What Did Barack Obama See in Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Examining Wright's Words and Actions

 

Watching Rev. Jeremiah Wright's interview with Bill Moyers on PBS (click here to watch the whole interview or read the transcript), it's easy to see what Barack Obama saw in him -- a literary, charismatic man who was ministering to the poor and the oppressed, lifting up a benighted neighborhood and building a dynamic church, growing it from an average attendance of 80 to 8,000. Anybody who wishes to understand and delve deeply into the controversy around Rev. Wright, rather than reject him out of hand based on sound bites -- must watch that interview or read it.

To folks who wonder what Obama saw in Rev. Wright in the first place, the interview was revealing. Obama was attracted to Wright because he was well-educated, well-read, cerebral and inclusive and able to talk about spiritual and theological issues with depth, using words like "hermeneutics," according to Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendall's biography of Obama, quoted in a New Republic blog. Wright also served as something of a father figure to the essentially fatherless Obama as he sought to solidify his black identity. (Hat tips to Andrewsullivan.com)

Rev. Wright's presentation before the National Press Club, "The African American Religious Experience: Theology and Practice," was thoughtful. And he made the good point that as a result of the controversy surrounding him, perhaps "the reality of the African-American church will no longer be invisible" to the larger American culture.

He also scored points on patriotism and sacrifice for country -- he served six years in the United States military, including the Marines, and his niece currently serves in Iraq, fighting for America. He compared that service and sacrifice to the lack of military service and sacrifice of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. He made a distinction between service to and love of country with trust and faith in political regimes that frequently lie and harm their people.

He defended the exaggeration that he sometimes uses in his sermons as part of the black religious tradition. "In our community, we have something called 'playing the dozens,' " -- teasing and trash talk also known as "yo mama" fights. (Source)

"I come from a religious tradition where we shout in the sanctuary and march on the picket line. I come from a religious tradition where we give god the glory and the devil the blues. The black religious tradition is different. We do it a different way." (AP)

"In the past, we were taught to see others who are different as being deficient. We establish arbitrary norm and then determine that anybody not like us was abnormal. But a change is coming because we no longer see others who are different as being deficient. We just see them as different."

At the press club, under questioning, he repeated inflammatory statements, such as the AIDS epidemic is a genocidal government plot to exterminate African Americans. He cited two books, Leonard G. Horowitz's "Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola" and Harriet A. Washington's "Medical Apartheid. "Based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything," he said.

"In fact . . . one of the responses to what Saddam Hussein had in terms of biological warfare was a nonquestion, because all we had to do was check the sales records. We sold him those biological weapons that he was using against his own people. So any time a government can put together biological warfare to kill people, and then get angry when those people use what we sold them, yes, I believe we are capable." (Boston Globe)

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He refused to apologize for his statement, "God damn America," because "God doesn't bless everything. God condemns some things. And dem, D-E-M, is where we get the word damn. God damns some practices and there's no excuse for the things that the government, not the American people, have done. That doesn't make me not like America or unpatriotic."

Earlier, on the Moyers show, he explained: "When you start confusing God and government, your allegiances to government, a particular government and not to God, that you're in serious trouble because governments fail people. And governments change. And governments lie. And those three points of the sermon. And that is the context in which I was illustrating how the governments biblically and the governments since biblical times, up to our time, changed, how they failed, and how they lie."

He again charged that the U.S. government engaged in terrorism by dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan (though many if not most analysts believe the bombings brought a quick end to the war and saved lives, certainly American and allied lives, in the long run). The U.S. "supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans," These kinds of actions brought on the 9/11 attacks, because "you reap what you sew."

"You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles — not Jeremiah Wright bombastic divisive principles."

(Is he really suggesting that U.S. policies toward Palestinians brought on 9/11? It is true that U.S. support of Israel, U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, a "disgrace to mecca," and the infiltration of Western values into Islamic countries brought on the wrath of Islamic extremists, but is Wright really saying that these extremists are right and America is wrong on these issues, or were his statements simply part of an emotional, angry rant?)

He also questioned Obama's sincerity in denouncing his views, suggesting that Obama was hypocritical and secretly agreed with him.

Obama Denounces Wright's Latest Remarks

This was understandably too much for Barack Obama. Offended, outraged and appalled by Wright's latest "rants, not grounded in truth," he condemned them in the strongest terms. He said he initially gave Wright the benefit of the doubt, criticizing his remarks but refusing to denounce him as an individual because Wright had been misunderstood and taken out of context. But Wright's statements in the press club q&a left no doubt that even in context some of his views are extreme, reckless and offensive, Obama said. "He caricatured himself… That made me angry, but also made me sad." And Obama was angry that Wright showed "such disrespect to me." 

