E. J. Dionne: Judge Obama Not His Pastor

[flpoljunkie]

March 21, 2008
Another Angry Black Preacher
By E. J. Dionne

One black leader who was capable of getting very angry indeed is the one now being invoked against Wright. His name is Martin Luther King Jr.

An important book due out next month on King's rhetoric by Barnard College professor Jonathan Rieder offers a more complex view of King than the sanitized version that is so popular, especially among conservative commentators. In "The Word of the Lord is Upon Me," Rieder -- an admirer of King's -- notes that the civil rights icon was "not just a crossover artist but a code switcher who switched in and out of idioms as he moved between black and white audiences."

Listen to what King said about the Vietnam War at his own Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Feb. 4, 1968: "God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. ... And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place." King then predicted this response from the Almighty: "And if you don't stop your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power."

If today's technology had existed back then, I would imagine the media playing quotations of that sort over and over. Right-wing commentators would use the material to argue that King was anti-American and to discredit his call for racial and class justice. King certainly angered a lot of people at the time.

I cite King not to justify Wright's damnation of America or his lunatic and pernicious theories, but to suggest that Obama's pastor and his church are not so far outside the African-American mainstream as many would now suggest. I would also ask my conservative friends who praise King so lavishly to search their consciences and wonder if they would have stood up for him back in 1968.

These are realities that Obama has forced us to confront, and they are painful. Wright was operating within a long tradition of African-American outrage, which is one reason why Obama could not walk away from his old pastor in the name of political survival. Obama's personal closeness to Wright would have made such a move craven in any event.

<>Obama understands the anger of whites as well as blacks, but he's placed a bet on the other side of King's legacy that converted rage into the search for a beloved community. This does not prove that Obama deserves to be president. It does mean that he deserves to be judged on his own terms and not by the ravings of an angry preacher.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/judge_obama_not_his_pastor.html

[Window]

1. K/R.

:kick:

[treestar]

2. Great

That is the very point. The media have tried to make this into an issue. When are they going to comb with a fine tooth comb all of the utterings of McBush's pastors and other associates? It is ridiculous, no one agrees with others all the time. No one agrees with their pastor all the time, nor with their mother, their best friend, or even their spouse. The media fascination with this is suspect.

[ginnyinWI]

3. Guess we have to face it:

Rev. Wright will not be able to win the nomination. :sarcasm:

[Tarheel_Dem]

4. great article, thanks for posting........k&r