Too Late
Horse gone. Spike Lee wants Jeremiah Wright to do the right thing, STFU. He’s a little behind that curve. But he suspects it’s not so much just that Wright’s an uncontrollable egomaniacal bigot, but that he’s a corrupt one. Sounds like a vast leftwing conspiracy theory. Guardian:
Director Spike Lee has waded into the ongoing controversy surrounding Jeremiah Wright, the Chicago pastor whose provocative statements have proved a thorn in the side of Democrat frontrunner Barack Obama. Lee advises the preacher to do the right thing and keep quiet. “The more he opens his mouth, the more damage he does,” he told the Guardian yesterday.
For good measure, Lee hinted at a political conspiracy behind Wright’s recent, contentious attempts to justify his remarks. “It looks like he’s being paid to keep talking,” he said.
… Wright was accused of upping the ante earlier this week, telling a press conference that media attacks on him were also an attack on African-American church culture and warning Obama, “I’m coming after you.”
“Jeremiah Wight needs to be quiet,” Lee said yesterday. “If he loves Obama he needs to shut up right now. It makes me question his motives for talking. I’m starting to wonder whether somebody has been contributing to the building funds of his church. Seriously.”
Lee, whose best-known films have frequently tackled the issue of race relations in the US, believes that Obama had hoped to survive the presidential contest without talking about race. “But now he’s been forced to – by a combination of Jeremiah Wright and the Clintons,” he said.
I dunno. Did someone force him to sit in those pews for the last 20 years?
Surber cruelly notes some of Spike Lee’s own verbal excesses.
Meanwhile, Politico with the line of the day:
Thrown off his game by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright uproar, Barack Obama’s strongest answer to Hillary Rodham Clinton is one he won’t give: Senator, do you really want to get in a contest with me over who has more unsavory personal associations?
As if that weren’t good enough:
For all the coverage about the rising heat between Clinton and Obama, this year’s nomination race still is a mild affair by historical standards — restrained by a powerful sense on both sides that there are lots of things they could say but shouldn’t.
There is one theme, however, that runs through not-for-attribution conversations with both sides: Each candidate thinks the other has unmitigated gall.
And they’re both right! No wonder the Dems are having such a hard time choosing. Here’s the rest of this great read about the frustrations and limitations of being holier than thou. Thanks Memeorandum.
Welcome Punditeers, etal. Always good to see you. Remember, once a Boy Scout, always a Boy Scout. It’s early yet so I’m guessing your good deed for the day is still ahead of you. News quiz: which Frank Zappa look-alike and his tattooed cougar of a wife are raising security fears in Britain? I assume you already know about Hill’s Republican dream date. Multiple, awkward ironies alert. As long as we’re on internationally prominent spousal issues, here’s your Laura Bush Derangement Syndrome. And here’s the latest insidious Rovian plot. Unrelated, different: fossilized dino poo here, a lot more of it than you might have expected. Also, steaming piles of fresh BS here and here.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:53 pm Comments (4) on Thursday, May 1, 2008
4 Responses to “Too Late”
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May 1st, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Obama himself is still a mystery. What does he really believe? Does he have any belief at all? The man is a cypher, and as such, I have to think he doesn’t really buy into the Rev. Rabid’s brand of black anger, or even into the romantic-revolution of a William Ayers.
At this point (thankfully) he doesn’t appear to have much chance of winning the presidency. But perhaps a few years will give him opportunity to reflect on what it actually takes to be President of the United States. If not, then I hope he enjoys the obscurity that will be his.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:48 am
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May 2nd, 2008 at 9:04 am
Maybe Wright should confine himself to the kind of reasonable statements that Spike Lee makes, such as the following:
“I’m convinced AIDS is a government-engineered disease. They got one thing wrong, they never realized it couldn’t just be contained to the groups it was intended to wipe out. So, now it’s a national priority. Exactly like drugs when they escaped the urban centers into white suburbia.”
Spike Lee, November 1992 issue of Rolling Stone.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:05 am
I doubt Obama agrees with Wright’s more outrageous statements, but something attracted him to Wright and his church, and held him there for two decades. He could have changed churches when his kids started going, but he didn’t. He could have changed churches when he got into politics, but he didn’t. It obviously had some sort of hold on him that overcame his better judgement.
If I had to guess, I would say it springs from a sense of guilt. Here is a man who is extremely successful, was raised by white grandparents, yet still wants to identify with a black community he has little in common with. The church helped him to bridge that gap.