Still a tight race. No surprise. Obama got the difficult headlines the last week and his numbers are down. Hillary's turn to have tough headlines comes next and the pendulum will swing back. Until one of these candidates appears to have a solid, measurable lock on the nomination, expect the see-saw to continue.

Rasmussen has Obama with a bigger lead today than yesterday in their rolling average, primarily because friday, which for them was the worst day for obama, has rolled out. Don't know the diferences in the methodologies between the two "tracking" polls- perhaps you have thoughts?

The Zogby poll was taken March 13-14, so hard to fit it into the same context.

CNN's poll the 14-16 have him still up. Ditto USA today over the same period.

Well, outside the bubble that is TNR and the liberals-desperately-seeking-to-believe-in-Obama-zone,  the GOP operatives can't believe their good luck. From Politico: www.politico.com/.../9116.html

GOP sees Rev. Wright as pathway to victory

...“For the first time, some Republicans are rethinking Hillary as their first choice,” said Alex Castellanos, a veteran media consultant who recently worked for Mitt Romney’s campaign.

Even Obama’s much-lauded Tuesday speech, which detailed his relationship with his church and focused on the issue of racial reconciliation, failed to shake the notion that Republicans had been given a rare political gift.

...if Michelle Obama’s gaffe caused some ripples in the right-wing pond, the Wright videos have detonated the equivalent of a daisy cutter on the conservative landscape, awakening an otherwise dispirited party base.

“I usually get three or four emails a week on Obama,” said Michigan Republican chairman Saul Anuzis Monday. “Today I received more than 10, all of them on his minister.”

Among the e-mails Anuzis received was a link to a mash-up video splicing together Wright’s most extreme comments, Michelle Obama’s statement, footage of Obama not putting his hand over his heart during the anthem at a political event and images of Malcolm X and the two black Olympians in 1968 who raised their fists in the “black power” salute, set to Public Enemy's iconic rap song “Fight the Power.”

The video, titled “Is Obama Wright?” is described as being produced by something called “NHaleMedia,” apparently just a dummy website set up to produce anonymous and homemade videos.

Obama needs to get his head out of the O-zone and start speaking directly and simply, with a minimum of bullsh*t, to ordinary, non-college educated white voters.

These people understand that politicians suck up to influential blowhards for political reasons. They can understand and forgive that, because, unlike the fawning boyband groupies at TNR, they don't harbord grand illusions about politicians or have a jones for political rhetoric.

Tep- have you heard his Iraq speech today or read it?

Tep -- I thought you were post-race.  So why does Obama need to speak to "non-college educated white voters" if race isn't or shouldn't be a factor?

Or, by "post-race" do you mean that you are "post-black" and that for you, "post-black" and "white" are the same things?  Is whiteness the absence of race?

What makes white people more ordinary than black people?

A new TNR term: DittoTep.  Obama ain't stupid, but it's still the economy.

I'm post-race, but Obama isn't. He has a problem with the demographic I outlined, and a bigger problem with those of us who would be delighted to see our politics get beyond race but not beyond, well, politics.

The political math required Obama to convince afr-amers that he is authentically black, thereby ensuring high a-a turnout, and now he needs to convince non-Koolaid-drinking whites that he's a credible leader for the nation ie tough, ruthless, and with the right priorities.

Sorry tep, they will fall for this garbage.  I lived through it for decades watching Jesse Helms get elected time and time again using race bating tactics.  I saw him destroy a promising former Charlotte mayor (Harvey Gantt) when he ran against Senator NO.  Gantt was a centrist Dem, well educated (a successful architect) and was destroyed via slimy whisper campaigns and race bating ads.  So don't tell me that the 'non educatd white voters' won't fall for it.  They did here in North Carolina for 30+ years.  Race bating works and the pubes will use it as their path to victory, no matter what Obama does or says.  They don't understand politicians suck up, they will fall for Repug lies every time.  How else do you think Helms stayed in office so  long?  His Senate record of having, um, not a single piece of important legislation to his name in his over 3 decades in the Senate?

