Quote:
Originally Posted by Gozer
Wright is Obama's spiritual leader and thought the same thing, and I'm supposed to believe it's only because he's black? Hogwash.
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Really? Ron Paul's views on 9/11 were a matter of public discourse for weeks and weeks? In any case, it's a flawed analogy, as Ron Paul was running for office, so his beliefs are fair game. A better analogy would be if Ron Paul's gardener believed that 9/11 were America's fault and no-one would stop talking about it.
And yes, race is a factor in this issue. How else do you explain the double standard whereby GOP candidates who consult with Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and their ilk are hardly ever called upon to distance themselves from their remarks? Wright's comments were actualy not that far out of line with other famous black spiritualists of prior generations. Like one particular black leader who was assassinated the day before he was slated to deliver a sermon entitled "why America may be going to hell."*
The subtext of this controversy is fear. Fear of the black church spreading dissent rather than unity, protest rather than compliance. And even more idiotically, the underlying message is that the only way to be a patriot is to love one's nation unconditionally. The tradition that Wright is a part of has a long history of pointing out that one way to be patriotic is to point unapologetically to the flaws of one's country. I'm not saying Wright isn't a windbag, but the soundbite that has made the rounds ("god**** America, etc.) is really not that big a deal--and in any case says nothing about Obama.
But there's a more important point, actually. In politics, there are high information and low information signals. High information signals are things like a candidate's budgetary policy, or his or her health care plan. Low information signals are things like whether a candidate bowls well, or whether he looks good on a windsurfer. This is the epitome of low information signals, and we'd all be wise to ignore it in my opinion.
*That guy was Martin Luther King, Jr., by the way.