The Republican Insider

...And Hope Did Him In In The End.
-Andrew Clark
March 19, 2008

    I knew that Barack Obama’s clean, empty slate could not be kept clean and empty forever. I also knew that there was plenty of eye-brow raising legitimate questions to throw Obama’s way.
    But I had no idea that it would come in the form of hours of legally obtained taped videos sold in a church bookstore.
    Honestly, the horrifying content and implications of the Reverend Wright’s comments aside, the scenario could not be more perfect. John McCain and the other Republican forces haven’t even had to lift a finger to define Barack Obama – Barack Obama has defined himself.
    The story about Reverend Wright first surfaced nearly a year and a half ago. Unless a bunch of naïve liberal amateurs are running the Obama campaign (which I suppose is a very audible possibility), the operation should have known that the story would be a potent destructive force if it ever found its way into the national media.
    Yet Obama and his campaign hoped that the story would simply go away (try that for the audacity of hope!) Obama and his campaign didn’t make the slightest effort to distance themselves from his Pastor, his church, his congregation, or his comments, and they just assumed it would go away. Who would have thought the hope horse he rode in on would ultimately lead him to this?
    David Axelrod, the self-defined ‘specialist in urban politics’, is supposed to be running the show over there. Clearly. That kind of race warfare rhetoric may be acceptable in inner city elections, but it drops dead the minute it crosses into the suburbs.
    So this story explodes onto the national media everywhere last week, and we watch clip after clip of Rev. Wright hurling fire and brimstone at everyone. Obama ignores it, once again hoping it will just go away. But with every day of silence, more and more questions started to rise: how close was his relationship with Reverend Wright? How influential was the Reverend on Obama’s thinking and ideology? Was Obama in the pews when he said these outrageous comments? Why didn’t Obama leave the church or disavow the Reverend if he doesn’t agree with what he said?
    Finally after a week of stonewalling, Obama made a public speech to try to diffuse the situation. And if you ask me, he only made it worse.
    He said he could not disown his Pastor just like he would not disown his, “white grandmother…a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”
    Yes, Barack, comparing comments your personal friend and “mentor” pastor made in the pulpit on public video that whites deserved their deaths on 9/11 to your white grandmother whispering from her wheel chair that she is afraid of black men on the street is perfectly logical.
    That comparison once again begs the question…why do we want this man to be President?
    I think his speech was absolutely insulting. Obama had the chance to squash this story by disowning his Pastor, telling America how ignorant he was, and moving on with the campaign. That would be the actual way to get over this stupid race “question.”
    But Obama basically told us all that our anger or fear or resentment over the Reverend Wright’s comments is unjustified. Our reaction is just another product of a still racially sensitive nation, so Obama tells us; as if in a perfect world the Reverend would be able to say those things and America wouldn’t care a bit!
    Keep in mind that if Reverend Wright had been John McCain’s white minister saying similar comments about black people, Wright (and McCain) would have been sacked and destroyed by all sides as a vile racist. There would be no talk of symptoms requiring a national “healing.”
    Here’s a proposition: how about Reverend Wright’s comments aren’t a product of American racism, but a product of leftist radicalism and inner-city grown craziness?
    Is Obama really that out of touch with America that he thinks the reason this controversy is getting so much attention is because Reverend Wright is speaking truth to power? Thank God someone finally spoke out about this race issue. It’s about time we addressed it.
    No! This is not a big story because Americans are concerned with how we treat race in America. This story is a big deal because the Reverend is clearly a radical, race-baiting leftist, and he has had huge influence on Obama in the past, begging the question of if Obama believes those kinds of things as well. America realizes those views are fake, unfair and vile, and we don’t want them in our president.
    But Mr. I-Can-Spin-Anything Obama doesn’t see it that way: our anger stems from a deep racial history, and (what a coincidence!) the only way to end this racial divide is to elect Obama president. Leave it to Obama to turn something this outrageous into yet another reason to vote for him
    His speech ultimately defended Wright’s comments: yeah, well maybe they were a bit crazy, but you should be ashamed for reacting so harshly to them…you just did that from racial ignorance. Racial ignorance my rear-end! How about we reject that kind of intolerance from all sides, not just whites? Tolerance is a two-way street, buddy.
    The Obama campaign has been flaunting the race card left and right and up and down and all across the table ever since this campaign began, whenever it could benefit him. Bill Clinton was a racist for suggesting that Obama’s argument that he is the best man to end the war in Iraq is a “fairy-tale.” Are you saying that the idea that a black man can be president is a fairy tale? Hillary Clinton is a racist for suggesting that the civil rights movement needed not just Martin Luther King, but a strong president as well. Are you saying that black men are too stupid too accomplish things for themselves?
    Yet now Obama has the audacity to tell us that we need to get over race? You’ve got to be kidding me.
    He may survive this in the short run. But his candidacy is going to be permanently scarred. If these kinds of questions still persist and don't go unanswered, it raises more questions about his judgment and ability to lead. And to many, Obama has already been defined as a man sympathetic to Black Pantheresque rhetoric.
    Here’s the bottom line. Obama is a smart, opportunist politician who will use the race card when it suits him and will cast it off when he doesn’t need it anymore. He’s not a new kind of politics, like he says. He is the typical career politician robed in do-goodness.
    You can vote for Obama based on his views on the issues. But don’t tell me he represents a “new politics.” That speech I just heard from him proves completely otherwise.