Obama's campaign had offered Wright media training from public relations professionals to help him through the thicket of national controversy, but Wright rebuffed the offer, deciding to communicate his ideas without vetting, apparently unconcerned if he damaged Obama's presidential campaign. Obama  said:

When Rev. Wright "states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS, when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century, when he equates the United States wartime efforts with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced. And that's what I'm doing very clearly and unequivocally here today."

(See "Obama Divorces Wright," Andrewsullivan.com and "A Strained Wright-Obama Bond Finally Snaps," in The New York Times.)

Wright said the US government owed blacks an apology for slavery. Several state legislatures in the South, including North Carolina's, have already done that, which he did not acknowledge.

Before Obama's denunciation, former President Jimmy Carter initially came to Wright's defense. On the "Larry King Live" show, Carter said he would not have left Wright's church after hearing his remarks, and that Wright wouldn't be "anything permanent or damaging" to Obama (video). But he denied Wright's contention that there were no differences between his statements about the Palestinians and the anti-semitic remarks of Louis Farrakhan.

Wright Criticized By Black Journalists

Three leading black journalists sharply criticized Wright. Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post observed in a column that one of Wright's central points -- that "any attack on him is an attack on the African American church and its traditions -- is just wrong. In making that argument, he buys into the fraudulent idea of a monolithic, monocultural black America -- one with his philosophy and theology at its center."

"Historically and theologically, he was inflating his importance in a pride-goeth-before-the-fall kind of way," Robinson writes. "Politically, by surfacing now, he was throwing Barack Obama under the bus. Sadly, it's time for Obama to return the favor."

Bob Herbert of The New York Times asserted that Wright is living "a narcissist's dream," getting national attention to pontificate on all sorts of issues, while damaging, perhaps severely, the historic opportunity for a black man to rise above racial identity, appeal to a broad coalition of whites and blacks, and win the presidency of the United States. "What we’re witnessing now is Rev. Wright’s 'I’ll show you!' tour," Herbert quipped. If Obama needs to do better among working class white voters and Catholics. "Rev. Wright is absolutely the wrong medicine for those concerns," he writes.

Terence Samuel, writing for TheRoot.com, a Washington Post/Newsweek website about the African American community, says Obama did exactly what he needed to do in "toss(ing) Wright out the penthouse window." Wright was "a wrecking ball" who could only hurt the Obama campaign.

Similarity to Falwell?

If Wright comes across at times as careless, pompous, bombastic, and egocentric, other politically-oriented TV preacher-performers have made the same mistakes before. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson come to mind. Republican politicians for decades did not disavow them, but sought their endorsement. Ronald Reagan went so far in 1980 as to tell a Religious Right gathering, "you can't endorse me, but I endorse you." In contrast, Obama has stated repeatedly that Wright does not speak for him, and has kept Wright at arm's length since his campaign began.

Wright promises to continue to be a thorn in Obama's side. Unlike conservative preachers who seemed overly impressed by their access to the Republican White House, Wright is unlikely to be co-opted. He told Obama in 2007 that "If you get elected, November the 5th I'm coming after you, because you'll be representing a government whose policies grind under people."

I can't imagine that Wright will be satisfied with an Obama administration, because it is sure to fail his strict ideological standards. Some wonder whether he's intentionally trying to undermine Obama. As Andrew Sullivan writes, "it is no wonder the some of the old guard have mixed feelings about his ascendancy; or that Wright, at this point, might feel jealousy and the erosion of his worldview."

Conservatives' Double Standard

Predictably, conservative columnists like George Will, who explained away or ignored the extremism of Rev. Falwell and other religious right leaders, claiming that they did not represent Ronald Reagan, now exuberantly try to tar Obama with Wright's brush. Their hypocrisy and double standards are showing. 

New York Times editorial: "It is an injustice, a legacy of the racist threads of this nation’s history, but prominent African-Americans are regularly called upon to explain or repudiate what other black Americans have to say, while white public figures are rarely, if ever, handed that burden. 

"Senator John McCain has continued to embrace a prominent white supporter, Pastor John Hagee, whose bigotry matches that of Mr. Wright. Mr. McCain has not tried hard enough to stop a race-baiting commercial — complete with video of Mr. Wright — that is being run against Mr. Obama in North Carolina."

Previous:

• Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in context

Related:

• Wright's Influence on Obama, by David Broder: "Liberation, Transformation, Reconciliation."