So please, spare me.  I've seen what racial politics will do first hand all my life.  It ain't pretty but too many will buy those lies hook line and sinker. And those same voters put that idiot in the White House TWICE against their own best economic interests.

I read about Obama's Iraq speech and I think he misses an opportunity -- he should say simply "America, but-for George Bush, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, there would not be a recession."  Let others quibble with that, he has two trillion arguments to the contrary.  

Polls be damned.  It is, without a doubt, completely untenable to countenance a man who screams "Goddamn America" from the pulpit while attempting to become PRESIDENT.  The fodder that these videos provide is endless.  How naive to openly support the man.  The sheep compare his speech to the Gettysburg address; I think it's more akin to something you might hear on Montel Williams.  He should have jettisoned the didactic racial rhetoric, and dropped an anvil on Wright when he had the chance.  

tep-

Enough already.  I've read this stuff from you before and now I'm going to address it.

In a nutshell, you my friend need to understand that non-college educated voters and even most college educated voters be they black or white are emotionally driven idiots.  They do not understand the rules of politics where candidates have to do all sorts of unpleasant things and make all sorts of compromises in order to get elected.  They do not understand jockeying for favor from the unsavory party establishment.  But they do understand and love political rhetoric, meaningless blather about character, and poetic imagery -- be it rail-splitting with Lincoln or getting rescued by a submarine after getting shot down with Bush.  This is how you get elected by the majority.  By building grand illusions with the public like "It's Morning in America,"  or even "Back to Normalcy."

You and others constantly berate Obama for trying to be inspiring, for his lofty rhetoric, for his speaking skills as if these attributes either a)  won't get him elected, or b) won't make him a good president.  You could not be more wrong.

a)  Voters want to believe and be inspired and will vote for a candidate who makes them FEEL GOOD.  Like I said most of them are emotionally driven idiots who don't put a lot of thought into political issues and positions as they should.  They vote with their emotions not their heads.  This is in large part why Bush I beat Dukakakis, Reagan beat Carter and Mondale, and Bush II beat Kerry and Gore.  No doubt all these Democrats were in better command of the issues and were more intelligent than their opponents, but they lost because the public LIKED the Republican better.  Yeah, political policies do play a large role in a lot of voters decisions, but when it comes right down to it I believe most people vote on their emotion connect with a candidate and not his/her policies.  This is why Obama is so much better than Hillary.  Like it or not he inspires people.  You nay sayers can bitch and moan all you want about Obama's lack of substance -- which I highly dispute -- but the fact remains inspiration wins elections not policy wonkishness.  Dukakis couldn't have been more wrong with his emphasis on competence.

b)  How exactly do you think that a President gets the policies he/she wants enacted by Congress?     Is is by sitting up all night with policy wonks and going over the minutia of legislation with them and then handing the legislation off to Congress and saying here ya go, go vote?  I don't think so.  Presidents are only as effective in office enacting policy as is their ability to use the bully pulpit to convince resistant Congressmen that if they don't go along with the program there will be hell to pay come their re-election.   This is where Obama stands head and shoulders above Hillary.  For all of her vaunted expertise and legislative acumen Republican legislators have nothing to fear from vehemently opposing any thing she might try to do as President because they can be sure that their constituents are anti-Hillary to the hilt.  All they have to say back home is Hillary is for such and such and they will get all the support and money they need to oppose her.  Obama, on the other hand, with his oratorical skills and lack of a pre-existing hate gallery will be much better able to pressure reluctant Republicans into going along with the program.  Imagine Obama going on T.V. and giving a speech about the strengths of his health-care initiative in a State of the Union address?  You don't think a lot of voters will be moved by his speaking skills to call their legislators and tell them to support him?

