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Obama, Wright and Judgment

March 14th, 2008
By ELROD

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Tonight proved to be riveting political theater. I watched Barack Obama interviewed on three straight cable networks. While the talking heads on each channel were predictably different, the interviews took on very similar tacks. How long have you been going to TUCC? Why didn’t you distance yourself from Wright before? What do you denounce? Etc. And out of it all I finally grasped the real issue at heart here: judgment.

For the right wing, this is about patriotism. Does Barack Obama actually share Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s radical and often anti-American political views? Since Republicans tar every Democrat with the crime of insufficient patriotism, it’s been striking to me up to now just how spurious this claim has been. Focus on flag pins, hands on heart and a comment from Michelle Obama taken out of context have only convinced me that the patriotism charge is bogus. So they’ve turned to the even more comical Muslim smear. The Wright comments don’t really add to this except for people who already believe that Democrats detest their country.

But there is a deeper and more serious issue at the heart of this controversy that has little to do with Obama’s political views and a lot more to do with his character: judgment. In fact, he’s made his judgment a key part of his campaign. He doesn’t claim to have perfect judgment but he does insist that he gets the big things right. For many Americans his Iraq stance in 2002 is an example of this.

But the Wright controversy - and especially the responses Obama offered in all three interviews - raised a different kind of judgment question. Why did he stick around the Trinity United Church of Christ even if he vehemently disagreed with Reverend Wright’s political views? There are two theoretical and plausible ways to answer this. The first is that Obama - like many church and synagogue goers - simply compartmentalizes his relationship to his place of worship. That is, he loves the Jesus, faith and community but tunes out or occasionally cringes at sermon time. We’ve all been in religious situations like this, where we cherish the minister or rabbi for their personal pastoral care but we find their comments on this or that issue objectionable. We recognize that the politics of religious officiants do not comprise the totality of the overall ministry.

But Obama has only partly gone down this route. He’s praised Wright’s personal ministry to the Obama family for years and he still holds that relationship in high esteem. But in the interviews tonight Obama made a second claim that is a bit surprising. He says he simply never heard these incendiary sermons while in the pew, and that the first he heard of the controversial nature of some of Wright’s sermons was in early 2007. It was alarming enough at the time to keep Wright off the announcement program. He also insisted that if he did hear these sermons he would have told Wright to knock it off because they’re inappropriate. And then, if Wright persisted in these paranoid rants, Obama would quit the church.

So this raises a question about judgment and even honesty here. Did Obama really not know about these sermons? I think it’s very plausible that he did not sit in the pews for them. TUCC runs several services each Sunday and it’s likely that Obama did not attend the big league “Hour of Power” service from which the DVDs are taken. Like most megachurches (TUCC has 6,000 members), Obama’s church has more family-oriented services as well as the theatrical Hour of Power. My guess is that Obama brought his children in to the family services and so never heard the incendiary remarks there. That much is highly believable. But did Obama really not know that Wright even said these things? Did not news of, say, the 9/11 sermon not percolate throughout the TUCC community such that Obama would have heard about it - even if he didn’t hear the sermon itself? And if he did hear of it, why did he not say anything of concern to Jeremiah Wright?

I trust Barack Obama. I’ve trusted him from the beginning and I trust him now. If this were a different political candidate I’d be certain that there was some sort of obfuscation going on. But I just don’t see that from Obama. Nevertheless, that means I have to believe in his judgment as well as his honesty. If it turns out that he either did attend some of these incendiary speeches, or that they were so commonplace that Obama would have found them unremarkable, then I would have to question his judgment. Why would he continue to attend a church so contrary to his own views? If he compartmentalized, did he not bother to ask what was going on at the Hour of Power?

This is a tough issue for me. I’m as big an Obama supporter as you can get. A big draw for me is his ability to turn the generational page. In fact, one very appealing comment he made tonight was that Wright is stuck in the 1960s era of radicalism and anger and Obama wants to turn to a new and more hopeful age. Wright serves to highlight that transformation in a way. But I want to make sure that Obama was honest tonight that he never heard these kinds of speeches. If it checks out, I think the whole story blows over. The timing is perfect for Obama as no election comes until late April. By then we’ll have forgotten about all this. And the public will have heard Obama’s condemnation of Wright such that when the inevitable GOP 527 group offers the attack ad, people will say, “Yeah, we’ve already heard about that. Whatever.”

I think Barack Obama handled this masterfully by taking it head on. Video is too powerful to ignore. But he made some statements that went beyond what I expected. He claimed that this stuff was news to him too. That’s possible. I certainly hope it’s true.



