On Race & Obama's Minister

Let me state my conclusion up front and clearly. In my opinion, Obama's church's minister probably has, and/or will, cost him his chance to become President in November of this year.


Over the past week, the just "retired(?)" minister of Obama's church, Jeremiah Wright, has once again ignited a firestorm. I write 'once again, because he was identified as a racist minister as long ago as last March.

Here are two YouTube videos from that time period. One is of Sean Hannity interviewing Wright on Hannity & Colmes, while the other, a month earlier, shows Tucker Carlson discussing Wright's explicitly racist themes.


Hannity & Colmes interview with Wright March 2007



Tucker Carlson February 2007




More recently, these two clips were added on YouTube. The first is a video of Wright's anti-white, anti-Hillary diatribe.




This next clip appears to be the taping, while in a car, of a radio address by Wright.



I was unable to locate the video in which Wright, shortly after the 9/11/01 attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon, rails against US foreign policy and echoes Malcolm X by saying that the 'chickens have come home to roost.'

Why did it take so long for the mainstream media to finally identify Wright's racist themes? Why has it taken over a year for Obama to address this issue?

This isn't about freedom of religion, or the explanation of a race-neutral church to the rest of America.

This church had on its website, until, it has been reported on Fox News, just this week, information about it's insistence for church members to propagate 'black values.'

The problem for Obama, as I see it, is to explain to Americans why the pastor whom he says converted him to Christianity and has been a close confidant for over a decade holds explicitly racist, anti-American views. And why Obama has, in full knowledge of this, continued to participate in the church and associate with the minister.

If I had five minutes in which to question Obama, here are some questions which I would ask:

-Do you agree with your minister's expression of your church's precepts in explicitly racist tones?

-Do you feel that by associating with this church and minister, and its racist views, you are expressing your own values to the American voting public?

-If you continue to support this minister's views, by not explicitly denouncing them and leaving his church, does he not provide an example of the sort of advisor you would choose as President?

-Is your support of this minister an example of your judgment of people and values which you would carry over to your administration, if elected President?

-If you don't feel it is fair to judge you by this minister, his words and values, then how are the American people supposed to gauge what you have done that does provide evidence of your judgment, values and choices of advisers? Are they to assume that you will dump any now-inconvenient and inconsistent prior advisers, or repudiate similar actions or beliefs, in order to win votes?

Last night, on Fox News, an Obama apologist kept exhorting the on-air anchors to 'give (Obama) a chance to explain himself' in his speech later today.

Frankly, I don't think that speech will matter. What is to 'explain' about Wright's recorded anti-white, anti-American speeches? Nothing. They speak for themselves. So does Obama's lack of response to their known existence.

He didn't leave his church a year ago, when these issues were raised. He didn't repudiate the minister.

It seems very clear that Obama is now caught precisely in the race-trap he sought to avoid. Many who ardently support him are anti-white racists. If a white candidate for President had a church and minister which had identical themes and 'values,' only substituting the word 'white' for 'black' or 'african american,' he'd be hounded out of the Presidential race and his party by the (liberal) mainstream American media.

At this point, even if Obama can paper over this mess among his party's voters, and still beat Hillary, I think it will turn many centrist, blue-collar Reagan Democrats against him. Obama's apologies or late attempts to distance himself from his racist minister may play well to the upper-income white Democrats who feel guilt for prior anti-black racism, but it probably won't work with middle-class white voters.

By failing to have openly denounced his church and its minister as soon as they espoused racist and anti-American themes, Obama has opened himself up to justifiable criticism of his judgment, awareness of the actions of those he claims are close to him and advise him.

When we choose a President, we ultimately choose his/her character and values, because we don't know exactly what challenges our country will face on that President's watch.

As Obama attempts to dance and weave away from this crisis, he exhibits a character which is, in my opinion, fatally flawed for a person who would be President.

Dick Morris opined on Hannity and Colmes last night that the Democrats mistakenly have chosen Obama as their Presidential candidate before appropriately vetting him.

I think Morris is right, and this issue with Obama's minister and church are a prime example of that.