The Jeremiah Wright Obama Knew 20 Years Ago
Senator Obama's still got Rev. Wright to deal with, and he gave his big disowning speech yesterday, but it's not going to hold up to scrutiny from the people who are out to get Obama for being a black man.
A major part of Obama's case is the idea that the Rev. Wright he first met in 1988 was not the lightning rod for controversy he has become in 2008. Uh, sorry, that's not all that persuasive.
In 1984, Rev. Wright got all aboard the Nation of Islam Express and visited Libya with the Rev. Louis Farrakhan. This is not to say that Wright is entirely a bad man, or that Obama supports his positions. But the racially-tinged attacks on the senator aren't going to go away when he makes the claim that Wright was a different man when he signed up with the Trinity United Church of Christ in the 90s. Here's the conservative Israpundit who holds up Wright's visit to Libya as evidence of the pastor consorting "openly with a vicious racist, anti-Semite, and Catholic-hater while paying friendly calls on an Islamic supremacist dictator." And then there's this anonymous Craig's List forum post that takes the "Obama is a secret Muslim" fantasy/insanity to the next level, asking why Obama in fact (or rather, not in fact) visited Libya with Wright.
This all points back to how foolish the "More Perfect Union" speech really was. The words were inspiring and alleviated the worries of the already pro-Obama white liberal, but did little to ease the trembling minds of racially-panicked American saps who see Rev. Wright as the pinnacle of their fears of a black president. Saying you can't disown someone and then disowning them is the belliest of flip flops.
If the renewed Wright controversy lets Hillary pull this one out, we won't remember that speech fondly any more. Instead we'll remember that Obama never came to terms with the idea that a lot of people still couldn't choke down the racial milieu in which he came of political age. What may be most audacious now is that Obama's political prospects could be built from little but hope itself.