This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Ideologies, Racism, Democratic Party, Black/African-American, Newsweek Blogitics, Anti-Semitism, Barack Obama, Minorities, 2008 Elections, Democrats, Israel, Palestine, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 37 Comments

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    I think America is getting a lesson of what happens in all black churches, social organizations, colleges, and work places when there are not any whites or other non-blacks around. Rev. Wright felt comfortable saying what he was saying and Senator Obama felt comfortable hearing it because it was "just us blacks."

    The media was always given black politicians a pass for anything that happens in a black only environment. However, since running for President is different than running for Congress in a black majority, gerrymandered congressional district different set of rules applied.
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    Do not feed the troll.
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    Yes, George, Ameircans not only need to ignore the racist hatred coming out of the mouth of Rev. Wright they should also ignore the crowd cheering it on like they are a football game at the church of the probable next president of the U.S.

    Do you really think the Rev. Wright would have said the same thing if half the crowd was white? Do you really think the Rev. Wright is the most black ministers to gets cheered when he goes on a racist rant?

    Look at how the MSM meekly accepts the closed sessions at the NAACP, how they spent years ignoring racist black politicians like Cynthia McKinney, Kwame Kilpatrick, or Marion Barry. Senator Obama is just the most current beneficiary of the blatant double standard.

    If witnesses put Senator Obama is the pews during one of the hate filled tirades, would you call for Senator Obama to drop out of the campaign or would you just repeat the spin of the left.
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    superdestroyer goes too far, but I do think that moderate left wingers ought to learn from this experience that radical left wing politics is often just as intertwined in religion in (mostly) black churches in America as is radical right wing politics in some white Christian churches. The left has long railed against the latter; what many of us now want to know is whether they'll speak out as forcefully against the former. Obama's attempt to do so comes across as much too little, too late, and Elrod is right to say that this goes to a strike against his good judgment.
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    Does anyone have any links supporting any assertions of anything?

    Or you should all of us out here on the internet just go ahead and trust your own judgment?

    Naturally, the right wing would like this to be about Obama's judgment. As if the judgment of George W Bush and John McCain were fantastically good.

    What else do our desperate, hypocritical Republicans have beside this ginned-up outrage--and Obama's middle name?

    Wake up!
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    Like CStanley, I agree up to a point with superdestroyer.

    White America really, truly, is not 'in touch' with the inner-city Black America. I think the gap here is very real, but utterly invisible to many -- of both ethnicities.

    The anger very rarely makes it mainstream, and when it does, it's generally manifested by someone already labeled as radical; thus, dismissable.

    I think that tidbit about the anger still held by the older generation, dropped into the middle of the MSNBC interview, goes right to the heart of this, and although it wasn't the main point (even Elrod notices it only as a sidebar), I think we're going to hear more about it.

    As we should. For me, one of the most exciting "hopes" (sorry...) of Obama's campaign is that Black and White America begin learning a bit more about one another. There are places where the American experience has been so very different, community thinking has evolved to places unknown (though not unknowable) to either culture.

    And along those lines -- I also think it's possible that Obama could have mentally skated right past some Wright statements that White America won't understand. Because this anger is not uncommon, it would easily be to file away -- or even ignore -- by someone integrated fully with the community. Obama truly might not have "heard" it.
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    When Wright has the power and influence of a Dobson or Perkin's then Obama has a problem. I don't recall Obamama kissing the ring of Falwell at Liberty University.
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    CS you are right about the Dem's "dirty secret" i.e. the role of churches in their politics. Still, I would argue that while they are extremely powerful in local politics, there is no comparison to the Republicans when it comes to the national politics.

    Not that it is an excuse, as any reasonable person can plainly see that there are many cities were the corrupt Democratic machine has ruled for decades and while in most cases the churches aren't directly involved in the corruption, they do protect the politicians as one of their own. It's sad and ironic since the churches are normally the greatest force for local improvement in the areas (regardless of their political/religious views).

    But again, in this area Obama has shown some promise. He's the only national politician that I know of that has gone to predominantly black churches and said that they are being unChristian in their bigotry. But yeah, I do think there is a problem although I'm not sure what kind of external pressure will work since it seems like those churches are so insular, while many of the religious right churches actively go out and engage (except for some that are so fundamentalist that they don't even do this, but they tend to not be involved in politics and IMO live consistently so I'm fine with them.)
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    Polimom--

    At first you say you agree (up to a point) with Superdestroyer.

    Then you talk about "the anger still held by the older generation" of black people as if you also agree (up, I gather, to a point) with Jeremiah Wright.

    I appreciate your willingness to excuse Obama for things he did not say.

    I wonder, though, if you understand why some people (I am one of them) consider this a ridiculous distraction from the very real problems facing our country. The same old politics of division are being played here. They work. As long serious, understanding people are willing to let them.

    Do you want another eight years like the last eight years? Another four years like the last four years?