I wrote that Obama called Wright's statements "controversial," which rather understates the matter. They were not "controversial." They were vicious and vile.

Madonna is "controversial," champ. Changing the opening theme to Monk was "controversial." The Patriots' SpyGate was "controversial."

This was vicious and vile anti-Americanism and racism and anti-semitism. If those things are, to you, merely "controversial," it seems you need a teachable moment or two, rather than presuming to fill us with "understanding."

But the fact is, he didn't even call Wright's remarks controversial. Slublog:

I think Obama is playing it even more cute than that. He said he heard things that "could be considered" controversial. He then spent the rest of his speech telling us that what we thought was controversial is explainable due to the history of racial tension in the United States.

Indeed.

I'm reposting this because I seem to be the only person pointing this out. And I'm not going to stop until it gets traction.

This is, as I understand it, the sermon delivered on Sunday, September 16, 2001. Firemen were still digging through skin-blistering ash in a futile effort to find more survivors of the 9/11 attacks. And putting their health at risk breathing heavily in air heavily tainted with asbestos and toxins.

Even if I'm wrong on the date (which I might be; I have been unable to confirm that this is in fact that sermon), is there any date upon which this would be acceptable?

Now, once again: Watch Wright's relish -- his nearly orgasmic delight -- in saying "America's chickens... have come home... to roost." Watch this blackhearted monster dance and flutter his hands in a happy flourish as he celebrates and exults in the deaths of 3000 Americans and foreign nationals, all civilians and all innocents, as it represents a vindication of his sickening worldview and a well-deserved comeupppance for the nation he so deeply hates.

Now, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama: As your disgusting spiritual mentor and political guide is publicly celebrating the terrorism of 9/11 as blatantly as the Palestinian terrorists did that very day, and as excitedly as Al Qaeda does:

Would you say these comments are merely "controversial" or potentially "controversial"?

Would you like a second try at that, you rotten bastard?

How many prisoners did he minister to to cancel out this disgusting celebration of mass murder on a mega scale?

How much Hope and Change have you actually delivered to cancel out your own voluntary, bear-hug embrace of this repellent seditionist?

Posted by: Ace at 11:38 AM | Comments (119)
Post contains 437 words, total size 3 kb.

Michigan legislators are having trouble getting the numbers together to approve legislation for a new primary.

ItÂ’s appearing more and more likely there will not be a re-do of the Democratic presidential primary election. WWJ [Newsradio 950] Lansing Bureau Chief Tim Skubick reports state Senate Democrats came out of a closed door meeting Tuesday morning and said there are not enough votes to approve a re-do.

Legislative approval is necessary for a re-vote to happen.

Speaking live on WWJ, Skubick said it would take a “miracle” to have the re-do approved, but he added it’s still possible.

That doesn't mean that it won't happen eventually. There are just a couple of problems standing in the way. The big issue is what to do about Democrats and independents who crossed over and voted in the Republican primary because they wanted their votes to count for something. The proposed legislation prevents them from re-voting for their actual preference, even though they might not have crossed over if they'd known that the rules would be changed mid-contest. Because he wasn't on the Democratic ballot, the crossover crowd may largely be Obama supporters and they are understandably crying foul.

The Clinton campaign has announced support for the legislature's plan, but Obama hasn't responded yet. His followers in the Michigan legislature may be holding off until he takes a position or just opposing it by default since Clinton approved. They may also be waiting to see just how much the Rev. Wright situation is going to hurt his numbers.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:55 AM | Comments (11)
Post contains 264 words, total size 2 kb.

Good stuff. So was mine, of course. But it's pointless to link myself.

He's pissed off about how transparently cynical and self-serving Obama's sudden desire to have a "redemptive" discussion about race is... this desire just somehow happening to coincide with Obama's need to make the Wright issue go away, perhaps in favor of "Bigger Questions" than the nitpicky distraction over Obama's courting of a virulent racist for political gain for 20 years.

Political gain. Not spiritual guidance. I believe he sought religious counsel from Wright like I believe Bill Clinton was offering Monica spiritual ministering.

Just because she was on her knees and something was placed in her mouth doesn't mean any transubstantiation was going on.

Allah concludes with this, which, in case you haven't quite noticed, summarizes my own personal Journey of Redemption with Obama these past two weeks:

Partisanship aside, as much as I loathe his politics, I always liked Obama the man and believed that his devotion to racial reconciliation was sincere. I don’t anymore. He exploited Trinity politically to establish his black “authenticity” and then demagogued Clinton for challenging his image as the post-racial candidate, and now the two have bumped up against each other so suddenly it’s time for a circle-squaring conversation that can really only end in electing him president.

