and from the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s perspective, Barack Obama started it; Barack Obama betrayed him first. That piece in the New York Post has to make Sen. Obama, David Axelrod, and the rest of the folks in that campaign break out in a cold sweat for what the Rev. Dr. Wright might say or do next. I criticized the Rev. Dr. Wright yesterday for betraying Sen. Obama’s friendship and the good of his country, and I still think his willingness to hurt this country in order to take down Sen. Obama is despicable; but what I wasn’t thinking about yesterday is, as a pastor, how would I feel if I were in his shoes? How would I react to being dumped, downplayed and disavowed by someone whom I’d pastored for twenty years, whom I’d mentored and supported and encouraged and poured my life into, and whom I considered a friend? I’ve seen that sort of thing happen to colleagues (admittedly for much lower stakes than a presidential race, and for much less provocation than the Rev. Dr. Wright has given), and I’ve seen how it devastated them; now that I’ve thought about it, I have a much easier time understanding where he’s coming from. I still think he’s in the wrong; I still think he should follow Jesus’ command to turn the other cheek (and that his tendency to preach that to white folk and not to himself and his own congregation captures much of what’s wrong with his understanding of Christianity); but his behavior makes more sense to me now. There but for the grace of God . . .
In the meantime, though, it’s interesting what this whole episode has revealed about Sen. Obama (and, as Hugh Hewitt notes, to wonder what more it might yet reveal; if someone sits down with the Rev. Dr. Wright to ask him a couple hours’ worth of questions about his twenty-year friendship with Sen. Obama, he may very well answer them fully). As more than a few people have noted, the Rev. Dr. Wright didn’t say anything about HIV, or 9/11, or Louis Farrakhan, that we hadn’t heard before—the only new material he had was aimed squarely at Sen. Obama; it was only when the Rev. Dr. Wright came after him that he felt the need to denounce his “former pastor.” Thus Anna Marie Cox asked on Time‘s blog,
Is it overly cynical of me to think that Wright diminishing Obama as a mere politician was the true tipping point? Because that seems to be one of the few new arguments (ideas? rants? conspiracy theories?) that Wright made. Sadly for Obama, it may also be the only correct one.
Perhaps even more telling is Scott Johnson’s comment on Power Line:
In Obama’s eyes, the most serious wrongdoing in Wright’s statements is their disrespect of Obama. From the revered father figure who could not be disowned, Wright has become the the father from whom separation must be achieved in favor of his own identity, or the boorish relative who cannot be tolerated. The adolescent grandiosity and adolescent pettiness of Obama’s remarks are perhaps the most shocking revelations of this entire episode.
The further Sen. Obama goes, the smaller he gets (and with him, his poll numbers). He’s even managing to make Hillary Clinton look good by comparison.