Satan and Beelzebub, from Gustave Dore's "Paradise Lost," 1870.As I have argued below, the accusations against Obama for a few statements by his pastor are troubling in their implications. Obama himself, in an historic speech, addressed these accusations and explained their context in a subtle and insightful way. He turned a moment of political necessity into an opportunity to bring difficult questions about race into a sane and tolerant dialogue. Of course, we know that some people would refuse to join this dialogue and instead continue to exploit a bad interpretation of the situation for demagogic ends. Bill O'Reilly, yes, Pat Buchanan, yes, but also:
"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."
The Clinton campaign has refrained from getting involved in the controversy, but Clinton herself, responding to a question, denounced what she said was "hate speech."
UPDATE: Apparently several people from the Clinton campaign are making similar comments, even going as far as comparing Wright to David Duke. This is foul. In my opinion, it's much worse than the Geraldine Ferraro comments.
5 comments:
Interesting to hear the Irish interviewer push back harder than any US journalist would on the ridiculous Clinton spin.
She just can't dig her hole deep enough, can she?
It's certainly troubling. Published some more thoughts on it over at William's.
Lady Beelzebub!?
It's interesting to see just how far the Clintons are going to push some of this stuff. They really don't seem to care how much they're damaging Obama and the Democratic Party for the general election. And that's starting to be noticed by pundits and leaders within the party. I think some folks may be on to something by suggesting that the Clintons are okay with McCain winning this election and Hillary running again in 2012. But as Olbermann pointed out the other night, if Obama loses the election and Democrats blame Hillary, she wouldn't have any chance in 2012.
La Reina and I have wondered what things would be like if Hillary had divorced Bill. Do you think she would campaign the same way? Do you think her negatives would be as high?
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