Here's a link to the story at Politico.com
For me, I believe it was a hard thing for Obama to do, but Wright's abysmal performance at The National Press Club pretty much gave him no other choice.
The thing for me is...the THREE EVENTS
I believe that the Moyers interview was real, true and authentic Wright.
I believe that the NAACP Speech was real, true and authentic Wright.
He clowned during that Q&A. He showed his ass. Why are folks not willing to admit that? I don't even want to get into any of the ' is it the truth?' mess. You and I both know it's HOW you present your point that matters as much as what you say. If he couldn't do any better, that would be one thing. But, we had two examples of him 'doing better' and 'being authentic' for me not to believe that the NPC event was a purposeful attack on Obama.
Every question he got, he could have answered a different way that wasn't inauthentic. Take the patriotism question..instead of his smartass ' How long did Dick Cheney serve?' answer, what he could have said was:
I sat in front of the tv, with my family, watching John Kennedy's inaugural speech. The President spoke to me and I took his call to service to heart. So much so that I LEFT COLLEGE, with one semester to go, and ENLISTED IN THE MARINES. I served X tours of duty, between 2 Different Branches of the Armed Services. Dick Cheney, on the other hand, gets FIVE deferrments, and I'M the one whose patriotism is questioned? Please explain that to me.
Now, you tell me, which one is better? Both 'flipped it back' to the audience, but one is like, ' up yours' and the other one challenges you to think.
The entire Q&A was like that.
Now, if I was seriously wearing the tinfoil hat, one would have to wonder about him being invited by a known and avowed Hillary Clinton supporter. But, only if I were seriously wearing the tinfoil hat.
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UPDATE:
As first reported in Erroll Louis' column in the NYDaily News yesterday, Clinton backer Barbara Reynolds 'organized' Wright's appearance at The National Press Club.
Is Jeremiah Wright a colossal disaster for Barack Obama or a press trick?
Tuesday, April 29th 2008, 4:00 AM
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright couldn't have done more damage to Barack Obama's campaign if he had tried. And you have to wonder if that's just what one friend of Wright wanted.
Shortly before he rose to deliver his rambling, angry, sarcastic remarks at the National Press Club Monday, Wright sat next to, and chatted with, Barbara Reynolds.
A former editorial board member at USA Today, she runs something called Reynolds News Services and teaches ministry at the Howard University School of Divinity. (She is an ordained minister).
It also turns out that Reynolds - introduced Monday as a member of the National Press Club "who organized" the event - is an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter.
On a blog linked to her Web site- www.reynoldsnews.com- Reynolds said in a February post: "My vote for Hillary in the Maryland primary was my way of saying thank you" to Clinton and her husband for the successes of Bill Clinton's presidency.
The same post criticized Obama's "Audacity of Hope" theme: "Hope by definition is not based on facts," wrote Reynolds. It is an emotional expectation. Things hoped for may or may not come. But help based on experience trumps hope every time."
In another blog entry, Reynolds gives an ever-sharper critique of Obama: "It is a sad testimony that to protect his credentials as a unifier above the fray, the senator is fueling the media characterization that Rev. Dr. Wright is some retiring old uncle in the church basement."
I don't know if Reynolds' eagerness to help Wright stage a disastrous news conference with the national media was a way of trying to help Clinton - my queries to Reynolds by phone and e-mail weren't returned yesterday - but it's safe to say she didn't see any conflict between promoting Wright and supporting Clinton.
It's hard to exaggerate how bad the actual news conference was. Wright, steeped in an honorable, fiery tradition of Bible-based social criticism, cheapened his arguments and his movement by mugging for the cameras, rolling his eyes, heaping scorn on his critics and acting as if nobody in the room was learned enough to ask him a question.
Wright has, unquestionably, been caricatured and vilified unfairly. The feeding programs, prison outreach and other social services he has built over more than 30 years are commendable, and his reading of the Judeo-Christian tradition as an epic story of people trying to escape slavery is far more right than wrong - and not something to be caricatured or compressed into a 10-second sound bite.
But Wright should have known - and his friend and ally Reynolds, a media professional, surely knew - that bickering with the press can only harm Wright and, by extension, Obama.
I hope that wasn't their goal.
Call me a tinfoil hat wearer is you must, I do not care. Spread the word. Maybe it's 'coincidence'....ok.
Uh huh.
While you look sideways at me, just remember this....all the stuff Louis talks about with regards to Obama in his column...has ' disappeared' from Reynolds' site.
Double uh huh.
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4 comments:
Informative post. If i could take a crack at answering your question- I think folks aren't willing to admit he was clowning around because they don't know that he is. For all we've seen of the Reverend of late, few know what he is really about. He would have done himself a great service if he introduced himself to the wider audience before he began clowning. All that said, i don't think that aspect of it matters much either way.
Very interesting information. I didn't know about the National Press Club organizer. I have been watching the circus from a distance. Just moved into a new place this week....and still packing/unpacking at the moment what little I own.
This nonsense almost drove me completely crazy several weeks back....And i'm a political junkie. It takes a lot to get me to the point of detaching myself from the whole spectacle of American politics. But it took me to my limit.
