There’s been quite a lot of that, but it’s usually, from what I’ve seen to far, from diehard Republicans.
Am I the only one who grew up knowing people from an earlier generation who believed in conspiracy theories and uttered racist remarks unapologetically? Yeesh. I hate to say it, but I somehow think that if this were a Republican these folks would be a bit quicker to come to his defense. But that’s politics for ya.
(And no, I still have absolutely no intention of voting for Senator Obama.)
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If it was a Republican we’d be tearing him a new one.
Last I looked there wasn’t a Democrat equivilant to a RINO.
No, the GOP is quite happy to dig into elected party officials that get out of line, thank you very much.
No, I grew up as a white kid in a black school where the black teachers taught conspiracy theories and uttered racist remarks unapologetically.
Phelps’s last blog post..?Barack, I Didn’t Do It for This?
I mean, party members are still tearing into McCain into issues they think he’s out of line on. And it’s you who, time and again, keep calling McCain conservative!
It seems more likely that you fault Republicans for not going after their elected party officials on issues you think they should. If it matters that much to you then join the party.
We actual members of the GOP know when to support our candidates and when to punish them just fine.
Further, what Republicans may or may not do in your mind is irrelevant to the discussion. Catch them in a sin first, then flagellate them.
What you think Republicans would or wouldn’t do itsn’t a defense. It’s as hollow as the leftist tirade, “They do it too!” What are we, 12?
The best critique of the speech so far has come from Rick Moran of RightWing Nuthouse, and Mickey Kaus of hardcore rightwing site, http://www.kausfiles.com.
Personally, I LOVED the speech!
It made me cry.
His plea to people of all races to come together and take on the real enemy – white capitalists who are preventing black children from getting a decent education – was a welcome change in tone in our national discussion on race.
“Am I the only one who grew up knowing people from an earlier generation who believed in conspiracy theories and uttered racist remarks unapologetically? ”
Nope, I still know people like that, and I would not elect them president either.
Kevin, yeesh. I was a registered Republican for years, and left and became an independent who still fairly regularly votes for Republicans. I also voted in the last Republican primary. The reason I keep insisting that McCain is conservative has to do with the fact that he gets a nearly identical rating from the American Conservative Union as Fred Thompson, whom I believe you voted for. His lifetime rating is over 80%, which would mark him as quite conservative indeed in most people’s eyes, despite straying on a small handful of issues. He’s almost certainly more conservative than George W. Bush, for example.
And I do recall Republicans often coming to the defense of their candidates in situations much like this. One that immediately comes to mind is all those conservative Republicans who came to George W. Bush’s defense for speaking at Bob Jones University, despite the fact that it had policies against inter-racial dating and had a long history of identifying the Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon. I don’t remember where you were when Republicans were saying that it was unfair to tarnish Bush just for associating with such a school, but I know that Republicans were willing to defend him.
We all know people we love and respect who believe and say things we are uncomfortable with. I think some people are working waaaaay too hard to make Obama fully responsible for everything his pastor ever said in any context. But notably, his pastor has left the campaign. I suspect that’s good enough for anybody who isn’t a hard-core Republican/Conservative.
“the real enemy – white capitalists who are preventing black children from getting a decent education”
Pardon? I always figured it was the school system that did that.
Ryan
RyanR’s last blog post..War- A Failure of Diplomacy?
I’ll also note that I think it’s perfectly appropriate to ask Obama about things like this. It is always wise to look at who a candidate associates with and takes guidance from. I just find Obama’s answer in this case to be sufficient, and note that Republicans are not inherently better than Democrats when it comes to things like this. Not that I can see, anyway.
The stated goal (as articulated by Dewey himself) of the public school system is to produce workers who will shut up and do as they’re told. Free thinking is given lip service, but the whole structure of the system is fundamentally against it.
Ryan
RyanR’s last blog post..War- A Failure of Diplomacy?
Dean, True, but giving one speech somewhere isn’t the same as being a 20 year member.
Surely you see the difference between GWB speaking at BJU, vs his actual membership in the Methodist church, right? You do understand that Obama has been a member of Trinity for over 20 years, and is in fact a member today?
