More reaction to Obama's finger in the dike speech
Several things are now clear from Obama's Phillie speech and the reaction to it.
1. Obama heard Wright's rants and was well aware of the extreme allegations of Wright's radical black theology. Obama's early statements that he had not heard these crazy theories and rants from Wright in his 20 years at the church were LIES. Obama's first instinct in the controversy was to lie about his own involvement.
2. Obama still tries to portray his own tolerance of the Wright's extremism as a decision based on balancing the good and the bad and part of some metaphysical process. The truth, which everyone knows, is that Obama is half-white and an Ivy-Leaguer and was entering politics in a black section of Chicago and needed "black bona fides." He sat and listen, gave money to the church, and supported it and Rev. Wright because doing so HELPED HIM POLITICALLY at the time. Now it doesn't, so he can say that he always disagreed with the extremist rants.
3. Obama still cannot afford to alienate his black base (without their 85-90% turnout for him he would be watching Hillary get the nomination). So he still does not completely disavow Rev. Wright's viewpoints, but tries to explain them in a "broader context." Here is some real pandering, when he compares Rev. Wright's leading a congregation of 4,000 people with this ideological hate with his white grandmother sometimes being uncomfortable walking down the street approaching young black males. The comparison to Ferraro's accurate but politically incorrect observation about his success hinging on him being black is also disingenuous. Obama desperately tried to find white "equivalence" to balance Rev. Wright's accusations against America. In this, while the rhetoric worked for an instant, he failed miserably.
4. Obama, as always, is weakest on the "close." Somehow his experience in tolerating and promoting black extremist theology makes him qualified to lead us to anther place. We will allegedly get to this other place by "uniting" around the policies of the most liberal elements of our society, which have been rejected in every election where they showed their true colors. Unity to Obama means simply for the conservatives to quit criticizing his liberal fixes - which mostly include taking someone else's money and giving it to other groups to buy their votes. "Unity" solves the problems by letting Obama and other liberals use our money to pay the bills for "hope." Obama's "unity" and "hope" are neither. The disconnection between his generic calls for achieving the common good and his policy prescriptions to do so does not go away or get fixed by warm feelings. Obama's relative lack of any significant policy achievements or even original new proposals remains there behind the smoke and mirrors.
In the end, Obama's appeal is for voters to trust him because he has a vision. We are asked to trust him after he lies and obfuscates about Rev. Wright's brutal attacks on America, after his wife's consistent statements saying the same things in softer words, while he offers no new proposals or original solutions to any of these issues and has a mediocre track record for doing anything but making speeches. That is the deal that will not "close."
Randy Mott
1. Obama heard Wright's rants and was well aware of the extreme allegations of Wright's radical black theology. Obama's early statements that he had not heard these crazy theories and rants from Wright in his 20 years at the church were LIES. Obama's first instinct in the controversy was to lie about his own involvement.
2. Obama still tries to portray his own tolerance of the Wright's extremism as a decision based on balancing the good and the bad and part of some metaphysical process. The truth, which everyone knows, is that Obama is half-white and an Ivy-Leaguer and was entering politics in a black section of Chicago and needed "black bona fides." He sat and listen, gave money to the church, and supported it and Rev. Wright because doing so HELPED HIM POLITICALLY at the time. Now it doesn't, so he can say that he always disagreed with the extremist rants.
3. Obama still cannot afford to alienate his black base (without their 85-90% turnout for him he would be watching Hillary get the nomination). So he still does not completely disavow Rev. Wright's viewpoints, but tries to explain them in a "broader context." Here is some real pandering, when he compares Rev. Wright's leading a congregation of 4,000 people with this ideological hate with his white grandmother sometimes being uncomfortable walking down the street approaching young black males. The comparison to Ferraro's accurate but politically incorrect observation about his success hinging on him being black is also disingenuous. Obama desperately tried to find white "equivalence" to balance Rev. Wright's accusations against America. In this, while the rhetoric worked for an instant, he failed miserably.
4. Obama, as always, is weakest on the "close." Somehow his experience in tolerating and promoting black extremist theology makes him qualified to lead us to anther place. We will allegedly get to this other place by "uniting" around the policies of the most liberal elements of our society, which have been rejected in every election where they showed their true colors. Unity to Obama means simply for the conservatives to quit criticizing his liberal fixes - which mostly include taking someone else's money and giving it to other groups to buy their votes. "Unity" solves the problems by letting Obama and other liberals use our money to pay the bills for "hope." Obama's "unity" and "hope" are neither. The disconnection between his generic calls for achieving the common good and his policy prescriptions to do so does not go away or get fixed by warm feelings. Obama's relative lack of any significant policy achievements or even original new proposals remains there behind the smoke and mirrors.
In the end, Obama's appeal is for voters to trust him because he has a vision. We are asked to trust him after he lies and obfuscates about Rev. Wright's brutal attacks on America, after his wife's consistent statements saying the same things in softer words, while he offers no new proposals or original solutions to any of these issues and has a mediocre track record for doing anything but making speeches. That is the deal that will not "close."
Randy Mott
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