Yeah, oratory and rhetoric count big time in being President.  Just look at the massively uninformed and ignorant Ronald "trees are the source of pollution" Reagan.  Nuff said.            

tnmats - look, Obama should have seen this coming. This isn't rocket science. It's the political dynamic behind the local-to-national ascent of every major pol on this planet: you start out appealing to localized, more or less tribal constituencies, and then you have to broaden your appeal to heterogeneous national constituencies that include majorities who may be strongly opposed to your earlier, tribal supporters. This is as true of a French Socialist who has to move beyond his Trotskyite past in order to win nationally as it is of a nonwhite American pol who has to appeal to whites in order to win nationally. It's not about race but about political logic. Some PoliSci prof somewhere must have a fancy latinate term for this.

Obama knew this. He should have cut Wright free years ago. It's his error.

To talk about polls some more- they also released some state matchup polls.

In Ohio, Clinton does far better against McCain than does Obama.

On the other hand, he does better in Connecticutt against McCain than she does and FAR better in Colorado than she does.

My suspicion is that he'll be less of a chance in the rust belt (read: Ohio and maybe Pennsylvania, although probably not enough to lose Pennsylvania) than she will, and probably in Florida, but he'll do better in the midwest (wisconsin and minnesota both have the potential to go red with a Clinton nomination) and in the southwest/mountain- Colorado, nevada, etc. He also may do better in the couple of Northeast states where it still matters.

Anyone else thinking about the electoral college?

You really can't tell too much from day-to-day polling, except that Wright did hurt Obama in the short run, and who knows how it wil play out in the long run.

I do want to raise an issue that nobody else has - the timing of the release of the Wright videos into widespread public consciousness.  Most Obama philes on this board are utterly convinced it was released by Clinton as an attempt to smear him.  While I'm not so innocent that I think "no way would team Clinton try to smear him", I can think of a lot of times that would have been far more effective for the Clinton campaign - like before Super Tuesday, or before the Ohio-Texas confab.  And not just before, but RIGHT before.  If you are trying to damage Obama and hurt him at the polls, the optimum time to do it is right before the polls open, when he has no time to react.  We saw the immediate drop in the polls right after this story broke, so that only confirms the idea that you want to give somebody the least amount of time to react.

So if Clinton is behind it, why do it last Friday?  When there are weeks to go before the next primary, so Obama has maximum time to react?

So, if it makes no sense for Clinton to do it (or at least not do it right then), could it be that Obama (or somebody in his campaign) did it?  Here's the rationale.  1. Obama knows full well he's going to have to deal with this some time before November if he's going to get elected President.  2. He's already got a decent lead on Clinton.  3. If he's going to have to deal with it anyway, he might as well deal with it when he has the maximum amount of time to recover, get out whatever his message might be, etc.  4. While I don't doubt for a minute (unlike some people) that Obama wrote the speech himself, I'd be very surprised if he wrote it since Sunday - more likely he's had it in the can ready to go.  5. If it had turned out that Clinton had steamrolled him back in the early primaries, then there would have been no need to deal with the issue at all - he just goes back to being a Senator from Illinois and that's that - so that's one reason for not getting it out in the open early on.

Now, I do NOT think this is cynical manipulation on Obama's part - these things were already public knowledge (as Sean Hannity repeatedly reminds his viewers, he broke this story over a year ago.  And since these videos are for sale on the Internet, by Reverend Wright himself, it's hardly a clandestine operation that took the full power of the CIA to crack).  I also don't think he picked this time to put any damage on Clinton, or anything else like that.  I just think he felt like if it was going to happen some day (and it was going to happen some day - there's no way the vast right wing conspiracy would sit on this until December), then this particular point in time might be the most advantageous (or maybe more accurately, least disadvantageous) of all the times that might be available.

So, if it is true (a big if, I concede - all I'm going on here is speculation), it raises a lot of interesting questions.  Is Obama really that savvy to so cleverly deal with such an issue?  (If yes, then I'd say it's a point in his favor when it comes to wondering how he'll deal with other hot potato issues as President).  Does Hillary Clinton deserve an apology from the people that have been beating her over the head for supposedly being the one behind this?  Has Obama been waiting for years for this to come out (and maybe wondered why it wasn't an issue in his Senate race)?  Has this been part of the entire "race card" strategy that Obama's been executing since the nominating race began?