Phelps’s last blog post..Hypothetical Candidate
Has anyone asked Obama why he’s been a member for 20 years? There’s been lots of speculation, but has anybody just asked?
Ryan
RyanR’s last blog post..War- A Failure of Diplomacy?
Dean, remember Trent Lott? Who was it that took the lead tearing into Lott?
Phelps: Surely you see that any example I give will have differences, because no analogy is perfect. And surely you see that a school that Republicans spoke at regularly for decades even knowing the school’s racist and religiously bigoted views is quite similar to this case. And surely you must acknowledge that Obama has addressed these questions you’re asking, noting that the Pastor rarely put forward these views in the 20 years he attended that church, and that Obama saw more to the man than some views which are common in members of his pastor’s generation.
Surely you see the similarities, and are not blinded by mere partisan demagoguery, right?
RyanR: Uh, did you watch or read his speech? He already answered why.
Ken Hall: Yeah, leftists like Josh Marshall were first on the wagon, and Republicans came out swinging against him eventually. But mostly I remember it was Lott himself being an idiot, for he could have easily defused the situation and instead reacted totally inappropriately to it, which led to his resignation. On the other hand, Republicans were perfectly happy to have Senator Strom Thurmond on their side for decades as one of the most distinguished and respected members of their caucus in the Senate.
By the way, on the matter of Strom Thurmond: Republicans spent decades standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the man. And defended that choice on numerous occasions, basically saying that there was more to Senator Thurmond than his racist past.
But there’s no similarities there at all. Nope, none at all. Right?
>>> “the real enemy – white capitalists who are preventing black children from getting a decent educationâ€
>>>> Ryan R: Pardon? I always figured it was the school system that did that.
Wrong. Evil capitalists are preventing schools from teaching black children, and forcing them to prepare Asian kids for scholarships to MIT and play violin.
It’s terrible situation, and I’m glad this rainbow coalition of race-transcenders is finally – FINALLY! – going to take these this group to task for all the terrible things its done.
This will be an inspirational and refreshing change in tone, direction, just everything.
Wow.
Looks like those capitalists have finally caught up with me. They’re putting typos into my posts and making me look like an idiot, because they’re afraid of me and my message.
You want get way with it!!
No more than with Robert Byrd.
Phelps’s last blog post..Hypothetical Candidate
Dean- my question wasn’t rhetorical. I was actually wondering. I’m planning to read the speech, but I’ve got a stack of work intervening.
Ryan
RyanR’s last blog post..War- A Failure of Diplomacy?
Ryan: I believe you. You should go ahead and read the speech. He quite eloquently, and bluntly, made the case that a lot of black people AND white people from that generation had views that he doesn’t share, and finds cringeworthy, but that he doesn’t write them out of his life just because he doesn’t share those views.
It’s the first time I’ve heard any politician be so honest about these things, and I think only a mixed-race politician born after the civil rights era could have made it. It was inspiring.
Strom Thurmonds racism was in the past.
Trent Lott got in trouble for suggesting that if “he” (the unrepentant Strom Thurmand of the late 17th Century or whenever) had gotten his way, had “won,” the country would be in better shape now.
I think he was badly misinterpreted, but still, the idea was he had put his foot in it, and OFFENDED people, so he lost his job – boom, just like that.
Lost.
His.
Job.
Maybe some should have said, “His occasional forays into racism aren’t all that defines him. He’s a committed leader in the White community and he has really, unusually good hair that doesn’t ever seem to move no matter what.”
I’m sure such a speech could have saved him.
I would argue that Republicans who are keeping this story alive are just doing their jobs. Politics as usual and all.
Its battlefield prep for November, and they were able to turn their cannons outward a couple weeks ago.
Snippet: I actually think all Lott should have said was, “Oh, I was just trying to be nice to an old man who was retiring and it came out all wrong. I think we all know people from his generation who had some pretty upsetting views by today’s standards. Sorry about that, can we just get it behind us?” If he’d done that he would have been just fine. Instead he stonewalled and acted guilty, and that led to his resignation.
This is all what I said at the time, by the way. It wasn’t what he said, it’s how he tried to cover up and the completely stupid way he tried to stonewall and backpedal that was so damning. (I was in on the original blogswarm that cost Lott his job, by the way, back when the blogosphere was a much smaller place than it is now. So I remember it quite vividly, and if you search the Dean’s World archives you’ll find what I was writing about it at the time.)
