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Monday, November 03, 2008

Explaining away 20 years in Jeremiah Wright's church

Democratic Representative Jerrold Nadler has one explanation for why Barack Obama stayed so long in Reverend Wright's church. He was just a coward about leaving a church where so many of his constituents were congregants. Here is what Jake Tapper reports that Nadler told a Jewish audience in Florida where he was campaigning for Barack Obama.
Says Nadler: “I have no personal knowledge of what I'm about to say. What I'm about to say is my guess...”

Hoo boy.

“My guess,” Nadler said, “knowing how politics works, what I'm about to say is not particularly...”

He searches for the word. Rejects a couple suggestions.

“...not particularly complimentary towards Sen. Obama,” he says.

“Think of the history here,” says the six-term New York congressman. “You have a guy who's half-white, half-black. He goes to an Ivy League school, comes to Chicago ... to start a political career. Doesn't know anybody.

“Gets involved with community organizing -- why? Because that's how your form a base. OK. Joins the largest church in the neighborhood. About 8,000 members. ... Why did he join the church? ... Because that's how you get to know people.

“Now maybe it takes a couple years,” Nadler says, suggesting that soon Obama starts to think of Wright, “'Jesus, the guy's a nut, the guy's a lunatic.' But you don’t walk out of a church with 8,000 members in your district.”

Suggests a woman: “You don’t walk in though.”

“He didn't know it when he walked in, presumably,” said Nadler.

And then, the line that may haunt Nadler for four years or longer: “He didn't have the political courage to make the statement of walking out.

“Now, what does it tell me?” Nadler asked. “It tells me that he wasn't terribly political courageous. Does it tell me that he agreed with the reverend in any way? No. It tells me he didn't want to walk out of a church in his district.”
I actually think that Nadler probably is on to something. It is ludicrous to say that Obama had never heard Wright say some of the anti-American, anti-white comments that were so damaging when they came out in the primaries. As I heard Dennis Miller point out, Obama told Bill O'Reilly that he went he went to church on a regular basis about twice a month. He was a member for 20 years. Do the arithmetic. That is close to 500 times sitting there listening to Reverend Wright. So don't buy the line that he just never heard that sort of thing from Wright. And so Nadler's point carries some weight.

No one could ever accuse John McCain of being a political coward. But that is what one of Obama's advocates calls him. So don't expect Obama to stand up to his party when they have majorities in the Congress over some issue because he wants to be more bipartisan. He has never done it and will not do it as president. You can believe that just as much as you can believe Nancy Pelosi when she tells us that the Democrats will be more bipartisan if they gain bigger majorities.

2 comments:

Bachbone said...

Nadler's explanation is just one. Another is that the type of message being promulgated in that church and the political beliefs of the church members closely aligned with and reinforced Obama's and his wife's. His upbringing, education and activities before even arriving in Chicago, along with the two books he (allegedly) wrote, suggest Obama's view of the United States has been in line with the Ayers/Wright crowd even before he moved into their circle.

knowitall said...

You can't explain twenty years of following someone who talks badly about your country. No matter how the left-wing illuminati and the bias media try to spin it, it's wrong.