Why Rev. Wright is an issue

Tucker Carlson:

...

The spot opens with the familiar yet still shocking tape of Wright pounding the pulpit and looking crazy:

Wright: “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

Narrator: This is the man Barack Obama has called his spiritual mentor. In 2006, Obama gave Wright’s church more than $22,000 as a gift. Here's what Obama's mentor had to say about our country in the days after 9/11.

Wright: "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye…America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Narrator: For 20 years Barack Obama sat in the pews, even brought his family, as Wright preached hate. Obama never said a word, until he was caught. Then he defended Wright. Barack Obama: Divisive. Dishonest. Dangerous.

An alternate version might contain footage of Wright accusing the U.S. government of manufacturing AIDS in order to kill black people, or of spreading drugs in the ghetto, or it might show Wright dismissing murdered Alabama teen Natalie Halloway as a drunken slut. There's a lot of footage to choose from and it's all on YouTube. A seasoned media consultant could have that ad ready in a couple of hours. It'd be the most famous spot of this political year, and probably the most powerful.

So why not? The press would go crazy, but so what? They're rooting for Obama anyway. It's racist to bring up Jeremiah Wright? No, Jeremiah Wright is the racist. He's on tape confirming it. Truth is a defense, and the claims in that ad are true.

The campaign won't do it. This spring, McCain said he wouldn't use Wright as a campaign issue, and so far he's stuck to that pledge. While Sarah Palin did go briefly off message and mentioned Wright in an interview, the campaign hasn't run a single ad featuring Wright, and neither have the RNC or pro-McCain 527s. Late last week, senior McCain advisors broached the topic with their candidate, but McCain wouldn't budge.

So Jeremiah Wright probably won't figure directly in this campaign. But at some point, it would be nice to hear Obama explain his relationship with Wright. Obama already did that, you say? Laid the matter to rest in that lovely March 18th speech on race relations that made you think of Bobby Kennedy and MLK? Go back and read that speech carefully. Once you subtract Obama's eloquence, it doesn't sound so groundbreaking. It sounds like something Jesse Jackson could have delivered.

...

If you remember Marion Barry's pre-sentencing press conference, you'll recognize the argument: Yes, I made some mistakes. But the real problem here is white racism, your racism. You're the one who's actually responsible for this. So shut up and stop asking questions.

...

So for questioning Obama’s relationship with Billy Ayers, McCain is, according to an official Civil Rights Hero, morally comparable to George Wallace and the Alabama church bombers. Frank Rich went even further in the New York Times, accusing McCain not simply of racism, but of endangering Obama's life. ‘‘The McCain campaign has crossed the line between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism,’’ Rich wrote in a column so hysterical it deserves a diagnosis.

If the argument seems depressingly familiar, it should. The Obama campaign used the same cudgel against Hillary Clinton in the primaries, even as Obama himself did his best to downplay the subject of race in public. But on background, and through surrogates, team Obama attacked the Clintons as bigots. They knew what we all know, that the quickest way to silence guilty white Americans is to accuse them of racism. It works.

But not for presidents. If he's elected, Obama will have to find a new dodge. Invoking George Wallace might scare a political opponent. It won't get you far with the Chinese.

What has always perplexed me about Obama's statements about Wright is his suggestion that he was unaware of what Wright was saying after listening to him for 20 years. How can even a casual church attendance leave someone so informed of what they are hearing, especially when it is so incendiary? The record shows that their relationship was actually much closer than a casual parishioner. Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright says something about the content of his character and it should be an issue.