With his opening echo of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, Barack Obama in his speech on Reverend Wright et al reminded me of another politico who tried to gloss over some distinctly disturbing doings by posing in the glow of Honest Abe. That would be Hillary Clinton.
Remember the Pretty in Pink press conference, back in 1994, when Hillary finally agreed to talk to the press about her 10,000% return on a $1,000 investment in the futures markets? The setting was the White House. To receive reporters, she put on a pink sweater and sat in an armchair under a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. It worked. The real questions never got answered.
Now we have Obama, before that row of flags, riffing on the Gettysburg address — “Two hundred and twenty one years ago” — simultaneously trying to both reject and justify the venom of his spiritual leader, while outlining a vision of America that sounds like the rise of the empire of the clones, victims all, united and perfected in the pursuit of state subsidies.
The issue in both cases, Hillary and Barack, is not gender, or race, or any of those other categories in which we can debate endlessly who is the victim, and who is playing what card, and who is uniting and who is dividing. The issue here is integrity. And on the evidence so far, they really ought to leave Abraham Lincoln out of it.
One further note on Obama and Reverend Wright. We have been hearing a lot of discussion about what Obama might have known about Wright. When do we hear what Rev. Wright knows about Obama?
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J.D. Silentio:I don’t think it is wise to discount so quickly the context in which Obama placed his “former” pastor’s remarks. There is clearly a gap between various groups in America in terms of education and social achievement. I, for one, applaud Obama’s insistence that we work together to address this issue, rather than revert to a sense of entitlement based on a perception of victimization.
That being said, Obama’s integrity has been exposed as falling short of expectations. His knee-jerk reaction to the story of Wright’s venomous remarks was to deny knowledge of them. Then, when the story didn’t disappear, he did what he should have done at first and addressed the problem. One can’t help but wonder if he would similarly try to brush aside and ignore important issues as a President if he deemed them inconvenient, or politically dangerous.
Obama is far more imperfect as a leader than he or his supporters are ready to admit, and certainly unfit for the presidency at this point. This is evidenced by his judgement in handling the issue of Wright’s insulting, divisive, and mean words.
Mar 19, 2008 - 10:04 am william:Well done !Obama missed his WHOLE point.
Mar 19, 2008 - 4:01 pmHe absolutely blew it in his speech by not removing himself in absolute terms from the so-called Rev. Wright. (WELL HE SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT YEARS AGO). He is the product of the healing of the racial divide, and yet he can’t admit it. He is not the healer. He is the result of how much healing there has been.
He could have been a leader, but he is no one! He is pandering to hateful people. Look past his skin and see the heart! Just another left winged liberal!