That’s where Obama has been smart. He hasn’t stonewalled, he just said that he was friends with someone he disagreed with, which everybody can relate to. (possibly literally, every family has a few crazies. In my family it’s me.) And the story dies.
Ryan
RyanR’s last blog post..War- A Failure of Diplomacy?
My sarcasm meter nudged on that one. Either the squelch is set way too high or you’re serious. Hopefully the latter.
Scott,
Sarcasm?
!?
No, I seriously mean that transcending race and going after the owners of the means of production is a genuinely…
…snort…
…giggle…
…new and innovative idea that…
…I’m sorry. I just can’t do this with a straight face. You got me. Sarcasm it is.
At least Trent Lott didn’t claim not to have been there when the controversial words were uttered.
That would have been only slightly less plausible than Obama’s claim.
Do you have attendance records for this church? Do you even have vague statistics about the frequency with which Obama attended? How many of Wright’s sermons, over his 30 years as a pastor, were racist or anti-American? Was this a viewpoint that he typically expressed in private? In what circumstances, or to whom, would he be most likely to express it?
The answers (and in most cases, lack of answers) to these questions lead me to believe that Obama’s claim is, at least, moderately plausible.
I wonder, of those of you who are current insisting that Obama must be lying through his teeth, how many of you supported Obama, or even considered supporting Obama, before this speech? It seems to me that there is a lot of confirmation bias going on here.
How about the horse’s mouth?
Phelps’s last blog post..Hypothetical Candidate
I have never seriously considered supporting Barack Obama.
After 20 years, he should know that his pastor is saying things that make Noam Chomsky look like an American patriot.
He said he never heard the hateful statements last week.
This week he said he did.
Wright’s whole worldview is soaked in this sh**, ahem, stuff.
“Israel” is a dirty word?
America invented HIV?
We DELIBERATELY impoverish blacks?
We deserved 9/11 (to applause…)
It is unlikely – though technically possible – that views that are this deranged are rare islands in an ocean of sanity, but somehow I doubt it.
As far as “confirmation bias” goes, that is always a possibility, but I did not start out viewing Obama unfavorably, and never desired to do so.
In his latest speech, he claims to have heard remarks which were controversial, to hear fierce criticism of American policies, and to hear things which he strongly disagreed with. This encompasses the views on Isreal, HIV and 9/11. (I’m more forgiving of the 9/11 thing then most, because it seemed to me like everybody was reacting irrationally in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, even if most people’s irrational reactions ran in the other direction. The fact that he went that way is more telling, to me, of the sorts of issues and frustrations which he had to deal with, on a day-to-day basis, as an inner city black pastor.)
Now, latter in the speech he says “Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect.” This does not conflict with what he said above at all. That is, Obama witnessed Rev. Wright speak out against America, and American policies, often in extreme and unreasonable terms, but he did not witness Rev. Wright speak out against whites.
I’m not sure of the precise statements he made last week, but within the context of what I see, there are no apparent contradictions.
for me, the bland and obvious assertion that there are white and black racists of a certain age, blahblah had no effect whatsoever.
why? because its a commonplace as well as an excuse.
what stuck with me was obama not only knew about it and ignored it, but that he embraces the man unashamedly and everybody is fucking ok with that!
oh, give me a break, dean. this possible nominee just looked you in the eye and said, “i embrace racists” and you’re giving him a pass.
on this, you make me want to puke
adding insult, you insinuate that, were he a republican, i’d be just fine with bastard.
no. you haven’t a clue.
or even considered supporting Obama, before this speech?
i considered it briefly, but lost confidence prior to the speech.
urthshu,
If that’s what Obama had said, I’d be right there beside you. However, you’re stretching his words so far it would make Mr. Fantastic queasy.
First of all, note all the places that Obama said “my former pastor”. Keyword on the former. Secondly, note the bit I just quoted in my last comment, “Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect.” While Obama admits to seeing Rev. Wright express a lot of controversial opinions, he does not admit to seeing Rev. Wright make any actual racist comments.
