Obama remains vulnerable

Houston Chronicle Editorial:

William Ralph Inge, the Anglican prelate, astutely if cynically observed, "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion."

The remark applies to Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign on at least two levels.

Obama is campaigning on the promise that he is the candidate who can transcend issues of race and bring America's society together. But the bigotry and rantings of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor, punch large holes in that claim. Wright, and presumably many of his large Chicago congregation, believe the United States is still rent by a deep chasm dividing the white world from the black.

Obama was right to renounce Wright and his preachings. If he wished to preserve his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama had little choice. Wright's allegations that the U.S. government engages in terrorism and therefore invited the attacks of 9/11 and is capable of spreading HIV/AIDS to wipe out black Americans could not go uncondemned.

Still, vexing questions remain: How could two men of such distant outlooks, as Obama now stipulates, have so close an association for so long? And how can Obama unite society when he obviously failed to moderate the race-conscious resentments of his mentor and spiritual adviser? Wright is so indifferent to the concerns of some white Americans and the aspirations of black Americans that he is willing to alienate the former and torpedo the most promising campaign for the White House ever mounted by an African-American.

...

I have been asking the question about Obama's ability to unite America when he can't change to obviously wrong attitudes of his minister and congregation for weeks. Obama still has not answered that question. Polling has finally told him what should have been obvious weeks ago. He could no longer pretend that a conversation about race could cover the nuttiness of the minister he listened to for 20 years.

The editorial correctly points out another fact argued here before. Obama has yet to show he can bridge partisan differences. He has certainly produced no evidence of it. Apparently he believes that his eloquence can persuade conservatives to accept liberalism. That is a hubris of a whole different level of he really believes it.

I hope the Chronicle was not equating conservatives with wolves with its quote from the clever William Ralph Inge. Liberals do have a tendency to see conservatives as evil.

The Denver Post editorial board gets the Wright controversy right.