Updated Below -- I hadn't seen the really stupid stuff Wright said when I made this post originally. I would still stand by what I say here had he just stopped with the speech in Detroit, but evidently, he felt the need to go off the deep end on national TV the next day in Washington.
It appears that Obama will be reacting to Rev. Wright's latest by recoiling and further distancing himself.
From a political standpoint -- in our current political climate -- I can certainly understand that, but I still found Rev. Wright to be engaging, funny, and informative in his speech to the NAACP (though I haven't seen his comments to the National Press Club). It just goes to show how backwards our national discourse has become. When somebody takes on a media narrative on a level that a 5th grader might not understand, it is seen as a blunder.
Bob Herbert says that Rev. Wright was intentionally trying to hurt Obama. Having watched his speech, I thought it was pretty clear that he was trying to help Obama. His goal was to present himself to the country as a reasonable person, so he would not be seen as a caricature from a YouTube clip. I felt he accomplished that. Now, clearly, Wright is a very passionate person, and I didn't agree with everything he said, but he is not some radical hate-monger.
Rev. Wright had every right to be angry about the treatment he has received from the media. Given 30 years of sermons from any preacher in the country, you could probably come away with a handful of 15-second sound bytes that sound bad. And that is especially true of a black preacher because their speaking style is so thoroughly foreign to most of the population. So, I am sad to see that Obama is going to throw him under the bus. Politically, I understand the decision, but it makes me sad nonetheless. If our media was willing to cover a complicated and controversial issue with honesty and integrity, Obama wouldn't be in this position. But we don't, and there is virtually nothing Obama can do to prevent the media from framing Wright's words as anything but radical Black Panther hate speech.
Ugh!! We have got to fix the media in this country.
Update: Now even my Dad disagrees with me. I didn't see Wright's comments the following day in Washington. Did he set something on fire?
Update #2: I might add that I do not currently have a functioning television at home, so my views here are based on my viewing of Wright's speech, unclouded and unperverted by the flatulence that undoubtably followed from the Chris Matthewses and Wolf Blitzers of the world.
Look: the political timing of the speech was undoubtedly poor. We're knee deep in the "silly season" of politics where everything is blown out of proportion already, so long, passionate, thought-provoking speeches are probably sensory overload. And Hillary will do everything in her power to exploit it to the nth degree. But that doesn't mean it was a bad speech. It just means Hillary is a whore. (politically speaking)
Update #3: It seems that the fuss was indeed caused by the appearance at the National Press Club. I will watch that and make a new blog post if I feel it is necessary.
Update #4: Couple Wright quotes from the National Press Club meeting:
"I said to Barack Obama last year, 'If you get elected, November the 5th, I'm coming after you, because you'll be representing a government whose policies grind under people.' All right? It's about policy, not the American people."
"You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive principles."
OK, so it seems I spoke too soon. I certainly am not on board with those statements. If he had just given his speech and stopped, it would have been fine.
Update #5: I've been reading through some of Obama's comments today. Obviously, if I had known that Wright had been saying that he thought the U.S. government was intentionally spreading AIDS or that Farrakhan was a great voice in the 20th century, I wouldn't have made the preceding post. I don't understand how that's the same guy who gave the speech in Detroit... oh, well
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