I know, I'm not that naive. I understand that in the right-wing echo chamber that is America today, Rev. Wright is relevant because commentators at Fox News say he is, and therefore the mainstream media "has" to cover whether he will "hurt" Obama. But amidst all the ink spilled, the Web space taken, the air time devoted to the question of whether Wright is hurting Obama (and the resulting self-fulfilled prophecy that he has), I have seen next to nothing about why he should.
So I'd like to step back for a second and ask (naively, I know) why Rev. Wright should be harmful to Barack Obama -- at least from the perspective of an alternate reality in which logic and reason have some bearing on the case.
As far as I can tell, Rev. Wright is controversial for a number of comments he made, which are, in substance:
- "God damn America" for mistreating minorities.
- The 9/11 attacks were a case of America's chickens coming home to roost.
- The US government may have created HIV to target minorities.
- Louis Farrakhan is a great leader.
Putting aside the question of whether these statements are actually "offensive" in any significant way (personally I only find #4 troubling; #3 is inaccurate but not "offensive," and there is considerable validity to nos. 1 and 2), and also putting aside the fact that no one has even suggested Barack Obama actually agrees with any of them, there is one thing you can say about these statements for sure -- they are all political statements. They are not religious statements.
Why is this important? Because Barack Obama does not have, and never has had, any political connection to Rev. Wright. Obama certainly has a strong personal and religious connection to Rev. Wright. But he has no political connection to the man. He has never consulted him as a political advisor. He has never sought a political endorsement from him. He has never endorsed any of Wright's political views (such as #1-4 above); in fact, when the issue has come up, he has condemned those political views.
Let's examine the connections between Obama and Wright (which are generally included in any article about the latter):
- Obama joined Wright's church in the late 1980s and Wright was his pastor for close to 20 years. This is a religious connection.
- Wright officiated at Obama's wedding in 1992. This is a religious/personal connection.
- Wright baptized Obama's two daughters, who were born in 1998 and 2001. This is a religious/personal connection.
- Obama has called Wright his spiritual mentor. I think we can agree this is a religious connection too. (He certainly did not call Wright his "political mentor.")
- Obama took the title "Audacity of Hope" from a Wright sermon. This is not a real connection at all -- he could have taken the title from someone he did not know -- but it is certainly not a political one.
Maybe I'm belaboring the point, but I don't see the slightest political connection between Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright. So why exactly is Obama considered responsible for Wright's political views? Is the idea that politics control everything, that you cannot be friends with someone who has offensive political views, or that you cannot have a religious or spiritual connection with someone who has offensive political views?
To me that sounds like political correctness taken to the ultimate extreme. But wait, Joe Scarborough, and Rush Limbaugh, and all the other wingnuts can't be calling for political correctness, can they? Naw.
By the way, let's contrast the situation with McCain-Hagee. Unlike Wright, Hagee has actually said extremely hateful things -- not criticisms of a government, but vicious attacks on specific groups of people (such as calling Catholicism a "Godless theology of hate," saying Muslims have a "scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews" and comparing Islam to the Axis powers of World War II, and saying that Hurricane Katrina was "the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans" for the presence of gays in the city).
And unlike Obama with Wright, John McCain has no personal or spiritual connection with Hagee, but also unlike Obama-Wright he has a very specific, explicit (and cynical) political connection -- he sought out Hagee's endorsement and said he was "very proud to have Pastor Hagee’s support."
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
But of course it's Obama's relationship with Wright that matters, that deserves more attention and coverage than any other issue in this campaign.