Yeah. Now that takes balls. This cocksucker gets caught dirty with a anti-American radical leftist racial arsonist and yet it turns out the only way to heal those wounds is to elect Barack Hussein Obama President of the United States of America.

That's akin to OJ saying we could just get past all this double-murder decapitation fuss if we just appoint him California Attorney General.

Is the Obamessiah kinda-sorta suggesting that the key to racial reconciliation and healing our nation's wounds begins with an act of forgiveness almost transcendently spiritual in nature? And that that act of psuedo-divine forgiveness just happens to involve... forgiving Barack Obama and his Jew-hatin' preacher?

I thought the Messiah was to forgive us our trespasses, not the other way around.

The kingdom of Heaven is at hand: All you need to do to enter is forgive. Forgiveness will turn the key to the gates.

Are you righteous enough in your hearts to attempt the audacity of forgiveness?

Or are you a racist sinner stuck in the past?

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!! Michelle Obama was "weeping" after this speech.

Guess she really wants that First Lady job.

Maybe if Obama tosses a few earmarks around he can make it a paid gig.

Posted by: Ace at 10:53 AM | Comments (26)
Post contains 437 words, total size 3 kb.

Glad someone noticed this. It's a repudiation of his previous claim, which had become "inoperable."

Or, rather, would soon become inoperable, as everyone scrambles to put this hustler in the church when Raz the Exhorter* was doing his his Hate Whitey Sermon.

And we're going to get him on that -- thus the walk-back.

But he still lied. He is just trying to undo the lie and defuse the Obama-hunt before we confront him with it.

And of course for the MSM this will end the hunt -- he says he was there. Now he says that at least. Hence, no reason trying to prove he lied.

Contrary to his earlier suggestion, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) acknowledged in his speech Tuesday that he had heard “controversial” remarks by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

“Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy?” Obama said. “Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes...."

Obama did not specify which statements.

....Obama said in a posting on The Huffington Post:

“The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign.”

The statements are not directly contradictory. But Republicans are likely to seize on the passage as evidence that Obama was not completely in the dark about WrightÂ’s inflammatory speeches.

Yes, he was very cute about that, admitting he had heard some "controversial" remarks but not the ones he'd previously claimed to be wholly unaware of.

We'll see if he was there for the ones he specifically denied being present for.

Although, any way you slice it, it's still a lie.

Thanks to CJ.

Who Put the Turtle on the Fence Post? I don't blame Hillary for pushing this story too the press, assuming she did, which I do in fact assume.

What annoys me is the MSM. No Republican could push this very legitimate story to the press because the headline would not be about Wright. The headline would read:

Republican Operatives In Whispering Campaign of Racial Code-Words and Hate

But of course if a liberal in good standing brings the same issue to the press, it's legitimate, and they run the actual story.

Note there is not a bloody word from the press about who brought this to their attention.

The implication seems to be the MSM discovered this on their own, dug it all up, tracked it down with their own dogged determination and love of hard, painstaking detective-work.

Yeah. I buy that like I buy that Obama only found out his racist buddy was a racist a couple of months ago.

* Yeah, that's right. Raz the Exhorter. Ellison's Invisible Man. I read that in college. This is a very smart political blog too.

Well, I read it in ninth grade. I guess it's not really a tough read.

Well, actually I read the Cliff's Notes. From what I understand, it's about race, and Mr. North's suitcase is symbolic of, I don't know, a valise or something.

Posted by: Ace at 10:14 AM | Comments (51)
Post contains 570 words, total size 4 kb.

I've been trying to digest the scandal over Obama's loudmouthed minister, and I've had a flash of insight that I'd like to share with y'all.

Grievance-mongers like Reverend Wright like to use the standard list of boogeymen when assigning blame for the state of Black America:

1. Whitey.
2. The CIA.
3. The Jews.
4. Uppity middle-class black folks.
5. Korean grocers (OK, I've never heard Reverend Wright go after Koreans, but then again, I've never listened to all his sermons, so I'm sure the Koreans are in there somewhere).

It's sort of compelling to listen to the Reverend's rants on racial relations, but there's something missing. He's mining the same vein of hatred over & over again, and frankly, it's starting to get BORING!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Jews are making young black men drop out of school & sell crack. Whitey's keeping you down, and all that. How about mixing in an exotic nemesis or two while you're at it?

Just once, I'd like to hear a black leader go off on a rant about the Freemasons conspiring to keep the test scores of black kids lower than those of white kids, or maybe a nice tirade blaming the flouridation of public drinking water for the spread of Ebonics in the culture of young blacks.

