When Barack Obama gave his lauded speech on race in order to staunch the damage to his candidacy following the revelation that his longtime friend and spiritual mentor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr.  had been tearing after white America in his sermons, many wondered why Obama would condemn the incendiary words of his pastor but not the man.

“As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. … I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother,” Obama explained in his speech. The flap soon disappeared into the political ozone with the help of a press so enamored with the neophyte candidate they were willing to take his explanations at face value.

But after learning of Obama’s remarks delivered at a closed fundraiser in the tony heights of San Francisco last week, it becomes clear why Obama couldn’t condemn his Reverend Wright: For Obama to condemn Wright would be the same as Obama condemning himself. Barack Obama and Reverend Wright are two peas born in the same bigoted pod.

"It's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," Obama said at the San Francisco  fundraiser, standing in judgment of the mostly white, rural blue-collar folks of Pennsylvania and beyond.

So much for the candidate who has tried to mold himself as a transcendent American political figure not viewed uniquely as an African-American running for the presidency but rather a candidate who is African-American and uniting the country behind him.

Obama didn’t sit in Reverend Wright’s church for twenty years and learn nothing from his mentor. More succinctly, Obama and Rev. Wright view the world through a similar bigoted lens. It’s us versus them, "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them as a way to explain their frustrations.”  

Reverend Wright voices his views in the style of the fiery Southern preacher. Barack Obama with his elite Harvard degree, masks his bigotry in grace and his poetic way with words. Still,  a bigot is a bigot whichever cloak he wears.

It was no great surprise when Obama’s opponents Hillary Clinton and John McCain jumped all over Obama upon learning what he had said. By the weekend, Obama was being labeled an ‘elitest’ and ‘a snob.’

"Sen. Obama's remarks are elitist and out of touch," Senator Clinton said. "They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans, certainly not the Americans I know, not the Americans I grew up with, not the Americans I lived with in Arkansas or represent in New York."

But the significance of Obama’s words have been overlooked by all who address them, and, perhaps, deliberately. Most news outlets have focused on the word ‘bitter’ in relation to religion and guns. None have parsed the bigoted sentence, “they cling to antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” Nor has Senator Clinton, who has used great restraint in attacking Obama on his unfortunate remarks.

Would the Democratic Party ever forgive Hillary Clinton for calling Obama what he is, a bigot? Would the press?  And would the Republican Party candidate be willing to utter the word bigot? No. Surely, the mainstream press wouldn’t. The issue of race and bigotry has been devastating to any politician who dare address it. Just ask Bill Clinton, or Geraldine Ferraro. Ironically, it is the Obama Campaign that has continually made race an issue, using it effectively to their gain whenever they needed to and sadly, gotten away with it.

Noteworthy is Obama’s response to the flap, which gives great insight into Obama’s style. Friday night, hours after the story broke, he categorically and emphatically stood by his words. He has since realized the mistake of that approach and has retreated from his original statements calling his words “ill-chosen.”

Late Sunday his remorse morphed and Obama went from defensive to offensive by chiding Mrs. Clinton for her response. “Shame on you,” Obama said mockingly at a rally, coming dangerously close to sounding like the condescending elitist his remarks showed him to be. He continues to claim: ‘I said something that everyone knows is true.”

I guess that’s according to the lens through which you view the people who are the very heart of America.

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