Furthermore, you miss the paragraphs upon paragraphs where he talks about everything else that Rev. Wright did over the time he knew him, making it clear that he wasn’t just a guy giving crazy sermons, he was a man actively improving his community, and somebody who gave a lot of solid spiritual guidance.
If I cut everybody out of my life who held an opinion I vehemently disagreed with, I’d soon be out of friends. However, for all of my friends are also full of positive qualities. People are not simple, black-and-white caricatures (yes, I realize the irony of that metaphor in this context), but complex entities who, every time, have positive as well as negative aspects. Often, those with the most prominent positives also have the most prominent negatives.
To go back to Dean’s metaphor about Strom Thurman, virtually every Republican who was in Congress up to that point had close association with Thurman. He was the most senior Congressman, having served for ages. When he died, tons of them came out to give glowing eulogies. However, only one of them got tarred with the racist brush, and that was the man who essentially stated that Thurman’s old racist policies had been a good idea. Everybody else, who merely said Thurman was a great man who accomplished great things, walked away looking fine.
So, why does Obama get tarred with the racist brush here, when he actually condemns Rev. Wright far more then most Republicans ever condemned Thurman? Obama actually states that many of Rev. Wrights ideas are extreme or misguided. None of the Republican eulogizers said that about Thurman. They just carefully avoided mentioning his more controversial viewpoints.
Note that he says this because Wright has retired from the pulpit, not because Obama disavows him.
And this is the sort of sneaky parsing that is upsetting people like me.
Phelps’s last blog post..Hypothetical Candidate
Maybe I’m odd, but to me all “former pastor” means is that he isn’t Obama’s pastor anymore. How would you have phrased it, to make it more clear? “The pastor who used to work at my church”? That’s kinda awkward. Maybe he could have added a sentence about the fact that Rev. Wright had left the church, but considering that this speech was only necessary because there was already so much attention on Rev. Wright, it’s reasonable to assume that most of those watching already know that.
Also, when Obama goes on to condemn many of the Reverend’s viewpoints, it makes it pretty clear to me that he would no longer consider Wright his Reverend even if he did still work at his church.
yes, yes, racists can do nice things once in awhile. your point?
it doesn’t cut ice with me. racist hate is what it is, and obama was playing us all for chumps with his okey-dokey routine.
earlier, there was a thread about reading a speech vs watching it for body language and expression. what i saw was a petulant, impatient and chuffed boy-man who rolled his eyes when saying wright wasn’t racist. the very idea is impossible for him to understand.
oh, and yes, i do happen to be a trained, professional observer of behaviors.
so, i conclude with a certainty that obama harbors the same ideology, that he lies consistently about it, and that he has plans he will not divulge unless/until he is elected.
and if you want to argue it, you can take a number and stand in line like everyone else
“what i saw was a petulant, impatient and chuffed boy-man who rolled his eyes when saying wright wasn’t racist.”
Except, Obama never actually said that Wright wasn’t racist, he said Wright had never been overtly racist in front of him. That statement was not a matter of Obama defending Wright, but Obama defending his association with Wright. There is a world of difference.
watch it again.
oh, and when i say that, i mean: observe the man. don’t parse the words. that comes after, to match meanings to behaviors, to find truths and falsehoods, not lawyerly arguments
Uh, I just finished reading it, off of the CBS News transcript posted here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/18/politics/main3947908_page3.shtml
He says, quoting for the third time in this thread, “Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect.” This is the closest thing I can find to saying that Wright isn’t a racist, and it still doesn’t actually say that.
Furthermore, it seems ridiculous to assert that Obama is a racist, unless, of course, you want to make the further assertion that he hates (or at least disrespects) his white mother, and her entire white family, along with the entire half of his own genetic code that he got from them.
Oh, and I’m sorry, but I refuse to put words in a politicians mouth based on a reading of their body language. If I assumed a politician was lying every time they looked kind of awkward to me, I would assume that Bush hadn’t uttered a true word in his entire life… And while I know full well Bush has lied a lot, I also think it would be ridiculous to state that he never spoke the truth.
The same assessment would lead me to conclude that Obama was completely honest, as I have yet to see him look awkward in front of the camera.
However, only one of them got tarred with the racist brush, and that was the man who essentially stated that Thurman’s old racist policies had been a good idea.
