On the Obama-Wright Fiasco

I do not know exactly what to make of the recent Obama-Rev. Wright controversy. Sen. Obama condemned the remarks at issue this past Friday in much the same language and tone that I would, but his explanation that the controversial statements “were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation” strikes me as strikingly insufficient and unsatisfying. As has been demonstrated in recent examinations into the Rev.’s past, these comments and views have not been isolated nor uncharacteristic of their author, but indeed coincide with years of statements and general opinion to that effect.

How is it then possible that in the twenty years Sen. Obama has been a parishioner of Rev. Wright that he was not aware of any of these comments or views of American society and history? As Michael Crowley writes, “Wright’s oft-iterated political world view, which apparently includes the belief that the US created AIDS to keep the Third World in poverty, should be quite apparent to anyone who knows him as well as Obama does.”

And if Sen. Obama was aware of this, as it seems he must have been, why did he still attend the Reverend’s church if those views were so revolting to Sen. Obama’s own? Moreover, why would he have planned to have Rev. Wright introduce him at his presidential candidacy announcement?

These are legitimate questions for voters to have, all the more so because, as Dean Barnett points out, “Obama doesn’t have any real record on ‘values, judgment and experience’ as a public figure.” It is accordingly difficult to judge and determine what relationship and symbiosis Rev. Wright’s views have to Sen. Obama’s because we do not have a sufficient understanding of and experience with Sen. Obama through which to contextualize this.

At this point I have a hard time believing that Sen. Obama’s views closely coincide with Rev. Wright’s, but it is galling how one could have the close personal relationship that Sen. Obama has had with Rev. Wright when the comments and opinions we have heard from both are so fundamentally irreconcilable with each other. It just runs so diametrically counter to the admirable post-racial stance he has taken for most of this campaign.

In the end, it is probably as William Kristol writes,

Obama seems to have seen, early in his career, the utility of joining a prominent church that would help him establish political roots in the community in which he lives. Now he sees the utility of distancing himself from that church. Obama’s behavior in dealing with Wright is consistent with that of a politician who often voted “present” in the Illinois State Legislature for the sake of his future political viability.