NYT, Bob Herbert: "What we’re witnessing now is Rev. Wright’s 'I’ll show you (Barack)!' tour."

[DeepModem Mom]

Op-Ed Columnist
The Pastor Casts a Shadow
By BOB HERBERT
Published: April 29, 2008

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Monday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him. Smiling, cracking corny jokes, mugging it up for the big-time news media — this reverend is never going away. He’s found himself a national platform, and he’s loving it. It’s a twofer. Feeling dissed by Senator Obama, Mr. Wright gets revenge on his former follower while bathed in a spotlight brighter than any he could ever have imagined. He’s living a narcissist’s dream. At long last, his 15 minutes have arrived.

So there he was lecturing an audience at the National Press Club about everything from the black slave experience to the differences in sentencing for possession of crack and powdered cocaine. All but swooning over the wonderfulness of himself, the reverend acts like he is the first person to come up with the idea that blacks too often get the short end of the stick in America, that the malignant influences of slavery and the long dark night of racial discrimination are still being felt today, that in many ways this is a profoundly inequitable society.

This is hardly new ground. The question that cries out for an answer from Mr. Wright is why — if he is so passionately committed to liberating and empowering blacks — does he seem so insistent on wrecking the campaign of the only African-American ever to have had a legitimate shot at the presidency....

***

This whole story is about Senator Obama’s run for the White House and absolutely nothing else. Barack Obama went to Rev. Wright’s church as a young man and was blessed with the Christian bona fides that would be absolutely essential for a high-profile political career. Faster than anyone could have imagined, the young Mr. Obama became Senator Obama and then the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Then came the videotaped sermons and the roof caved in on Rev. Wright’s reputation. Senator Obama had no choice but to distance himself, and he did it as gently as he felt he could.

My guess is that Mr. Wright felt he’d been thrown under a bus by an ungrateful congregant who had benefited mightily from his association with the church and who should have rallied to his former pastor’s defense. What we’re witnessing now is Rev. Wright’s “I’ll show you!” tour....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/opinion/29herbert.html?hp

[David Dunham]

1. Correct analysis.

[sharesunited]

2. I don't get how he's wrecking anything.

The old sound bites are giving way to much more humanizing ones. When the Pastor returns to private life, he will have undone much of the harm which the fascist slime machine has tried to cause.

[Mojorabbit]

4. It keeps the story in the press

and that worries me. As the article says, this is a savvy political man. I am sure he wants to redeem his reputation but the timing is odd esp if he wants Obama to be elected.

[wellst0nev0ter]

3. I Think If He's Angry, He Has Certainly Earned That Right

Here's a former military man who has served his country and has cared for a US president of all things, who has then become a man of God who has dedicated his life to doing great works for those that need it the most, and now he being typecast as some anti-American mau-mau by the fascist media and Obama thinks he has "no choice" but to distance himself from someone who is clearly honorable?

Once again a black man fights for a country that turns against him. Who hasn't heard that story before?

[dhill926]

6. you said it....n/t

[chill_wind]

5. He's a 75 year old man.

He has a right to retire. A right to reflect on what's left of his late life. A right to write a book he was looking forward to writing. I doubt he just wrote it a few weeks ago-- for this "special occasion." A right to travel and promote it in the time he has left. A right to respond and defend himself- to defend a lifetime he gave to the things he believed in--in the midst of ALL of the media sturm and drang in the meantime.

He even has a right--- to be wrong about some things! Is there no one in HRC's or GWB's or John McCain's RRR closet who has ever been grieviously wrong about ANYTHING? Let him have his tour. Obama would not begrudge him that. He will manage just fine.

[wellst0nev0ter]

8. Wow, The Media Echo Chamber Sure Is Powerful

Wright is actually 66,not 75. He even punked the media morons at the NPC event who brought that up in lieu of a lame Chris Rock joke he just heard. But, like you said, apparently the media and others has the right to be wrong about basic facts about a story.

[chill_wind]

9. I didn't know that. I stand corrected about his age.

But in my observation, the media (et echo chamber) in both print and MSM punditry spin-- has been overwhelmingly negative.

[gaspee]

7. Now watch Herbert get trashed

BY all the pro-Obama biased websites, when just a few weeks ago, he was a hero. Wright isn't going away and he's going to be a problem.

Herbert nailed it - the man is a classic narcissist. And worse, he's yet another preacher to live the high life with a mansion and multiple cars while many of his "flock" struggle to put food on the table.

Religion is poison in the public sphere - I want religion out of my politics, but I'm a realist and I know that's not about to happen.