I just can't wrap my head around the events that have taken place over the last several weeks. It is all so illogical to me. It gives me a headache everytime I see a talking head on one of the cable news networks or even when I hear one on NPR (I listen to NPR and watch c-span religiously....even when I step away from blogging.)
I understand what's going on 110% and I know the reasons behind it...but I am frustrated by the general public's reaction to the situation (although I understand that it is fear and race that are driving a lot of the reaction). I am also frustrated by the media's use of the Wright story to pump their ratings...and Clinton's manipulation of the situation for political gain...and last but not least... I am frustrated by Obama's imitation of John Kerry...with his whole playing it cool approach. As far as he is concerned, American voters are these super-positive people who represent the "Shining City On a Hill" and therefore he shouldn't fight back. He is afraid that showing any type of backbone might hurt him.
Your analysis of the Wright situation was on target. I was shacking my head in agreement as I was reading your post.
Watching Obama at this point is in a strange kind of way theoretically similar to watching someone go through an end of life situation. A situation where all that the doctors & nurses can do is to keep them comfortable.
The number of vultures circling seems to be increasing. I hope that I'm wrong... perhaps those vultures are circling in anticipation of the collapse of Clinton Inc. Perhaps he can pull off a win in Indiana and N. Carolina.
The revelation about the Press Club situation wouldn't be a surprise to me if it's all true. There are no depths too low for the Clintons.
If Obama somehow doesn't become President.... it will be another gigantic failure of a modern political campaign. An historic failure in fact. The Obama campaign could become known as one of the worst run campaigns of all time, matching or even surpassing John Kerry's and Dukakis' on the Democratic side.
P.S.
You might want to check out Melissa Harris Lacewell's interview with Amy Goodman from yesterday...from Democracy Now. Interesting discussion.
Why couldn't all three aspects of Rev. Wright be true?
I watched all three Rev. Wright media experiences and to be honest, you observations are in question.
Bill Moyers was a one-on-one interview and his style and mood is set for all of his Interviews. If Bill Moyers had interviewed a Chris Rock or say a Cuba Gooding whom are known to have BIG Personalities, the fact that the subject was on FAITH, the conversation and mood would be cerebral.
The NAACP presence was "STATESMEN" or as Black Church folk would call "Testifying". There was a HIGH DEGREE of Statesmanship throughout the who NAACP affair BUT there was also Performance which is also part of the Black Church Experience. If you watched Rev. Wright's speech on Different is not Deficient you would have experienced the mixing of both styles. Remember .. Wright was talking to other BLACK CHURCH MEMBERS who know and UNDERSTAND this and if you are an active church attendee, this too would be know to you.
NOW WITH THE PRESS, for the most part, they were there but their presence was unwarranted. It was obvious that they had an AGENDA which was to smear and continue the controversy as oppose to INQUIRING about the MAN and the FAITH that had be tarnished for 2 or more months OR even cover the NAACP affair (Do Any One Even Know What It Was All About Or What Their MEETING'S Agenda Was?). If you look at the questions asked, they were CHARACTER DAMNING and ATTACKING and had nothing to do with driving media and public to become Information Driven toward Rev. Wright. The ISSUE was not his ANSWERS to the QUESTIONS but HOW he answered them to the media. Rev. Wright even TURNED the questions back upon the very same people whom asked the questions and EXPOSED their hypocrisy as well as a Nation what was founded on Freedom of SPEECH, RELIGION and EXPRESSION and the SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.
When Rev. Wright answered with Bibles Text, the Media had no choice by to shut down because 1, you don't challenge Religion in the center of a religious event (The Media's mistake for not having their own interview separate and at different time than the NAACP EVENT), 2. within Rev. Wright's Biblical response, people listening would either have to "reject" the answer and their faith for the truth spelled out the the Holiest Text of the world or "accept it" knowing the truth within those Words. Last, in the way Rev. Wright answered all of the the questions asked of him, it was a JOKE in how the Media created a circus with their CLOWN QUESTIONS ... questions that were not only answered BUT too little too late by a LAZY PRESS. The Media in it's bid to find something they could run with only could use HOW Rev. Wright answered questions and nothing was presented about what he said. He answered in the style that Media likes to Brand as Arrogant and Disrespectful because it is not in a PASSIVE Manner (i.e. like Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, Michael Eric-Dyson, Cornell West).
What is always EXPECTED of people is a since of being HUMBLE and in the case of Black Folk it is MANDATORY. For Wright, with all 3 aspects of his Persona, he is the MOST AUTHENTIC and REAL off all the people there. If you truly know Rev. Wright ... AS OBAMA DOES, he is not out for Vengeance, or Opportunity, a National Platform, a Conscious Desire the Destroy Obama, Selfish and all the other fictitious terms aimed at him, HE WAS/IS AND WILL ALWAYS BE A MAN OF FAITH and right now Skidish Black folk are collective grabbing the man so they can put him UNDER THE BUS with WHITE AMERICA DRIVING and OBAMA RIDING IN THE BACK.
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