The Mentor from Hell [Updated 2 times]

[Originally posted 3/13/08 12:57pm ; updates below]

Barack Obama's pastor is a racist who thinks 9/11 was our fault. OK. There are a lot of racists who think 9/11 was our fault, though not many in senior advisory positions for presidential campaigns. Why is this an issue?

As the inimitable FrankJ says:

Obama's book's title, The Audacity of Hope, came from a sermon of his pastor Jeremiah Wright. I guess he chose another sermon of Wright to base his book on, it would be called Jesus Hates Honkeys.

The existence of Wright offends me as a Christian, but this is supposed to be who Obama got his spiritual teachings from? In fact, secretly being a Muslim might actually be better than taking this guy's sermons seriously.

But isn't Obama's faith off limits for criticism? After all, we didn't dig up kooky things Mitt Romney's pastor or Hillary Clinton's priestess say. Why Obama?

This isn't vague references to being a (*gasp*) Mormon or obscure rules about goat sacrifices. These are specific statements made over a long period of time by someone the candidate has called a "mentor". That is implicit endorsment of the man's views.

Someone with such finely tuned hearing that he can pick up racism in Geraldine Ferraro's assessment that Obama is popular precisely and only because of his skin color should be able to detect it when it's preached at him from the pulpit.

Obama cannot get away with disavowing knowledge of this guy's views, nor with distancing himself from specific statements. He has to either throw this pastor under the bus, or better, explain why he disagrees with the pastor and still goes to the church.

[Update: Obama answers on HuffPo

Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.

The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.

While that answers many questions, it raises others. Saying that "he has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor" introduces irrelevancy. No one said he was your political advisor, just that he was a senior advisor to your campaign and on career moves.

Let's play Parse The Clintonese™, shall we?

[...] And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.

"And the sermons I heard him preach"

Obama heard several sermons. He equivocates mightily: he does not deny hearing these hate-filled sermons, though he seems to deny it. And he does not deny that other, possibly more offensive material is appeared in other sermons; he merely says that the sermons he "heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God" and our neighbor. Every sermon says that, but what else do they say? And because something is "related to" something else which is orthodox and positive doesn't mean that it is itself orthodox and positive.

Still and all, I am glad that the Senator has repudiated the remarks made by the retiring pastor. I regret asking that he throw the pastor under the bus, but now that he's done it, let's just move on.]

[Update 20080316

It seems I was right to parse 'the sermons I heard always said' as Red Herring. He was there.]

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