That wasn’t my interpretation of Lott’s comments. What he said was that the US would have fewer problems if Thurman’s third-party Presidential run had succeeded. I think Lott meant that the Strom Thurman he knew and worked with for over a decade was a good man who would have made a better President than Harry Truman, not that the racist views Thurman ran on in 1948 but reputiated decades before Lott first met him. If you don’t think about the context in which Lott knew Thurman, it does sound like an endorsement of Thurman’s old racist views, which is why Lott got in trouble for it, but I very much doubt that’s how Lott meant it.
Maniakes,
That was my initial interpretation as well. I thought the firestorm over that comment was a bit crazy, at first. Based on that comment alone, I would have supported Trent Lott, despite the fact that I typically consider myself a Democrat.
However, over the course of the next few weeks, Lott’s attempts to backpedal and qualify his statement kept making it worse. Every statement he issued contained another faux pas which could be read as a racist remark. Any one of those statements, taken alone, wouldn’t have indicated much, but all put together it shows a pattern that seems to indicate that Lott was a closet racist, which is why he was finally driven to resign.
If you accept, then, that Lott is a closet racist, then it seems logical to assume that the media’s initial interpretation of Lott’s comment at Thurman’s funeral were accurate. Though admittedly, there is some heavy interpretation involved there.
Could be. I didn’t pay much attention to Lott’s attempts to backpedal after the first day or two, so I can’t argue with your assessment that he came off as racist in those as well. I still have trouble imagining why someone who didn’t want to be viewed as racist would have made those remarks if he was even aware of the racist interpretation of them, but it wouldn’t be the first time a politician made a mind-bogglingly stupid statement in front of a camera.
fine, heru. you’re comfortable with the man, thats all i need to know.
I don’t get all of this. If McCain had attended KKK rallies for 20 years, had a wife who announced “today for the first time I feel respect for Blacks”, in a public speech, ran on a “Black America must Change” ticket and then gave a nice speech, would all be forgiven? Who care’s what the speech said or didn’t say.
As for Dean’s point that only hard core Republicans won’t accept Obama’s little speech, I disagree with the implication that that is because they are being partisan. Instead I think part of what makes a person Republican is often their view of things, and in that worldview Obama’s little speech is just more political blah blah blah. Nothing courageous about it. Just a fancy CYA that naive people can swoon over.
Actions speak.
Really? Then why did you write:
That seemed to insinuate that Obama had indeed rejected him. Now that it turns out that he really didn’t reject him, it doesn’t matter?
I’m not accusing you of spin. I’m accusing you of falling for deliberately misleading phrasing from Obama. I don’t fault people for getting mislead, especially by a skilled lawyer and politician like Obama. I do find fault when people have this deception pointed out and then try to defend it.
Phelps’s last blog post..Hypothetical Candidate
detroit,
You have quite a penchant for hyperbole. Your comparisons fail due to matters of degree. Rev. Wright’s church, for all it’s rhetoric, falls well short of the KKK. In fact, if actions are what matters, not words, then you should be hailing Wright’s church for all the good and charitable works it’s done. After all, all those controversial things he said were just words. To the best of my knowledge, he never acted on them. As to Michelle, in all honesty, I empathize with her comments.
Most of us honestly have little basis to be proud of our country, because A) being an American doesn’t make us better people (Americans are flawed humans just like every else) and B) we’ve done very little, if anything, to make America a better place. However, high level politicians get the chance to shape America, and thus have a basis to be proud of it, and their wives typically have the opportunity to be part of that process.
(After watching the insanity that occurred in the name of patriotism in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I’m hesitant to declare myself a patriot. In my mind, the term is now shaded with irrational hatred and violence. I like America, and I want to see America rise to it’s potential, to be the best it can be, but “patriotism” as it’s often used seems barely distinct from nationalism, which is an ugly thing.)
Anyway, to Phelps,
Okay, you got me. I shouldn’t have defended that comment in the way I did. I honestly don’t believe Obama intended it to be that misleading, but having not been watching the Wright thing much until after his speech, I had initially missed the detail that Wright had resigned.