Agree about the anvil. I think Kgrant suggested a more colorful approach yesterday, but the calm after the speech was short-lived. The Corner is all lit up again today over Wright. He is not going away. Obama is going to need to anvil him to have a chance. There is so little risk in it and it is so obvious. So why not? Because he can't. The depth of his relationship with Wright is so significant that he will look even more crass and political in trying to kill him. The problem is that Obama can't deny hearing the "controversial" stuff. I feel bad for him... there is no good way out of this and Hillary gets to sit back and watch her poll numbers climb while the Repubicans do her dirty work.

"Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice; who makes his neighbors work for nothing, and does not give them their wages . . . with the burial of a donkey he shall be buried -- dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem."

Jeremiah (no, not Jeremiah Wright) 22:13, 19

Now, preach on that as a Black American in the South Side of Chicago, where systematic racism has crippled neighborhoods.  If you didn't preach angry, you'd be preaching blind.

buffaloboy- i love it... it actually was raised by a few people yesterday. I think of it as the controlled burn approach. remember a few years ago when the controlled burn wnet nuclear and burned half of california. I think this fire is more than they expected. and i'm with tep. this is a problem he should have cleaned up years ago. what a collosal fuck up! it's too late now. and regarding the timing of it, everyone wins...

Interesting how the current race discussion has entirely skipped over reparations (individual or group).  

Obama is a nice guy,a nd a smart guy. I like him a lot. He's a poet and a thinker and may well turn out to be one of most illustrious debaters in that debating club known as the US Senate.

But he just doesn't have the cojones to lead a nation.

Buffalo- I considered this possibility as well. An alternative possibility- the GOP put this out. The timing for them is to simply extend the dem nomination fight longer than they would have otherwise. Perhaps it was deemed too risky for them to do it after the nomination. Perhaps they aren't sure if even with this, HIllary is a better candidate.

Eweiss- the corner lights up at all sorts of silliness- flag lapel pins, etc. They're probably not a good weathervane for the general public any more than this blog is. The supposition that appears to be taking hold is that this is how Wright preached every sunday. Does anyone have any evidence of that?

tep, it was a screw-up on Obama's part.  I'll concede that.  As a regular church goer, I can also relate that there are things that come out of the priest's mouth that make me want to jump up and beat on him.  I don't and I haven't left my church.  Then again, I'm not running for office so who cares.  If I were painted with the same brush as my priest (or anyone else in the Greek Orthodox clergy), I'd be painted as a huge anti-Semite but I'm not.

But don't tell me that non-educated types can see though this.  They CAN'T.  That's how we get evil Helms types and incompetent morons like shrub.  Woland hit the nail on the head this time.  That analysis/observation is dead on 100% right.  One thing that I honestly believe Obama could do that HRC can't: she might have the better ideas (I don't think so, but just suppose) but she's so polarizing I don't think she could get things through Congress and would most likely have Congress flip back to pube control.  Obama would have a better shot at getting his programs though since he could convince more of the public BECAUSE of his speech-making ability and oratory.  That's what helped Reagan get through what I feel were sometimes horrible policies.  

I saw Reagan in person once in college, giving a speech on NC State's campus when he was stumping for tax reform.  I didn't care for Reagan but it was a chance to see a president in person so I had to go.  I was amazed that he whipped up a 12,000 college kids into a frenzy over *tax reform*.  He was a great speaker, and he got what he wanted with that ability.  So don't tell me that speech making ability isn't a big deal; for a president, it's a HUGE deal. Obama would have the ability to use the bully pullpit skillfully; HRC and McBush, not so much (if at all).

interesting link...

www.salon.com/.../index.html

If buffaloboy's theory is right, then Obama's more cunning than any of us ever supposed, and he'll have my vote. He certainly knows that neither HRC nor McC will touch these vids with a ten-foot pole, or even allow the slightest hint of involvement by their campaigns in the creation and dissemination of them.

