Senator Obama's Big Speech

Barack Obama is making a major speech tomorrow to address religion and his long association with Reverend Wright. Polls show that only 8% of Americans are not turned off by Reverend Wright’s statements. Senator Obama has lost 5 percentage points in popularity in 3 days. Perhaps the clearest indication that this is a problem for Obama – the Clinton’s haven’t touched it with a ten foot pole. They are waiting to see how much damage there is and if they even need to do anything.

There are two issues for the Senator. First, the issue is one of judgment. He says that he has the judgment to be President, to be Commander in Chief. But he maintained a close association with a radical America hater for 20 years. Either he did not think it was a big deal or he really bought into the hate and the culture of victimization of the black community. His wife’s comment about never being proud of her country hints at the latter. Second, his response to the controversy has not been candid. His statements that he did not know about any of this is disingenuous to say the least.

There is absolutely no way Obama did not know about his pastor’s views and actions (such as traveling with Farrakhan to visit Gaddafi in Libya). Now he says that he does not agree with his pastor but only after the Reverend’s views came to light in the media. This is combined with the revelation from Obama the other day that campaign contributions raised by Rezko were actually almost double what he had previously admitted to, and his relationship to Rezko was much deeper that previously admitted to. Again an issue of candor.

It is interesting that the only time I’ve seen Obama look uncomfortable in a debate is when he was asked if he would disavow the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan. Obama hemmed and hawed and looked very reluctant to take a position. I think this issue surfacing has caused a lot of people to realize that we don’t really know very much about Barack Obama. His legislative record in the senate is scant. His speeches on the campaign trail lack specifics.

Mainstream media coverage has been predictable. On Friday, the day after the sermons aired on Fox News, neither NBC or CBS covered the story. ABC had 20 seconds. The New York Times had a well written, and I think fair article, but it was buried. In contrast, the NYT’s led with a major front page story on McCain’s association with a lobbyist. Although the story was light on facts and heavy on innuendo, the point of the story was one of association and judgment. Isn’t this controversy involving Senator Obama one of association and judgment?

This is awkward for the Democratic Party because many in the left wing of the party largely share the anti-American views – that America is the source and cause of all that is bad and evil in the world. Democrats like Senator Durbin who last year compared the United States to Stalin’s USSR, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and Hitler’s Germany.

Observing the dialoge on Reverend Wright, racism and oppression of the black community seem to be defining themes in some parts of black culture. How else can you explain that some blacks, including Reverend Wright, believe that the U.S. government invented the HIV virus to infect and kill people of color? How else can you explain that some believe that the U.S. government imports drugs, sells them to blacks to “hook them” and then have a reason to put them in prison? How else can you equate the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to 9/11? These bombings ended a war against a Japanese people that were fanatically prepared to die rather than surrender? It saved by most estimates several hundred thousand American lives in a war that was launched by the Japanese with a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

I don’t believe that Barack Obama believes the statements made by Reverend Wright, although it seems Michelle Obama does to some extent. But that does not excuse the Senator in terms of judgment and association. In his speech tomorrow I think Barack Obama would be well served to do a full mea culpa. He needs to say that he was aware of Reverend Wright’s beliefs and statements and that he should have rejected them a long time ago. If he continues to parse this so finely (he very carefully said that he was not in the pew when the statements on the tapes were made, not that he was unaware of the statements or beliefs) he risks looking just like another smarmy politician trying to spin a damaging issue.

We don’t really know Obama. Unfortunately we know the Clinton’s only too well. We know that they are pathological in their pursuit of power and will say or do just about anything to achieve their goal. But is the same true for Obama, but with a more polished and erudite style?