With Obama, We Must Parse Every Word

My initial reaction to Obama’s ‘Race Speech’ was positive, and it really took the edge off of my disgust after hearing the words of his close friend and Pastor for 20 years, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The soothing tone and inflections of his voice exuded a sincerity that was hard not to believe… or at least I wanted to believe.

But now that I have had a little time to reflect carefully on Obama’s speech, I have gradually reverted to being even more disgusted and angry than before his speech. I feel like I now need to take a shower to cleanse myself from the cloud of intellectual dishonesty, shameless verbal manipulation and emotionalism that politician Obama engaged in to wiggle his way out of this….clearly targeting those with a serious deficiency in critical-thinking skills….

The elements of his speech that particularly have come back to bother me have mostly to do with the repeated moral-equivalencies that he engaged in: Comparing Geraldine Ferraro’s stupid statements to the over-the-top outrageous racism and hatred of America, verbalized by Pastor Wright: Dragging his own grandmother into it all, essentially calling her a racist that made him “cringe”.

The man could not bring himself to disassociate from a real hate merchant … “no more than I can disassociate myself from the Black community”. Implication? Reverend Wright’s racism and hate is somehow an understandable and legitimate, widespread opinion in Black America. When asked later to explain the comments about his Grandmother, Obama described her as your “typical white person.” Imagine any candidate describing any African American as “your typical black person.”

And then there are the lies: “I have never heard any such statements personally”; only to later admit that he has heard “controversial statements” without specifying what they were. That is the Obama “I smoked but didn’t inhale moment.” Only this is a much more serious matter than whether he smoked a few joints in college.

This is how he described his “God Damn America” Church: “Actually, I don’t think that my Church is particularly controversial”, shortly before the sermons of the Reverend Wright became public.

Certainly, Obama is a smooth talking slickster that in many ways puts the king of all slicksters, Bill Clinton, to shame. He knows that most of the Press and most Americans will not delve deeply into the limitless hypocrisy and relativism that came out of his mouth during that speech, however eloquently delivered. He is betting on America’s legendary short attention span and impatience for nagging detail. He may be betting correctly.

Obama blasts pro-Hamas Op-Ed in his Church's Publication