Mistakes do happen, but neither faux-pas was accidental. Jeremiah Wright was an angry man. Senator Barak Obama was his target. Barak may not have disowned Jeremiah Wright earlier this primary season, but he disrespected the man just enough to allow Jeremiah Wright’s perpetual resentment reactor reach critical mass.
Jeremiah Wright now views Senator Barak Obama as a back-knifing, social-climbing political hack. I welcome Reverend Wright to the same universe that the rest of us inhabit. As hateful and hating a man as Jeremiah Wright is; I actually empathize with him for feeling used.
However, mentally depraved does not equate with or imply either stupid or naive. Rev. Wright should have known Barack Obama was a scorpion when he picked him up and gave him a ride. That stipulated; I am enjoying the spectacle of Jeremiah Wright’s quest for retribution.
As an up-and-coming community activist in Chicago, Barack Obama needed to gain credibility with a certain elite. In the African-American community, the elite attend the right church on Sunday. In Chicago, during the 1990’s, that was the Wright Church. The names Barack Obama wanted in his rolodex sat in the pews when Reverend Wright gave his dyspeptic sermons about the evils of the nation giving him the freedom to call it “The US of KKKA.”
Barack built up his identity as a credible member of the African-American power set in Chicago, Illinois. Reverend Wright’s church provided him a solid base of unflinching support. Other politicians can’t ask Oprah Winfrey, in an off-hand manner, for a solid half-hour of free air time on her show.
To Barack Obama’s credit, he carried Reverend Wright along with him to his victory in 2004. He even thanked the man in his victory speech. Then Barack started campaigning for votes out there in the embittered and gun-happy US of KKKA. The Gospel Wright preached fell on deaf ears out in Jesusland. For some bizarre reason these people couldn’t get past their false consciousness and accept the truth that they were White Devils, Crackers and Antichrists.
So Barack had to show Reverend Wright what hope and change were really all about. Barack kept hoping that Jeremiah Wright would continue being useful. When that reality changed, Jeremiah Wright got tossed to the curb faster than a used prophylactic gets tossed out the car window on a raunchy Saturday Night.
He didn’t admit to disowning Jeremiah Wright, but he did the one thing that was worse. He implied that Rev. Wright was not someone acceptable to polite society. He could stay Barack’s pal, if they weren’t seen too often together in public locations, and if Barack Obama didn’t have to risk his career by actually endorsing anything Jeremiah Wright believed in.
If Barack Obama didn’t understand the extent to which this slighted the overweening ego of Jeremiah Wright, Reverend Wright certainly did. Reverend Wendall Anthony, of The Michigan NAACP, inadvertently described why Wright feels betrayed by Senator Obama. Rev. Anthony describes Rev. Wright’s role below.
"The hottest brother in America right now, besides Barack Obama, is Jeremiah Wright," Anthony said. "It's about speaking truth to power. We must not allow anyone to dictate what can be said from the pulpit of the African American church or any church."
This delves two branches of Wright’s jealousy and resentment towards Barack Obama. Jeremiah Wright feels he partially made Barack Obama. He gave Barack Obama a break, back when Obama was a two-bit, penny-ante big-eared punk. He introduced Barack to the people worth knowing.
Thus, Barack Obama didn’t have to disown Rev. Wright to show a hyper-sensitive, egomaniacal man an immense amount of what seemed like incredible ingratitude. Rev. Wright believes strongly that Barack owes him more than just calling him a loveable crazy Uncle. His question for Barack would be “who’s your daddy?”
Secondly, Barack is implying that Wright can go roll around his church nude and covered with bright green jello; as long as no one links the sermon to Barack Obama 2008 and puts it all over Fox News. Jeremiah Wright begins to think Barack Obama is implying that Fox News should have a certain editorial control over how the gospel gets told. Particularly, when certain important people are there to be filmed hearing the good word.
So what can Jeremiah Wright do to bring Barack Obama back to Earth? He goes public with all the things that he probably said repeatedly with Barack up there in the front pew.
He makes fun of up-tight, White Cracker marching bands. He compares our government’s public policy on HIV to the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. He compares the USMC to a slightly better trained band of Bin Ladin’s Boyoes. He claims African-Americans and Indo-Europeans did not evolve from the same pool of primates and thus developed inherently different ways to think and learn.
As an added bonus, he lets the inner showman go on a rampage. The audience is not only hearing the most offensively anti-American riff you’ll get without subscribing to HBO, they are laughing, clapping and rolling in the aisles. It’s some of the best, and most destructive, comedy since Sam Kineson spoke up in favor of driving home drunk.
Hillary Clinton and John McCain are laughing. Barack Obama doesn’t think Reverend Wright is either funny or uplifting anymore. It seems that the stairway to office and the stairway to heaven are indeed leading Barack Obama in different directions. At least that is how Reverend Wright views the current state of affairs.
Barack Obama is left with two choices. He can either assuage Reverend Wright’s wounded ego, so that he only has to deal with one set of bitter people, or he can declare war on his former mentor and burn him to the ground. The next two days could be telling. Particularly if Barack tries to do what he should have done earlier and tell Reverend Wright to shove off.
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