Damn It!

Arguably the strangest aspect of the controversy surrounding the remarks of Barack Obama’s spiritual mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is the notion that Wright’s negative perception of the United States is justifiable because of his experiences with racial bias.

From a nonpartisan standpoint, it’s surely “justifiable” that a man who grew up during a time of widespread anti-black discrimination would have a dim view of modern-day race relations, or at the very least see the racial problems that remain before seeing the progress that has undeniably been made.

However, from a political standpoint, “justifiable” anger is a one-way street. When someone on the right is angry about social injustice, they’re considered wingnuts and extremists. When someone on the left is upset about social wrongs, it’s “justifiable.”

Last fall, progressive commentators were up in arms over the content of Clarence Thomas’ autobiography, My Grandfather’s Son: mainstream media book reviews denounced the book as an angry rant attacking the Senators and liberal activists who fought to keep him off the Supreme Court in 1991. Yet one must ask: considering the shameless lies and brutal character assassination he was subjected to between July and October of that year, isn’t some of Thomas’ anger “justifiable”?

For years, supporters of Bill Clinton trashed conservative talk host Rush Limbaugh for never giving Clinton the benefit of the doubt in his actions, and for automatically assuming that anything Clinton did was deleterious. Limbaugh was attacked throughout the mid- to late-1990s as an anger-filled Clinton-hating right-winger. Of course, we forget that in 1993, Clinton suggested that Limbaugh took the side of then-Attorney General Janet Reno in a dispute with Rep. John Conyers solely because Conyers was black—and suggested that Limbaugh’s words inspired the Oklahoma City bombing two years later. Considering Clinton’s rhetorical assaults on Limbaugh, isn’t some of the talk titan’s anger “justifiable”?

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson caught all sorts of heat in the fall of 2001 for declaring that American secularism provoked the September 11 attacks: their words were loudly denounced as anger-filled diatribes. Yet, from a theological (not a political) perspective, was their anger not “justifiable”? Just as Rev. Wright spoke from the perspective of a man who watched as members of his race were mistreated for years, Falwell and Robertson spoke from the perspective of two men who watched as prayer was forced out of the public schools, abortion was declared constitutional, and the legal arguments of the ACLU were embraced by lower federal courts. Their anger was every bit as “justifiable” as Wright’s—yet the same folks who are defending Wright regarded those men of God as Satanic.

The Wright/Obama controversy is all about whose ox is being gored. If Wright had been John McCain’s spiritual advisor for two decades, you wouldn’t hear anybody in the press defending his remarks as “justifiable”. He’d be regarded as a right-wing crackpot, and “justifiably” so.

No one can deny that Wright spoke from a perspective of a man who had witnessed injustice. Yet conservatives who speak from a similar perspective are either told to shut up or dismissed as cranks. The conservative critics of Wright and Obama are certainly indulging in a little payback—but honestly, can you blame them?

The Obama/Wright controversy is sad from a cultural perspective, but hilarious from a political perspective. Yes, I share the concern many have about Obama’s decision to expose his children to Wright’s invective for years, and I also can’t help wondering how much of Wright’s spirit is in Obama’s mind.

Yet this controversy is also a moment of high comedy. Here’s Obama, the supposed New Lincoln who will emancipate us from our racial bondage, having to grovel before America and give a speech that a man of his stature and achievements should have never had to deliver. Obama has become a desperate man, a figure in need of reclaiming the quasi-holy status he had only a month or so ago. Good luck, pal.

It’s difficult to have sympathy for Obama. He stayed with Wright long after he knew about the severe political liability of his connection to the man. Even if he fails to achieve the Democrat nomination—or wins the nomination, but fails to succeed George W. Bush as President—he’s still set for life. Obama will never be defeated in Illinois; he could easily replace Ted Kennedy as the most powerful US Senator of the post-WWII era. He could write future books in crayon, and they’d still top the New York Times bestseller list. The left will always consider him politically righteous; he’ll never be forsaken, and his kids will never have to beg for bread.

Even if he loses, Obama has already won. His supporters won’t be happy if he fails to become President, but they’ll get over it. They’ll be angry if his candidacy collapses, but that anger won’t be justifiable.