himself. Fellow POW Colonel Bud Day tells this story,Another story I heard over dinner with the Days involved Mr. McCain serving as one of the three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one point, after being shuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had found himself as the most senior officer at the Hanoi Hilton. So he tapped Mr. McCain to help administer religious services to the other prisoners.Read the rest of Rove's columns for some more stories of the character that McCain demonstrated as a prisoner of war that you might have known. And ponder the contrast.
Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain's sermons. "He remembered the Episcopal liturgy," Mr. Day says, "and sounded like a bona fide preacher." One of Mr. McCain's first sermons took as its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's." Mr. McCain said he and his fellow prisoners shouldn't ask God to free them, but to help them become the best people they could be while serving as POWs. It was Caesar who put them in prison and Caesar who would get them out. Their task was to act with honor.Labels: John McCain, Obama
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So what does Barack Obama's angry denunciation of his pastor tell us. I see only two choices: either Obama was totally unaware of how insulting Wright could be about values that most Americans hold dear and thus is a total naif or Obama was lying when he told us that he hadn't heard the type of statements that Wright had made that angered so many people. Either way, it's not an argument for Obama's judgment and veracity.
And there is a lot of doubt as to Obama's position that he only just found out about the lengths that Wright goes to in his rhetoric. For example, Tom Bevan juxtaposes various things that Obama has said about Wright with what Wright has said. The real kicker is that the Obama campaign disinvited Wright from his campaign announcement. They knew a year ago that this was a potential problem, but they hoped (that word again!) that it would not become a campaign issue.
Bevan links to Sweetness and Light's transcription of the sermon that Wright gave that prompted the original Rolling Stone article that led the Obama team to disinvite Wright from that campaign annoucnement. And it's some strong stuff as he lists five facts about America.
So we're back at the choices of deciding whether or not Obama is a naif or a deceiver. Perhaps he was naive about whether Wright would become an issue in his campaign, but he is a deceiver on how aware he had been about Wright's views and rhetoric. Perhaps Wright is right about one thing - Obama is just doing what politicians have to do.
The question is how much it will damage him. Obama may be very lucky in the timing of this story. It's late enough in his nomination battle with Hillary that she won't be able to catch him. And it's early enough in the whole campaign against McCain that this could be a faded story by November. But how many average American voters will still figure this story into their decision? We just don't know.
But the contrast between Obama's pastor story couldn't be starker than this story that Karl Rove tells today about when John McCain served as a chaplain himself. Fellow POW Colonel Bud Day tells this story,
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So what does Barack Obama's angry denunciation of his pastor tell us. I see only two choices: either Obama was totally unaware of how insulting Wright could be about values that most Americans hold dear and thus is a total naif or Obama was lying when he told us that he hadn't heard the type of statements that Wright had made that angered so many people. Either way, it's not an argument for Obama's judgment and veracity.
And there is a lot of doubt as to Obama's position that he only just found out about the lengths that Wright goes to in his rhetoric. For example, Tom Bevan juxtaposes various things that Obama has said about Wright with what Wright has said. The real kicker is that the Obama campaign disinvited Wright from his campaign announcement. They knew a year ago that this was a potential problem, but they hoped (that word again!) that it would not become a campaign issue.
Bevan links to Sweetness and Light's transcription of the sermon that Wright gave that prompted the original Rolling Stone article that led the Obama team to disinvite Wright from that campaign annoucnement. And it's some strong stuff as he lists five facts about America.
We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. And believe it more than we believe in God.Yet Obama maintained in the ABC debate that he hadn't heard any of those particularly controversial statements that Wright had made. Yet this is the sermon that Rolling Stone had written up and quoted from in February of 2007. And we know that Obama knew of that article at least, even if he didn't attend that day's sermon because he cited that article as the reason that he disinvited Wright from the announcement.
Fact number five: we supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians, and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic.
Fact number six: we conducted radiation experiments on our own people. You’re just finding out about that. We care nothing about human life, if the end justifies the means.
Fact number seven: we do not care if poor black and brown children cannot read and kill each other senselessly. We abandoned the cities back in the sixties when the riots started, and it really doesn’t matter what those nnn… [niggers] "natives" do to each other.
We gave up on them and public education for poor people who live in the projects. We with VCRs, DVDs, CDs and portable phones have more homeless than any nation in the world.
Fact number eight: we started the AIDS virus, and now that it is out of control we still put more money in the military than in medicine. More money in hate than humanitarian concerns.
Everybody does not have access to health care. I don’t care what the rich white boys in the Senate say.
[Garbled] listen up. If you are poor black and elderly — forget it.
Fact number nine: we only able to maintain our level of living by making sure the Third World people live in grinding poverty.
Fact number ten: we are selfish, self-centered ego egotists, who are arrogant and ignorant.
We pray at church and do not try to make the kingdom that Jesus talked about a reality.
And, and, and… in light of these in fact God has got to be sick of this sh**!
So we're back at the choices of deciding whether or not Obama is a naif or a deceiver. Perhaps he was naive about whether Wright would become an issue in his campaign, but he is a deceiver on how aware he had been about Wright's views and rhetoric. Perhaps Wright is right about one thing - Obama is just doing what politicians have to do.
The question is how much it will damage him. Obama may be very lucky in the timing of this story. It's late enough in his nomination battle with Hillary that she won't be able to catch him. And it's early enough in the whole campaign against McCain that this could be a faded story by November. But how many average American voters will still figure this story into their decision? We just don't know.
But the contrast between Obama's pastor story couldn't be starker than this story that Karl Rove tells today about when John McCain served as a chaplain himself. Fellow POW Colonel Bud Day tells this story,
Another story I heard over dinner with the Days involved Mr. McCain serving as one of the three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one point, after being shuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had found himself as the most senior officer at the Hanoi Hilton. So he tapped Mr. McCain to help administer religious services to the other prisoners.Read the rest of Rove's columns for some more stories of the character that McCain demonstrated as a prisoner of war that you might have known. And ponder the contrast.
Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain's sermons. "He remembered the Episcopal liturgy," Mr. Day says, "and sounded like a bona fide preacher." One of Mr. McCain's first sermons took as its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's." Mr. McCain said he and his fellow prisoners shouldn't ask God to free them, but to help them become the best people they could be while serving as POWs. It was Caesar who put them in prison and Caesar who would get them out. Their task was to act with honor.
Labels: John McCain, Obama
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