How to Win Friends and Influence People

March 19, 2008 at 12:56 pm (DimWitDems, Election2008, Faith, Fourth Estate, Kiss The Ring, Politics, Salieri would be proud, The S Word)

America is all abuzz over Obama’s speech on race. Why? Like an episode out of the Twilight Zone, everyone heard exactly what they wanted to hear.

Personally, I think he had a grand opportunity for a “presidential” moment; a time to really upstage his opponents. And he blew it, bigtime.

Gerard brings up a very good point, pre-speech, about racism from pulpits. Where exactly do you hear it? I’ve never heard it from a pulpit – but that’s me and my white-bread southern experience. In his searching about for a church to call home

From my direct observation, these Christian Fundamentalist churches have all — every single one — had congregations composed of all the races. From my auditing of the sermons I have never, not once, heard a message of race hate preached. Neither have I heard race hate promoted in the social meetings after. Not one single time, not even in the whitest of congregations. I have never, not for one instant, felt anything coming from these meetings that is anything other than embracing tolerance and Christian love for mankind. I have never, not for one instant, detected a whiff of bigotry or of anti-Semitism in these gatherings. Being a reformed radical from Berkeley in the 1960s I have keen radar for this sort of thing. Like many of my unreformed cohort I can detect it even when it doesn’t exist.

As they say, read the whole thing. He shares my amazement over Obama’s lack of intestinal fortitude concerning the controversy of Reverend Wright. How can he say he wasn’t aware of some of the things Rev. Wright has preached, when anecdotes of those same phrases and ideas can be found in his books? He may have been playing Hang-Man in the pews, but his wife was sure listenin’. And takin’ notes, too. How can he disown his own grandmother, who took him into her home and RAISED him through his school years? Because she was white? And now white doesn’t count in his campaign logic? Didn’t his grandmother’s unconditional love count for anything in his book? He should have used the example of her life as proof positive that the racial divide he so “perceives” in this “divided” America can be healed. Perhaps, if he hadn’t have been under the spell of this man who spews racist hate under the guise of the Gospel, he might have remembered that he himself had been loved and cherished regardless of his skin color. From Neo:

And I can only hope that Obama’s grandmother, who is still alive, was told about this speech in advance and agreed that it was alright with her. If she did, it’s just more proof of her love for her grandson. If she did not, he’s guilty of one of the most coldblooded political exploitations of a loved one that I’ve ever witnessed.

The Anchoress sees it as crafty, yet disappointing. Even Across The Pond, Melanie Phillips picked up on how Obama threw grandma under the bus.

Allahpundit says that Obama moved the goalposts. Racism is cool, as long as you are the one perpetrating it. Victimhood as a campaign plank is workin’, dude!

If any other politician tried a move this transparently cynical, to nudge the conversation away from his own craven tolerance of racial hatred to some sort of redemption narrative by which to hold that against him is to be, in effect, objectively anti-progress, the media would vivisect him.

Obama uses his magical media pass yet again. The MSM is quivering with excitement. You can always count on Siggy to shrink the head to a laser-beam of truth.

Obama’s speech was remarkable for what he did not say.

He did not make the distinction or explain why Jeremiah Wright’s words were controversial and not bigoted. Why is Black Liberation theology- a belief system that embraces the idea that black people must put themselves in a position to dominate whites- not a racist belief system?

Exactly…replace “black” with “white” in those sentences above (and all the sentences flying through the air this week and EVERY sentence on Revenend Wright’s Highlight Tapes) and what do you have? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Funny how the definition of “racist” is so slippery, isn’t it? But hate is still hate.

“Red and Yellow, Black and Blue,
Jesus Loves Me More Than You.”

Some people believe that a person’s private life is exactly that – their private life. But once a person decides on their own free will to enter the public eye (i.e. run for elected office), they had better have the stones to be able to tolerate a severe examination of their life and family and friends and finances and beliefs and non-beliefs and high-school term papers and crazy relatives and how many pairs of shoes they own, right down to who cuts their hair. Yes, it can be absurd and ridiculous and demeaning and infuriating. But is necessary; painfully necessary. How else can we, the insignificant voters, decide if a candidate is truly capable of the job? Michelle says in her column today:

Well, you can’t pick your grandma, but you can pick your pastor. And Obama picked the wrong one if he aspires to be the president of all America—an America that includes citizens of all colors who cringe at self-serving racial rationalizations masquerading as moral salvation. [Emphasis – Admin]

For a while, I thought he could beat Hillary. The next few weeks will be interesting, indeed. What I have suspected for a while, but was loathe to actually say because I didn’t want to face the flame-spam-wrath of the Obamatrons, has become apparent that he’s just another politician (albeit better looking than most) with a thin resume with a good speech-writer who helps to sell the snake-oil.

As Gerard says (above), “I’ve been told, over and over, for decades that America is a racist nation. This week I came to believe it. I just never expected to find it in the place where I did.”