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No, that's not a direct quote. What do you think he is, mad?

By Moe Lane Posted in 2008 | Obamafiles | The Chicago Way — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

[Sorry: spelled his name wrong.]

They'd bring out the Jeeps in a heartbeat if he said it so baldly. As it was, he went pretty close to the line:

But of course they're right that it'll hurt him electorally because Obama's going to have a hard time explaining that I take to be the truth, namely that his relationship with Trinity has been a bit cynical from the beginning. After all, before Obama was a half-black guy running in a mostly white country he was a half-white guy running in a mostly black neighborhood. At that time, associating with a very large, influential, local church with black nationalist overtones was a clear political asset (it's also clear in his book that it made him, personally, feel "blacker" to belong to a slightly kitschy black church). Since emerging onto a larger stage, it's been the reverse and Obama's consistently sought to distance himself from Wright, disinviting him from his campaign's launch, analogizing him to a crazy uncle who you love but don't listen to, etc. The closest analogy would probably be to Hillary Clinton's inconsistent accounting of where she's from (bragging about midwestern roots when trying to win in Iowa, promptly forgetting those roots when explaining away a loss in Illinois, developing a sporadic affection for New York sports teams) -- banal, mildly cynical shifts of association as context changes.

(H/T: Glenn Reynolds)

What a marvelous race this has become.

Read on.

For the record, while I'm under no real obligation to give Senator Obama the benefit of the doubt - his being against the Iraq War pretty much means that his judgment can be legitimately questioned on everything, up to and including his favorite breakfast cereal* - his choice of church predates that rather catastrophic lapse in discernment, so it's entirely possible that his reasons are as Yglesias suggested. Obama could have very easily decided that, all in all, it only benefited him to attend Wright's church... and he could have even decided to sort of not notice the more racist and bigoted comments. People do do that, you know. Full-bore, 24/7 internal consistency is hard, particularly when it's in the face of substantial societal pressure. Easier to let things, well, slide.

Alas for Senator Obama, this is precisely the tack that he cannot take. He's not running as a man; he's running as a symbol. He's Hope and Change That You Can Believe In; which means that admitting that, well, it was just less hassle to not give his pastor the what-for about the entire "AIDS was created by White people to kill Black people" stuff would do even more damage to him than his current strategy of looking like a dolt. From what I can tell, his most vehement supporters appear to prefer dolt to, say, hypocrite - the former doesn't actually hack at the reasons why so many of his acolytes seem to support the man.

I suppose that some would find this tragic. Me, I'm just mildly relieved that he didn't decide to run for Governor of Illinois. He might have been a dangerous candidate, four or eight years down the line.

Moe Lane

*Don't care if you disagree with that, explicitly stating that you don't have the country with you, the only way that you'll prove me wrong is to actually end the war. There. That should handle the reflexive commentary.