Obama: "What Rev. Wright said yesterday directly contradicts everything that I have done during my life. It contradicts how I was raised, and the setting in which I was raised. It contradicts my decisions to pursue a career of public service. It contradicts the issues that I have worked on politically. It contradicts what I have said in my books. It contradicts what I said in my conventions speech in 2004. It contradicts my announcement. It contradicts everything I have been saying on this campaign trail."
I've been worried about how this whole thing would play out, but not anymore. I have no idea what Rev. Wright's motivations were, but he just handed Obama an enormous gift. When the history of this campaign is written, this will be remembered as Obama's Sista Souljah moment. Except that this time around, it wasn't just political posturing. It was personal.
Obama was pissed (watch the second clip from about 10 minutes in and see for yourself), and he has a right to be. When he gave his speech on race a few weeks back in Philadelphia, the politically safe and expedient thing to do would have been to disown Wright. But Obama didn't do that. In fact, he did precisely the opposite. He called Wright part of his family, explaining that no matter how offensive his remarks he couldn't possibly disown him. And this is what he gets in return? I had thought Wright's appearance on Bill Moyers was defensible, and in some ways even admirable, but yesterday's "performance" (Obama's words, not mine) at the National Press Club was absurd. It was so ridiculous that many, including Andrew Sullivan and Rush Limbaugh, concluded that Wright was deliberately trying to sabotage Obama's campaign. Whatever Wright's motivations, they have forced Obama to break in a very public way from his former pastor.
Why describe this as his Sista Souljah moment? When this campaign first began, the big question in the media was, is Obama "black enough" to win the black vote. Once he won big in SC, the issue became, is Obama "too black" to win the white vote. (Never mind the contradiction.) The first was an attempt to minimize the potential of his candidacy before he gained any momentum, and the second was an attempt to dampen the actual momentum that his campaign had managed to create. But because the second question played directly into the political narratives conservatives have been using since the late 1960s, it was far, far more dangerous to his campaign than the first question had been.
Obama tried carefully to thread the needle in his Philadelphia speech, and by virtually every measure he was successful. Every measure but one: it didn't end the controversy. Why? Precisely because Obama didn't do what was expected of him - repudiate Wright - it left an opening for his opponents to continue to use this against him. Now to be perfectly clear, I'm not suggesting that Obama should have repudiated Wright back then. It may have been the politically smart thing to do, but it wouldn't have been the right thing to do. Wright was like family to him, and if we cannot forgive members of our family, who can we forgive? But by doing the right thing, Obama left room for the controversy to linger. And linger it did - until this weekend, when thanks to Wright's actions it exploded once again. Obama defend Wright, and for his troubles Wright turned around and stabbed him in the back. The out of context snippets deserved a defense from Obama because it wasn't personal. But this? This had to be the end.
Forget denouncing out of context snippets; this was Obama denouncing Wright and just about everything he now apparently stands for. Are there some who will still try to tie Wright to Obama? Of course. Will it work? I doubt it? Why? Take a look at this:
Barack Obama made a call for nonviolence in the aftermath of the Sean Bell verdict - infuriating the Rev. Al Sharpton, who accused the presidential candidate of trying to "grandstand in front of white people," sources told The Post.
Combined with today's reaction to Wright, this should begin to end the power of that \ "too black" question. Because let's be honest, at bottom what those questions were really about was black radicalism. No doubt for some people it was just racism, pure and simple, but for most Americans I have long suspected it was something more complex. From the start of this campaign, I've always doubted that the "Obama is a secret Muslim" angle would catch hold in respectable society. But the "Obama is a secret radical" narrative was far more dangerous, because although Muslim paranoia is a relatively new strain of American politics, paranoia about radical liberalism is as old as the modern conservative movement itself. And so whereas most mainstream media organizations would only barely touch the secret Muslim meme, they wouldn't stop to think twice about repeating the secret radical one. After all, after nearly 60 years of repetition, its almost become second nature! (Exhibit One: ABC's performance at the last debate)
Obama has now clearly, forcefully, and unequivocally stated what we who support him already know he believes: that the conspiracy theories of Wright, Farrakhan, and at times even Sharpton are nonsense. And that in the end is why I think this will be seen as Obama's Sista Souljah moment: forced by Wright's rants, he has powerfully repudiated the statements of a group to which many falsely believed he belonged. He's not a secret Muslim, nor is he a secret black nationalist. It's beyond ridiculous that he needed to do this, but things are what they are!
Want some other interpretations? Here you go:
Washington Independent and NBC's FirstRead have a good summaries for those who don't have time to watch the clips.
Andrew Sullivan echoes NBC's Andrea Mitchell in calling it a "divorce," proclaiming: "today, we found that he can fight back, and take a stand, without calculation and in what is clearly a great amount of personal difficulty and political pain. It's what anyone should want in a president."
Steve Benen calls it Obama getting "pissed," while John Cole describes it as "Obama Kicks Wright in the Junk."
Will Bunch thinks Obama was too reserved, but after watching Chris Matthews compare Obama to Richard II (I'm assuming Tweety means the Shakespeare version?) suggests he may have misread things.
Marc Ambinder worries that this will all descend into "psychological pornography," with the media "scrutinizing the thoughts behind the thinking." Weird though, because earlier in the post he described Obama as feeling "aggrieved and disrespected." I'm not sure what the line between the two is, I guess. (And then he follows up with even more hidden meaning analysis here)
Ana Marie Cox, who I normally love, completely misses the point here. In his Moyer's interview, the only truly outrageous thing Wright said was that Obama was only doing what he had to do as a politician. Obama had all weekend to respond to that but didn't. It was yesterday's Press Club event, and in particular the after-speech Q+A, that clearly set Obama off. And that was full, despite what Cox writes here, of all kinds of insane rants. But don't take my word for it: Ambinder has the full chronology here.
Andrew Romano had written over the weekend that Wright wouldn't matter one way or the other long term, and although today he largely sticks with that view, he also wonders if some in the media won't compare Obama's two Wright-related speeches and charge hypocrisy. Me? I don't see it. There was an intervening event here - Wright's Press Club appearance - that changed everything, so unless you are willing to willfully misrepresent things...
TNR's Noam Scheiber asks a key question: What is Wright's next move? If I'm right that this is Obama's Sistah Souljah moment, then an escalation by Wright isn't likely to hurt him. Moreover, at this point I'd expect Wright's responses to grow increasingly less rational, including perhaps an attack on the press. That would then put Obama and the media on the same side in this fight, which for Obama would be the best possible outcome of all this. And as Noam later points out, the worst case here is that this freezes everyone in place, preventing any defections from Obama's camp between now and next week.
Chris Bowers, having not actually watched Wright's comments for himself, declares that this is Obama "caving to right-wing attacks it once parried and refused to back down against." Why he thinks he is qualified to comment on this when he hasn't even bothered to read the comments by Wright that Obama was responding to is beyond me. Chris Bowers loves to write about the importance of context, but here he declares himself above all that? Really? Chris, I'm sorry, but that's just stupid.
And last but not least, Sarah Posner tracks a series of very bizarre reactions from conservatives.
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