It's a fact that hype sells, so why not come up with some by-God Bond Villains to carry the blame for all the ills of your community? "Whitey" is such a monolithic concept that most people can't grasp blaming an entire race for their problems. Maybe all the problems with Black America can be laid at the feet of a specific ethnic group? No, not the Jews, that card's been played repeatedly. I'm thinking that those filthy SCANDI snow-wops could make a good scapegoat. They're pasty white, they eat lutefisk & lime jello with pineapple chunks buried in it, and they live in frigid Northern communities which are largely made up of fellow scandis.

And as far as blaming "the CIA" for your problems goes; you do realize that on a scale of competence the CIA ranks somewhere between The Washington Generals and "Cobra Command" from the old GI Joe cartoons? The CIA couldn't pour piss out of a boot if you printed the directions on the heel, but the looney left in our country continues to portray the CIA as omnipotently evil. Why not find a new government agency to scapegoat? Hey, the Department of Agriculture hasn't had that much scrutiny directed their way. Are you sure that shadowy USDA inspectors aren't visiting bodegas in black neighborhoods to sprinkle cocktails of experimental hormones on the food? Think about it.

Look, whatever you think about right-wing kooks like the Paulbots or LaRouchies, at least they come up with entertaining conspiracy theories. Maybe if the Reverend Wright had preached about the evil influence of the US Postal Service instead of "whitey" & the Jews, Obama could have given a regular stump speech today instead of a designated "racial divisiveness" targeted speech. It's just something to think about.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 09:44 AM | Comments (27)
Post contains 527 words, total size 3 kb.

Is this a good idea? Seems it's been a while.

Warden with the idea, and the first:

change is difficult

there is much work to be done

get to it, whitey

One caution here: This is a very dicey subject. Please do not put up anything that's just racist the other way. I don't really want that crap on my blog, and you really don't want that crap associated with your screenname.

Unless it's so fucking funny as to be worth it. But seriously, that's a pretty high bar. Just saying something shocking and/or actually hateful doesn't make it funny.

Posted by: Ace at 09:28 AM | Comments (209)
Post contains 116 words, total size 1 kb.

When Limbaugh and Slublog both tell me this is "outstanding," it gets a link before I've had a chance to read it.

How to turn one's blackness to advantage?

The answer is that one "bargains." Bargaining is a mask that blacks can wear in the American mainstream, one that enables them to put whites at their ease. This mask diffuses the anxiety that goes along with being white in a multiracial society. Bargainers make the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America's history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer's race against him. And whites love this bargain -- and feel affection for the bargainer -- because it gives them racial innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist. So the bargainer presents himself as an opportunity for whites to experience racial innocence.

This is how Mr. Obama has turned his blackness into his great political advantage, and also into a kind of personal charisma. Bargainers are conduits of white innocence, and they are as popular as the need for white innocence is strong. Mr. Obama's extraordinary dash to the forefront of American politics is less a measure of the man than of the hunger in white America for racial innocence.

Indeed. And it's an empty promise, of course. Obama doesn't tell us how he intends to heal us all; he can't. He has no such plan.

And of course he passed up on a rather large opportunity to put his healing talents to good use in letting his very good "friend" tell his flock that the US of KKK A exists primarily to murder black people.

But soft-headed white liberals can take solace in the fact, as they always do, that by making gestures of trivial effort, such as pulling a lever for a politician, they are helping to change the world and thereby demonstrating their superior, if not supreme, moral and intellectual standing.

Posted by: Ace at 09:15 AM | Comments (38)
Post contains 340 words, total size 2 kb.

Yup.

SteveL:

Ok, let me see if I understood this speech correctly:

1. I was in church when Wright said some bad things.

2. I didn't like the bad things he said.

3. I never, ever spoke up about how I felt about the bad things.

4. I continued to go to the church even after he said the bad things.

5. All of which is irrelevant because my grandmother used some racil epithets.

Did I get it right?

Yeah that's right.

/David Puddy

Marc Ambinder: I concur in part and dissent in part.

In his speech today, instead of casting Wright out, throwing him overboard, trying to write him off, Obama did the opposite: he incorporated Wright into Barack Obama, LLC. Wright's evolution becomes part of America's evolution, which is part of Obama's story.

