Plouffe admits “systemic failure” to deal with the issue of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright “properly.”

[RamboLiberal]

..... one of the biggest confessions of the book was Plouffe’s admission of a “systemic failure” to deal with the issue of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright “properly.”

Writes Plouffe: “I still kick myself for how terribly we mishandled our internal Wright work… We had done zero research on our own candidate beyond a small and incomplete package from the 2004 Senate race… We never raised with Obama the idea of leaving the church, or discussed with him any detail of how we would respond if inflammatory statements were to emerge. We were in denial."

I asked Plouffe today if racial sensitivities may have been part of the reason.

“I don’t think so,” Plouffe said. “This is more of a personal -- I’m a Catholic, a lot of us have heard things, not this inflammatory, I don’t want to compare the two and I want to make that very clear -- but you know, the notion that... it’s hard to be responsible for everything, you know, your pastor or your priest says. I think if anything, it was that.”

Plouffe said “it was naive of us, given the toxicity of some of these statements and the notion that again, we live in a video age that when they exploded online or on TV -- I think they first really exploded in the consciousness on your network. It was a big mistake and listen, as I write in the book, I do think that the political playbook -- obviously one doesn’t exist -- but I think generally, you know, you’re taught not to elevate things like this and we, obviously, by giving the speech in Philadelphia elevated it but in retrospect, the president’s decision to give that speech and obviously the speech he wrote helped us navigate rocky waters and that obviously did not end the threats. Wright bothered people all the way through. It was one of these moments, even today with our fractured media world where, you know, a 100 percent of the people had seen then, most everybody had seen his speech, and so people could kind of make their own judgment.”

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/11/podcast-interview-obama-campaign-manager-david-plouffe.html

[depakid]

1. Plouffe is right about one thing- the controversy was eminently foreseeable

Even Wright knew that ahead of time.

[ieoeja]

2. "God *damn* America for coddling gays."

If only Wright had said that instead. Then all the GOP presidential candidates would have sought his endorsement and nobody would have thought anything was wrong.

But, no, the stupid preacher had to call on God to damn America for the sin of bigotry. And that is no excuse for calling upon God to damn America.

[Hello_Kitty]

3. And for war. How dare he. eom

[Cha]

4. I thank them for all the work they

did do to make it a victory for Pres Obama and VP Biden..

A friend of mine who volunteers at our co-op said her boyfriend(who's into the environment) voted for mcpalin bc he didn't see how Obama could sit through those sermons and not be affected by it.

It was all I could do from calling him shortsighted but I zipped it.

[Cali_Democrat]

5. Some people just cant handle the truth that Rev. Wright espouses

Some Americans prefer to just bury their heads in the sand. It's like what happened on 9/11...some Americans were screaming wondering how and why this could happen.

Those of us who are more knowledgeable about US deeds in the middle east knew that 9/11 would happen sooner or later because of the way the US meddles in the affairs of other countries. If America is constantly bombing other countries in the middle east, a backlash should be expected.

[Trocadero]

6. I'm worried Obama is continuing to make these same kinds of mistakes

Not vetting for statements that become politically toxic, and others are using it to his great detriment

[geek tragedy]

7. Such as? nt

[Cali_Democrat]

8. There was no mistake on Obama's part when it came to Rev. Wright

The real tragedy is that Americans can't handle truth.

[Cha]

10. Really. I think they learned from

it..like people do when they admit their mistakes.

[smoochpooch]

9. I think the story is that they had done, "[Z]ero research" on a presidential candidate!

That seems like something you should do fairly early on. Probably anyone else would have had tons of skeletons that would have bit them in the ass. It speaks to Obama's character that Wright was really the only "dirt" on the guy,