It may have been a brilliant roll of the dice by BHO, but it's still a roll of the dice. Not characterisitic of such a uniquely disciplined, controlled, cautious campaign as the one he's run thus far. I'd guess we'll know very soon whether this works or not (hint: see how many views the NHale Wright mashup video achieves once it's up on YouTube).

"You [tep] and others constantly berate Obama for trying to be inspiring, for his lofty rhetoric, for his speaking skills as if these attributes either a)  won't get him elected, or b) won't make him a good president.  You [tep and others] could not be more wrong." - woland

Problem is, Senator Obama only inspires a portion of the Democratic faithful, not the whole kahuna and certainly not the majority of Americans.  Obama's problem isn't that he is wanton to be post-racial - it is that he is PAST-racial.  Meaning his primary group of identity has been eclipsed.  

If only Obama were Latino.  Then ever more so, his lofty rhetoric might intrinsically matter all the more so.

Like tep mentioned, Obama gave us unnecessary exegesis, wherein he ought to have, more aptly propounded about his (or Wright's) hermeneutic - as JosephCuomo has previously intoned (without literally saying so) - has precisely indicated which Obama has failed to fortuitously pronounce.

Whereby, in my humble opinion, Mr. Obama has failed.

Speaking of YouTube, Obama's long long speech (too long for some TNR readers) is #1 today on YouTube with over 1.2 million views.  Hmm.

in short attention span America the wright reruns will quickly be discarded as boring. whatever lasting damage will be done has pretty much been done, if you keep showing the same video again and again then many people will just become annoyed and go in the opposite direction out of spite.

The only question I have was the wound fatal and we don't know it yet or not.

Thanks woland.  That was a very clear explanation.  I don't think it will change the thinking of anyone here in the slightest degree.  But I appreciated it.  Running for office is one of those things like parenthood.  Until you have done it, you really cannot quite imagine what it is like or how it will change your perspective.

So much of what is kicked around in here strikes me us completely beside any point.  Politically, , Obama needed to spike any hemorrhage in public opinion that might jeopardize his nomination at this late date. He has done that successfully.  People can argue about whether the speech was perfect or not or meaningful or sincere or well-written or whatever until the end of time.  It achieved its major purpose.

There will be no-revote in FL and MI (someone owes me a dollar on that one, was it blackton?).  Hillary's campaign is now in desperate straits as the clock has nearly run out.  The super-delegates and party leadership have already started signaling that the supers are not going to vote counter to both the delegate count AND the popular vote.  Hillary is therefore done.  On to the general.

As to political impact in the general, one can argue that Obama should have done a, b, c, or d years ago.  That doesn't matter.  A sterile argument.  The past is fixed.  One can take offense.  That only matters if the votes of enough similarly minded people are affected.  I consider that unlikely.  Whether it was cynical manipulation, empty flowery rhetoric, not ruthless enough, whatever really is unimportant.  The man had a job to do with regard to the current state of play.  He came and he did it.

That's what matters to me.  The rest of you theater critics can continue as you were.

I don't know whether buffaloboy's theory is right or not, but I do think that this is precisely the least disadvantageous time for this to blow up. Had it blown up before Iowa, or Super Tuesday, it could have killed Obama's opportunity to build momentum and establish a delegate lead and a compelling narrative. Had it simmered until he was the nominee and blown up late in the game - say in October - it would have been difficult for Obama to react effectively. But coming now, Obama already has an almost insurmountable delegate lead. Barring an implosiion, he's going to be the democratic nominee.  While no candidate ever wants a bad news story, if there is one going to come, now's the time. For one, the questions ahve been arising about whether Obama could handle adversity. I even heard some stupid pundits suggesting Obama had a "glass jaw" after he lost Ohio and Rhode ILsland. THis gives him a chance to prove he can handle adversity. And he did it in classic Obama fashion. He didn't dodge. He didn't parse. Even those who oppose Obama gave him that. The speech was courageous.  SO that should put the "Obama can't take a punch" narrative to rest.

