Where There's Holy Smoke…

A lot of people are talking about Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and his relationship to Senator Barack Obama. It seems the good reverend has a penchant for inflammatory remarks (that’s polite language for “hate-filled demagoguery”), and some think it’s unfair to tar Senator Obama with “guilt by association.”

I’m one of those people. It would take a very serious relationship between the two men, beyond pastor and congregant, for me to use Reverend Wright’s remarks to call into question Senator Obama’s own beliefs — or, at least, his judgment in associating with Reverend Wright.

After all, it’s not like Senator Obama sought out Reverend Wright’s church upon moving to Chicago.

Oops… he did.

Well, it’s not like Senator Obama thought so highly of him that he gave him a prominent role in his book or anything.

Oh, yeah, he did. He even took the title from one of Wright’s sermons.

Then, it’s not like he regularly sought Wright’s counsel on non-spiritual issues, getting his advice on major temporal matters.

OK, he did that, too.

Fine. But it’s not like he made Wright a highly-ranked member of his campaign staff or something.

He did that, too?

I bet these remarks of Wright’s are cherry-picked by Obama’s enemies, and Wright’s church is less than thrilled that he made them in the first place.

You mean that they all come from DVDs that the church itself sells as fundraisers?

I give up. I’m sure there is a way to spin Obama’s 20-year relationship with a race-baiting man who calls for God to damn America, is convinced that it’s run by the Ku Klux Klan, that the government engineered the AIDS virus to get rid of gays and blacks, and embraces Louis Farrakhan, but I can’t find it.

Can someone help me out here?

]]>< ![CDATA[

On a serious note, I have read one theory that explains Obama’s ties with Wright, one that fits in with the “identity politics” that is so important to the Democrats. When Obama came to Chicago, he was worried about being seen as “half white” and alienated from the black community. So he found a very popular and prominent member of the black community — Reverend Wright — and did all he could (joined the church, had Wright marry him to his wife, baptize their children) to make it clear that he was Wright’s friend and ally. Now that the association is actually hurting his career, it’s time to jettison the old hate-monger.

Just speculation, but it fits the facts fairly well.

GOP rebellion in Alaska
Another Remembrance