In no uncertain terms did Obama renounce -- morally condemn -- the hateful, anti-Semitic, anti-American and just plain bizarre rants of his pastor -- "former pastor," as Obama now calls him. But he did not reject him. He refused to reject him. He is daring, in essence, his white liberal supporters to accept what Wright's anger represents -- a legacy of oppression -- and daring the rest of white supporters to take a leap of faith him... and asking them to expand their minds a bit and see that Wright is preaching in a tradition that has a context that is directly related to the material and spiritual conditions of all Americans.

The sell will be easier for white liberals, I think. The speech was magnificently written. It was internally consistent with Obama apparently believes.

How it plays will determine how it plays. If the media focuses more on the Wright defense-by-renouncements and then juxtaposes them with clips of Wright's comments, then I think the trouble remains. The seeds of doubt about who this guy really is may be nourished. I know that Obama believes that a discussion about race plays to his benefit, no matter what people think about white working class voters and their latent feelings. Perhaps this is the beginning of his opportunity to lift the veil and get everyone -- not just himself and the media -- to talk openly.

Problem is... so far, this is a one way conversation. It's ... well, the tiny media scrum debating Rev. Wright... and Obama preaching to the country. There's no give. There's go back and forth. A one way conversation is a lecture.

The dissent: Obama did not "in no uncertain terms" renounce and denounce Wright. He engaged in apologism for a racist. He equated his grandmother's alleged occasional, private racial slurs with Wright's cynical career of constant, public racial arson. Further, he claimed that just as he cannot give up on Nana Obama, he wishes he could quite Rev. Wright, but Brokeback Style, cannot. It would be selling out a "friend" to do so.

Well, we do not choose our family but we do choose our friends, or pastors, and our close and key political allies. Can anyone think of a case where a politician has had a 20 year history with a racial arsonist but claimed it was excused because, on balance, he's just a capital chap?

I am also unimpressed by his "denouncements." Will he specifically denounce the statements in question? Will he tell black conspiracy-theorizing haters that No, the CIA did not create HIV to kill you? He permits such conspiracy theorists to believe he's still on their side by refusing to specifically deny the lie and affirm the truth.

If some blacks are being told by figures of respect (ahem) that the government created AIDS to murder them and that the CIA stocks black communities with crack and guns to murder them, um, isn't that a rather large impediment to true racial reconciliation? I have to tell you, I know some Muslim terrorists really do want to murder me and I'm afraid reconciling with them is quite out of the question.

So is his message "Yes, white people are murdering you, but you need to get past that"? Really? One can get past conspiracy to commit genocide?

Obama, and his liberal media spirit squad, speak of having an "open, honest" dialog on race and racial resentments, hatreds, and paranoias. But Obama has had twenty years to have an open dialog -- but a private one, which is far easier -- with his "friend" Rev. Wright.

Did he have this dialog? He says he disagrees strongly with some of Wright's "controversial political positions." Did he, you know, actually raise these points with Wright?

If he did, his putative skills at "reconciliation" and "healing" seem woefully deficient. This bastard has gone on spreading his noxious racism and hatred of America until his retirement... and then beyond a bit. Obama's going to heal the racial "wounds" of 300 million but he can't get through to his very good "friend"? He can't even get him to tone down his hateful rhetoric, even if he continues to give hatred a safe harbor in his heart?

I agree with Ambinder that this was, however, a lecture, not a "dialogue." Futhermore it was a lecture for white people only. Whites were told that legitimate grievances over black criminality -- oh, by the way, the real and enduring source of racial tension -- and Affirmative Action were "exploited" by politicians and media to stoke "fear" for personal gain. Hence, not really legitimate at all.

Meanwhile, as regards Wright and black hatred and borderline insane paranoia, he counseled "understanding" by whites -- but no call for blacks to give up such retrograde and hateful fantasies and scapegoatings.

My idea of a truly groundbreaking speech would involve a Cosbyesque riff on some of the real causes of white resentment, starting first and foremost with rampant black criminality and anti-social behavior, and blacks' acceptance of this as not only acceptable but justified -- perhaps even obligatory -- given past and current racial discrimination.

He did not touch on this. He's still pandering to Wright's flock. And it's not just pandering of course; he is required to excuse the black racist, not just out of ideological fervor, but out of personal circumstantial necessity. After all, he was caught in bed with a black racist and anti-American radical, not a white racist. So of course he demands that we "understand" and "forgive" the black racist. He needs us to. His personal fortunes depend on that.

But imagine if he were white and had been caught in a 20 year cynical political alliance with a white racist -- would his calls for "forgiveness" and "understanding," and his maudlin Checkers-style "I cannot renounce him, he's my favorite dog" self-justification carry any weight whatsoever with liberals, the media, or good-hearted conservatives?