It also allowed him time to suffer whatever downturn he'll face in the polls as a result of this and then counter it with his own narrative - which the speech yesterday began to do. He is starting to fill in the idea of what he means about being a uniter. It means you can disagree with people's ideas - and he does - yet not trash the people. He is going to amplify that message going forward and I think it will benefit him.

THe other thing that getting this out now does is neutralize it (largely) as a general election issue. The swift boats stuff is a flawed comparison. For one, the swift boat narrative - however questionable it may ahve been on the facts - was about John Kerry. It was an attack on his own character. This, by contrast, is not a direct attack on Obama. While one can argue that a pastor is an influential figure and Obama shouldn't have stuck witht he guy, he's offered reasons to explain it that, for a lot of people will sound reasonable. But in the final analysis, the reason this won't have a big long-term attack is that it is not directly about Obama. Short-term, sure it has raised questions. But long-term, I think the effect is negligible. Especially since we've got nearly 8 months til the general. As inflamatory as those videos are, they are old=news already. Imagine how old they will sound 8 months from now.

more (via TPM and MyDD) evidence that Obama is bleeding profusley(www.mydd.com/.../053). The clock may be running out on Hillary, but she is watching her opponent choke to death while she sits on her hands. Ask Kentucky basketball fans how much time is too much time on the clock.

I think it's way too early to claim that Obama isn't fit to be Commander In Chief. That's hyperbole Teplukhin and isn't up to your usual high standards. And yea, the Republicans are drooling over the clips but does anyone on this site think, for one minute, that Clinton won't be vulnerable to attacks?

McCain's weak on a lot of issues and Democrats could get their own lucky break soon enough if he picks the Mormon.

Hold the line Liberals. Courage under fire.

Anyway, what's wrong with Fight the Power? It's a great tune; it's in my ipod.

Elvis was a hero to most

But he never meant ---- to me you see

Straight up racist that sucker was

Simple and plain

Mother---- him and John Wayne

Cause I'm Black and I'm proud

I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped

Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps

Oh right, yea that's pretty serious. (Great tune though)

All this talk about who "leaked" the Rev. Wright videos misses something entirely: namely, that the videos were put out by Wright's church to begin with -- sort of "Rev. Wright's Greatest Sermons,"  so to speak.

This was political dynamite waiting to picked up by somebody. I'm surprised it hasn't come out earlier in the campaign.

Something that just occured to me as I was watching Pat Buchanan (who seems to be genuinely incensed at the Reverend's various YouTube remarks) and some black radio host go at on Hardball tonight.......

Reverend Wright wasn't talking about you and me (well, certainly not me, I don't know about you...), if we are white,  when he was doing his damning and condemning.  He wasn't damning and condemning individual white people.  He was talking about a white power structure.  You and I didn't drop any bombs on Hiroshima, or infect the black population with AIDS, or put all those young black men in jail.  So he isn't racist in the same sense that the Klan is racist, or David Duke is racist, or all those folks who post crude and hateful stuff on various blogs about Barack Obama are racist.   It just so happens to be a fact that society is predominantly (at some level, almost exclusively) white at the top and predominantly black and brown at the bottom.  He is mostly railing against the realities of class, and the fact that class is intertwined (and in his view, not accidently) with race.  But for white folks to shiver and go and lock their doors when they hear an angry Reverend Wright, says more about their own subliminal racial fantasies and fears (Nat Turner, anyone?) then it does about anything the Reverend Wright has actually said.  

He is angry at the ruling class in America, which (again, not accidently if you accept his historical narrative) happens to be white.  He doesn't want to round up white people up and put them in concentration camps.  He wants to redress the inequalities and injustices of class and end the historical dynamic that results in those inequalites resolving themselves on the basis of race.

