Obama denounces Wright: analyzing the analysts

Fist watch this video of Barack Obama denouncing Jeremiah Wright...

...now check out these responses from Chicago sun-Times (Obama and Wright's hometown) columnists...

Mary Michell  [Black rationalization. Apparently a Black Segregationist]
"There is no institution in the black community more respected than the black church. And the notion that white pundits can dictate what constitutes unacceptable speech in the black church is repulsive to most black people....

So, when Obama says America was 'offended' by Wright's harsh language, he isn't speaking for or to Black America. He is speaking to White America."

Richard Roeper  [Pragmatic, but I don't get the "motor home" reference. Did he mean RV?]
"Just when you figure Obama would love to see Wright shopping for motor homes for his retirement, Wright is soaking up the spotlight with more enthusiasm than Spencer Pratt on a red carpet.

Meanwhile, Obama called Wright's most recent appearance a "spectacle," said their relationship had been altered and added, "What Rev. Wright said [Monday] directly contradicts everything I have ever done or said in my life."

Politically, it's a risky move. The skeptics will say Obama waited too long before truly distancing himself from Wright. Others will say Obama sold out his friend to save his presidential ambitions."

Mark Brown [Liberal White Guilt. Wright's a lunatic, but it's somehow White people's fault.]
"The Wright affair has such resonance in this campaign because Wright has shown himself to be the kind of black person that white people don't like. He brings out our prejudices. Yes, I said "our" prejudices."

Carol Marin [Mostly even-handed, but still goes easy on Obama]
"What the presidential candidate from Chicago had to say was strongly worded, solemn and angry. It was powerful and personal. But it still raises the question of his response time. In political terms, this was a 3 a.m. phone call that went into voice mail."

Neil Steinberg [Good, but still sees it as a Black/White thing, which it isn't]
"'You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you,' he said.

That might be lapped up Sundays on West 95th Street. But it's political poison in much of the country. Self-justification is a drug, and Wright, high on the attention, doesn't realize that the historic wrongs that push a certain segment of the black community into a permanent loop of grievance, bitterness and complaint are of little interest to other Americans, who, believe it or not, face troubles of their own, despite being white, and have no desire to be stuck for the next four years with a minister preaching delusion and near-treason (a strong but apt term -- if the attacks against America are indeed the work of a just God repaying us for our evil acts, then we thwart his will by defending ourselves at all, and every airport checkpoint should be shut down as we await our divine punishment).

Obama courageously stood by his pastor, at first, and when the issue was sound bites of Wright's past rhetorical excesses, he was correct to do so. Now that Wright has changed the equation, restated his views in present tense and performed his giddy self-immolation, Obama is doing his best to spit his poison out. He'll have to spit harder, because every percentage of the vote counts, and Wright's loopy swan song need only hurt Obama a little to hurt him a lot."

Posted by Danny Carlton at April 30, 2008 8:54 AM