"Unity" and Wright

Mort Kondracke:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is absolutely right, as he said in his Philadelphia speech on Tuesday, that Americans are "hungry" for his "message of unity."

But his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- and not only that, but his whole liberal-populist agenda -- raises profound questions whether he is capable of delivering on it.

By choosing -- and sticking with -- the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as his spiritual adviser, Obama has damaged his ability to heal the nation's racial wounds. And his agenda offers nothing that will attract Republicans and end political polarization.

In the 1960s, black Americans had a choice whether to side with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X -- the healer who sought to fulfill America's highest ideals through nonviolent struggle, or the raging polarizer who tried to mobilize blacks out of resentment of whites.

Jeremiah Wright -- not just back then, but to this day -- took the Malcolm X route. And Barrack Obama chose the Rev. Wright as his pastor.

And Obama stuck with him. Whether Obama was in church the day that Wright declared "Goddamn America" for systematically infecting blacks with drugs and HIV, or when he said that America's "chickens were coming home to roost" on Sept. 11, 2001, surely Obama had to have heard about it.

Surely, he heard about Wright's pilgrimage to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and his "lifetime achievement award" for Louis Farrakhan.

...

Obama says he rejects he message of hate while embracing the messenger. That is not going to work. Liberals who want to believe him may do so, but the rest of America is not going to buy this contradiction. Kondracke is right also in asking how Obama plans to unify with Republicans. All he is really offering them is an "opportunity" to convert to liberalism and share his embrace of the radicals.