Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2008 > April > 28
Monday, April 28, 2008
The Obama Rules
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright has begun the campaign to convince the electorate that he’s not really an anti-American bigot. His remarks are descriptive, not divisive, he told 10,000 members of the NAACP at a dinner Sunday in Detroit.”I describe the conditions in this country.”
For Barack Obama’s sake, Wright has to recast his rhetoric and conduct some historical revisionism so that he’s not the virulent anti-American radical that the nation heard in his sermons. Otherwise, Obama can never get over the hurdle with Middle America that he sat for 20 years and listened to sermons from the blame-America fringe.
Sen. John McCain, who has previously watched from the sidelines as Obama’s campaign began to self-destruct with the candidate’s bumbling refusal to distance himself from Wright, weighed in on the controversy.
“I saw yesterday some additional comments that have been revealed by Pastor Wright, one of them comparing the United States Marine Corps with Roman Legionaires who were responsible for the death of our savior. I mean being involved in that, it’s beyond belief. And then of course saying that al-Qaida and the American flag were the same flags,” McCain said Sunday.
McCain said again Sunday that he wants the North Carolina Republican Party to stop running an ad that feature’s Wright’s “God d—n America” remarks, which the ad properly links to Obama. Fair play, I’d say. The N.C. GOP should ignore the party’s presumptive nominee.
McCain, obviously convinced as most others are that Obama will be his opponent in November, also weighed in on his God, guns and bigotry remarks. “I can understand why Americans, when viewing these kinds of comments, are angry and upset,” said McCain. “Just like they view Senator Obama’s statements about why people turn to their faith and their values. He believes that it’s out of economic concerns. We all know it’s out of a fundamental belief, a fundamental faith in this country and its values and its principles.”
Obama hopes that he can sail into the White House without further scrutiny and without having his opponent attempt to define him for voters. “With each passing day, John McCain acts more and more like someone who’s spent 26 years learning the divisive, distracting tactics of Washington,” Obama campaign said in a statement . “That’s not the change that the American people are looking for.”
Change. If you question him or his values or policies, you’re part of the “divisive, distracting” practices voters associate with Washington. If you become an unquestioning, adoring political groupie, you’re not. Them’s the Obama Rules.
.
