Barack
Obama, that suave, smooth-talking guy, just gave America the shaft.
Standing before the
citizens of the United States with his soulful brown eyes, the
presidential hopeful-but-no-longer-should-be, stared into the television
camera with his appropriate simmering rage and perfectly pitched
mournful tone, and finally, irrevocably denounced his wayward pastor the
Wright-wrong Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr.
Call it schlock-pop
culture talk; it was an exercise in the meaningless. Obama’s words were
filled with empty rhetoric, smack-talk, a conversation Obama should have
had with the American public back in March when the issue of Reverend
Wrong first hit the YouTube circuit.
Now America finds itself
caught up in a Blaxploitation film of Obama’s own making and we are
forced to listen to both Barack Obama and Reverend Wrong’s jive-talk
about what is what, and who said what, and what we are going to do about
it today. America has been reduced to being spectators in the street
brawls of the Chicago inner-city mean streets and should be appalled.
Neither man is better
than the other. Reverend Wright is a classic bigot, a hateful human
being who also suffers from narcissism, a person who calls himself a man
of God whose speeches are filled with vitriolic hate, the words of a
devil. Barack Obama is a classic hustler, smooth, smart, handsome,
talented, seductive who would say anything and do anything to get where
he wants to go, uptown to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
They are players on the
same page of the African-American playbook. Theirs is not a political
association but a brotherhood, as Obama so clearly stated in his speech
on race following the first dust-up over the incendiary words of
Reverend Wright. In the wrongfully lauded speech, Barack Obama
characterized his relationship with Reverend Wright in this way, “I can
no more disown him than I can disown the black community.”
At the time, I took
umbrage with Obama’s position. It seemed that what Obama was really
saying is that his African-American community took precedence over, was
more important to Obama than his love of country, and equally, his
respect for right versus wrong.
Then my question was how
does America elect a man president of the United States who is unwilling
to do the right thing and make the necessary, if uncomfortable choices
one would expect of presidential material?
Yesterday, only after
Reverend Wright went on a media tour where he merely repeated everything
we and Mr. Obama, had heard before, more bad-ass cinema-verité, did
Barack Obama unequivocally denounce his pastor, friend, family confident
and spiritual mentor of twenty years.
It was a tour de force
performance, Obama as the aggrieved party. “I don’t think that he showed
much concern for me … that’s a show of disrespect to me… and what I
think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my
previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing.”
From the aggrieved party,
Obama turned into an urban vigilante, the Superfly avenger, a character
out of a Gordon Parks film, come to the rescue of those white,
blue-collar workers he so desperately needs to win the coming primaries
and the Democratic Party’s nomination.
“I’m particularly
distressed that this has caused such a distraction from what this
campaign should be about, which is the American people. Their situation
is getting worse. And this campaign has never been about me. People want
some help in stabilizing their lives and securing a better future for
themselves and their children. And that’s what we should be talking
about.”
So why Tuesday and not
last month? One can only imagine what the campaign’s inside polling was
showing to understand the pressure Obama was under from the SuperD’s
concerned over his inability to garner the white vote as to why Obama -
“I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community” - did
just that.
Still, there remains the
fear for what the Republican’s could do with the fodder the Wright Show
has given them should Barack Obama be the Democratic Party's
nominee.
Obama said it was
personal. Not to mix metaphors, but I will, and steal a line from The
Godfather: “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.”
Political business; and Obama would sell out his brothers and his own
mother (and he did) if it was politically expedient to do so.
The complex Reverend
Wright figured that out March 18, the day Obama gave his speech on race.
Wright’s “rant” of the last week was apparently the Reverend Wright’s
effort to teach his student a spiritual lesson of biblical proportions.
Obama failed and American’s are left to question Senator Obama’s
judgment and lack of courage.
“Who's the cat that
won't cop out
When there's danger all about?
SHAFT!”
Yeah, Wright!