Barack understands that critique of society and understands the degree to which is accurate and the degree to which is not, and disagrees with his friend and mentor when he takes this critque to paranoid and unkind extremes, even as he understands that his friend means nothing personal and poses no threat to anybody.   He is angry at at an impersonal power structure, not white people as such.  

I saw Pulbic Enemy perform that one live in 1987 or 1988.   I and my two companions were quite possibly the only three white kids in the entire 10,000 person crowd.  

At one point Chuck D shouted into the mic, "Put your fist in the air if you think the black man has been oppressed!"  

My friend Scott looked around nervously, unsure how to respond.  A guy--a BIG guy--behind him said, "Put your motherfuckin' fist up!"  

Sheepishly, Scott complied.

1. On the original post, you (or Gallup) needs to learn to put error bars on these plots. They give a margin of error, and if you plot the error bars you would conclude that the graph shows two lines at 46% each. I'd say all this poll-watching is interpreting noise: possibly amusing, but meaningless.

2. Say it, Woland! Teplukhin, you are talking about important things, but fixating on them beyond reason. If I was running for office, I would not hire you as my campaign manager (unless I wanted to lose!).

3. buffaloboy says that Obamaphiles are syaing Hillary was behind the outing of the Wright video. I'm an Obamaphile, and I would be very surprised if Hillary had anything to do with it. That would be playing with Ebola (if her campaign was involved, and it came out, she would be radioactive in the Democratic Party forever). I don't think she had anything to do with it. The idea that Obama was behind it is ridiculous. Like the idea that the US government invented AIDS. Just fantasy -- no politician would do something that potentially self-destructive. The obvious candidates are on the other side of the aisle, although I doubt there is any connection with an organized campaign. If there was, as you said, the storm would have been unleashed right before a vote, when it could maximize damage.

"for white folks to shiver and go and lock their doors when they hear an angry Reverend Wright, says more about their own subliminal racial fantasies and fears"

I don't shiver when I hear this garbage about the government infecting people with AIDS. I sneer at it.

Parse it all you like, but Wright's patter on AIDS and 9/11 is idiotic, beneath contempt. It's of a piece with Falwell's contemptible blaming of "sinful" America for 9/11. A pox on idiot conpsiracymongers of any stripe.

What the world looks like to you depends to a great deal on where you stand.  Reverend Wright is a contemporary of men who were infected with syphillis and denied treatment even when it became available at the Tuskegee Institute.   This was done by the Federal Government, tep, and continued for 40 years.  So maybe, if you have that kind event as part of your historical memory, what seems like unreasonable paranoia  to somebody else might look like "been there, done that" to you.

I think when Obama refers to an "empathy" deficit, he's referring to a smug and arrogant refusal to make a good faith attempt to see the world through anybody else's eyes but our own.    

And I think his interpretation of the events of 9/11, although vividly clothed in the biblical images of fire and brimestone and apocalypse, were basically a version of "what goes around comes around" that sober and rational thinkers like Tom Friedman (for example) phrased in more acceptable ways like "When you don't visit bad neighborhoods, bad neighborhoods visit you."  Friedman just didn't dance around after he said it.

Deanpars ... Wright isn't running for President.  Obama is.

Obama did say God damn America in the pulpit.  Wright did.

Is your post a joke or what?  You could n't be giving a better lesson in confounding issues.

Are you in the least curious about what else Wright may have said in the remaining 1000 hours of sermons that makes him such an inspriing Pastor and force for good in his community.  I sure as heck am.

Wanwurs you could nolt be more right... what amazes me about so many reactions is the utter inability to see or hear other people on their own terms... so many people seem to see only the tapes playing in their own heads.  I suppose that is true for all of us, but some of us do try to see and hear other people's tapes as well on their own terms... hey if nothing else, life is a might sight lkess boring that way and one might actually be capable of growth and change that way.