Honestly, though, if Obama had completely rejected Wright at this point, would you feel better about him? To me, that rejection would be insincere, because it would indicate that Wright did not, in fact, have any redeeming qualities worth maintaining a relationship with, which would draw into question much stronger why he didn’t reject Wright earlier. By maintaining some degree of relationship with Wright, he backs up his point that he has always maintained that relationship based on Wright’s positive qualities.
Actually, I would feel better about him. Anyone can be wrong, and it is easy to end up in a situation where you really don’t see gradual changes around you. Wright could have incrementally gotten to where he was, and Obama just didn’t realize how bad it was. Or it could be that he really just didn’t see how the things he was saying could be considered insulting to non-Blacks, but now he does.
But that isn’t what he said. He said Wright’s accusation that white people conspired to murder blacks with AIDS and cocaine and that we deserved the WTC attack was no worse than an elderly white woman being scared after she was nearly mugged by a homeless black man. That does not reassure me that he understands the situation.
Good works don’t give a white person who makes racist remarks any breathing room. I don’t see a reason to start discriminating on the basis of color for anyone else, either.
Phelps’s last blog post..Citizen Journalist
Heru,
(Disclaimer for the benefit of others: I know HeruFeanor in real life and consider him a friend)
> Most of us honestly have little basis to be proud of our
> country, because A) being an American doesn’t make us
> better people (Americans are flawed humans just like every
> else) and B) we’ve done very little, if anything, to make
> America a better place.
Heru, even though we disagree on a number of points, I know you to be intelligent, intellectually honest (i.e., you would never intentionally mislead someone in order to score a point in a debate) and I know you to have a decent set of values. (i.e., you don’t want to see innocent people come to harm, etc.)
Given that disclaimer: your statement above rates an *epic* fail.
I hope you’ll agree that, were all borders to be opened tomorrow, the United States would be the destination of choice for most of the emigrants of the world, and population of the United States would go up, not down.
I am as disgusted with the current administration and their actions as you are, and I fully recognize the many, many imperfections of the United States… but I’ve travelled a fair amount and despite the many issues of the United States… there is nowhere I’d rather be. (I have to admit… if the tax situation gets much worse… that may change.)
In the first century of our nation, more than 300,000 men gave their lives to eliminate the scourge of slavery.
When disaster strikes… people look to America for help.
Americans are, per capita, the most generous nation in the world (I don’t have the source for that information at my fingertips, but if it’s important, I can find it.)
The vast majority of major medical advances in the last 50 years have come from the United States.
The vast majority of the technology that has all-but-eliminated the natural causes of starvation came from the United States. (Google the name “Norman Borlaug”)
The United States (for better or for worse) represents the largest redistribution of wealth from the “wealthy” to the poor *in the history of mankind*
The communications technology that is changing the world for the better was invented almost entirely in the United States. (though I have to give a nod to Englishman Tim Berners-Lee)
I think that the ultimate compliment that can be paid to the United States is being payed by my many friends whom originally hailed from first-world foreign countries. They tend to be among the best their country has to offer… intelligent, kind, thoughtful, generous… and they have chosen the United States for their home.
If a sudden disease were to take hold that wiped out Americans and only Americans, killing no one of any other nationality, and leaving behind all of our physical property and assets… the world would be a much, much poorer place.
– DW
P.S. If you really believe that, on the whole, Americans-as-a-cultural-norm aren’t more trustworthy, industrious, and honorable than other cultures, I invite you to spend some time in Latin America. I would invite you to spend some time in any number of deeply Muslim cultures, except that I like you, and want you alive.
Whowha?!
Huh. I only know one Doug, so I can extrapolate… That’ll teach me not to get the last names of my friends. I had no idea it was you. :-)
Now, I’ll admit that one’s CULTURE can somewhat affect one’s value as a person, but culture is not neatly divided on the lines of countries. What I think of as my personal culture is spread across the entire Anglosphere, and there are a number of cultures which are an inherent part of America which I am not part of, and actually find very distasteful. Gangster culture, and what I’d call redneck or hick culture, come to mind as two prominent examples.
So, I’m somewhat proud to be a member of the dominant Anglosphere culture, (spread across the U.S., Canada, the British Isles, Australia and New Zealand, all of which also have their own separate sub-cultures, of course), but that’s not the same thing as being proud to be an American.
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