No, it would not. But in Obama's case, we are lectured that we must forgive this particular racist and understand this particular brand of racism. The other sorts of racism are of course unforgivable and no proper person would ever befriend such malefactors, and certainly not intertwine their political fates so closely; but here, of course, we -- those who are a bit alarmed by virulent black racism -- must "understand."

His entire claim that some are "surprised" that blacks are angry represents some sort off teachable moment in our racial education is a transparent lie: We are not surprised by black rage. I have seen the Reginald Denny attempted murder video, not once but a dozen times. I understand there is black rage in the country.

What I do not understand -- and refuse to understand -- is that a major political figure and possible President of the United States of America has decided to court a preacher of rage and hatred, and essentially tells me to grow up and get real about my concerns for his doing so.

My takeaway: White racism is pernicious and bad and we must correct it. We must learn.

Black racism, on the other hand, is perfectly understandable, justified even, and blacks get to keep on hatin' for as long as they might like.

Obama, of course, will one day change all this.

But he didn't change the heart of Wright when he had the chance. Nor even is there any evidence whatsoever he even attempted such an undertaking.

So Obama is sold to us as biracial, transracial, postracial. A new kind of black candidate.

And yet he seems to look precisely like the old sort of black candidate, the Jesse Jackson type, the Al Sharpton type.

Have Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton bridged our racial divides and healed the scarring on our collective racial heart?

No?

Then how does Obama presume to do any better while following the exact same playbook, albeit with a warmer manner and a nice-boy haircut?

Posted by: Ace at 09:10 AM | Comments (99)
Post contains 1517 words, total size 9 kb.

Swing vote?

The Supreme Court’s historic argument Tuesday on the meaning of the Constitution’s Second Amendment sent out one quite clear signal: individuals may well wind up with a genuine right to have a gun for self-defense in their home. But what was not similarly clear was what kind of gun that would entail, and thus what kind of limitations government cut put on access or use of a weapon. In an argument that ran 23 minutes beyond the allotted time, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy emerged as a fervent defender of the right of domestic self-defense. At one key point, he suggested that the one Supreme Court precedent that at least hints that gun rights are tied to military not private needs — the 1939 decision in U.S. v. Miller — “may be deficient” in that respect. “Why does any of that have any real relevance to the situation that faces the homeowner today?” Kennedy asked rhetorically.

Thanks to Liberrocky, who says he's getting a Streetsweeper.

AUDIO! Of the oral argument: I think.

I just started listening.

Liberrocky says "Pwng3."

Posted by: Ace at 08:34 AM | Comments (70)
Post contains 208 words, total size 1 kb.

I know nossing, nossing!

LiveBlog:

FoxNews has a WATCH LIVE under the first headline.

Maybe he'll address the endorsement from the New Black Panther Party proudly posted on his website while he's at it.

Is It Normal... that the FoxNews live-stream box is dark? Do they wait until a certain story is beginning or what? It seems like they don't. So that feed seems screwed up.

CNN says they're also carrying the stream live.

Meanwhile...

Mrs. Rodham-Clinton, I think you're trying to seduce me.

Thanks (sort of) to Slublog for finding that.

Slu writes: I found the picture frightening - I wonder if the guy she aimed that 'come hither' look at will die in seven days?

It's unknowable: She's never given a guy that look before.

Drew: "I am ready for my close up Mr. DeMille"

Or, along those lines: "I'm still big. It's the party that got small."

FULL TEXT OF OBAMA SPEECH: Leaked to Drudge.

Oh great. Now this speech will be even more boring and meaningless.

Pre-analysis:

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

Dave in Texas notes the disconnect between para one and para two.

Para one: Everything that guy (Wright) said is bullshit.

Para two: But seriously, America is really fucked up and white people need to get on the ball.

Slu thinks it's as pablum-y as everything else this stutterin' prick* says. And: Basically, I don't think this speech will entirely quell the controversy, but I think it might be enough to set the hearts of Democratic voters a-flutter again.

Eh. The hearts of true-blue Democrats already were a-flutter. It's Reaganish Democrats and independents he needs.

*Where? Easy one.

Stupidest Fucking Email I've Ever Seen... comes from Slublog:

The media is going to love this speech.

Shut up, really???!!

Heh.

Surprise! [Slublog] - According to Lowry at the Corner, the AP is reporting "that Obama is 'calling for both sides to tone down its rhetoric.'" And Andrew Sullivan's reaction is typically over the top. Since we have a no linking Sullivan policy here, I'll link Allah's post and comments.

Posted by: Ace at 06:02 AM | Comments (173)
Post contains 629 words, total size 5 kb.