"... so many people seem to see only the tapes playing in their own heads.  I suppose that is true for all of us, but some of us do try to see and hear other people's tapes as well on their own terms..."

OK, so how am I to see a statement along the lines of "the government created AIDS to infect people"? Please, Anna, TELL ME.

Buffaloboy:  Who's saying Hillary was behind it?  I hardly read every post, but I haven't run across any strongly advancing that theory.

lymon:  re the missed opportunity, I believe the next speech is about Iraq and the economy, so he'll be talking about the 2 trillion -- make it 3 trillion arguments.

Hehe, I've committed a James Frey-style falsehood to electronic print.  I didn't see Public Enemy perform "Fight the Power" in '87 or '88.  I couldn't have.  The song wasn't released until '89.  The rest of the story is true, though.  

Anyway, I actually preferred "My 98," PE's paean to the Oldsmobile 98, to "Fight the Power."

"I know ya hate my ninety-eight.  You gonna get yours!"

P.S.  Anyone want to hear about how I stood next to J.R. Reid at a Run DMC show in '87?

Great story Aero. Even if it's not true.

Any time anyone plays "Fight the Power", they should be legally obligated to display video of Rosie Perez, at her physical best, dancing arhythmically.

But on the polls- the latest one out today, CBS, has Obama ahead by the usual margin, and also doing better against McCain than does Clinton.

Caggies,

Perhaps you could see it in the context of (a) Tuskegee (i.e, syphillis, forty years of using black men as guinea pigs, see above...) and (b) the fact that 55% of African Americans think the same thing.  And (c)...don't take it personally unless you think you're the government.  He not accusing ordinary white people of being devils.  He isn't Louis Farrakhan, who really is racist.  He's just a conspiracy buff.  Like most of his fellow americans.  Go ahead, ask the person sitting next to you at work, or at the drs office, or on the bus...who killed JFK and Martin Luther KIng?  Americans, of all shades, are suckers for conspiracies.

The important thing is to step outside your box and find the context that somebody else uses.  That doesn't necessarily make it right, it just makes it less mystifying and more comprehensible.

On conspiracy, I'd like to remind all present that there is still an "Obama's a secret muslim who's planning to ban Christianity the day after he assumes office" narrative scooting around the internet and that, only a couple of weeks ago, Hillary Clinton was invited on TV to comment on it.

Instead of saying -- as everyone wants Obama to have said in the Wright case -- "that's a load of typical conspiracy-theory garbage the likes of which too many people in this country buy into," she managed to slip in "as far as I know."  I don't think that was an accident.

However, Obama didn't make like he disagreed vehemently with something only to then leave a door open so that it snuck back in.

I wonder why the difference -- it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that fringe-loony suspicions about Obama benefit HRC?  Could it?

So could we have some perspective, please!

teplukhin2you  said:

Obama should have focused his speech on not race but conspiracy-mongering in America. That way, he could have

-- reminded the voters of similar garbage spewed by the GOP's own crazy preachers on the right

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Excellent, enlightened point (amongst others).

Such omissions are endless.  Both Falwell and Robertson blamed 9/11 on of all things homosexuality in America, etc.

Beyond such moronic (initial) claims are scores of others.  Right-wingers own the patent-pending on caucasion-America’s conspiracy belief network(s).

irony - "there is still an "Obama's a secret muslim who's planning to ban Christianity the day after he assumes office" narrative"

That's EXACTLY why it  would have been so easy, and clever, adn effective, for Obama to decry conspiracy nuts. It's the perfect redirect. Instead of being associated with a f***ing wacko preacher, Obama DISassociates himself from said goofball and at teh same time  positively associates his critics with the conspiracy crowd. He could have cut the legs out from under every potential character assassination or disloyalty whisper that the GOP will use against him in the fall.

A huge missed opportunity. There was wsdom in BHO's big speech, but not enough basic shrewdness, or simple common sense.