Obama Who?
This Newsweek article is way too short, given the kind of answers they were getting from sources purportedly close to Oprah and close to Obama, and what it suggests about Obama’s self-doubt and self-perception.
Oprah bailed on the United Trinity Church and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright because she recognized that his fiery blather was a liability for someone seeking to transcend race and appeal to the mainstream. Also, she was more interested in running her own show.
According to two sources, Winfrey was never comfortable with the tone of Wright’s more incendiary sermons, which she knew had the power to damage her standing as America’s favorite daytime talk-show host. “Oprah is a businesswoman, first and foremost,” said one longtime friend, who requested anonymity when discussing Winfrey’s personal sentiments. “She’s always been aware that her audience is very mainstream, and doing anything to offend them just wouldn’t be smart. She’s been around black churches all her life, so Reverend Wright’s anger-filled message didn’t surprise her. But it just wasn’t what she was looking for in a church.”
…
But Winfrey also had spiritual reasons for the parting. In conversations at the time with a former business associate, who also asked for anonymity, Winfrey cited her fatigue with organized religion and a desire to be involved with a more inclusive ministry. In time, she found one: her own. “There is the Church of Oprah now,” said her longtime friend, with a laugh. “She has her own following.”
OK, how about Obama?
Friends of Sen. Barack Obama, whose relationship with Wright has rocked his bid for the White House, insist that it would be unfair to compare Winfrey’s decision to leave Trinity United with his own decision to stay. “[His] reasons for attending Trinity were totally different,” said one campaign adviser, who declined to be named discussing the Illinois senator’s sentiments. “Early on, he was in search of his identity as an African-American and, more importantly, as an African-American man. Reverend Wright and other male members of the church were instrumental in helping him understand the black experience in America. Winfrey wasn’t going for that. She’s secure in her blackness, so that didn’t have a hold on her.”
Coming from a campaign advisor, it doesn’t really speak to well of him, that Oprah was able to figure out Wright was a third rail but Obama, insecure in his blackness, lacked the judgment to figure out that someone spouting that kind of hateful and divisive nonsense is not someone you want to model yourself on or attach yourself to.
It’s something maybe even Obama eventually figured out as he ostensibly moved away, with the race-transcendent message, but lacked the courage to distance himself. You don’t want to take it entirely on some anonymous campaign advisor’s word, but thanks to this wretched speech, you don’t have to.
More charitably, maybe he was on a sort of anthropological expedition to find out who Obama was and might want to be, and with the usual Ivory Tower lack of perspective, failed to recognize that sitting and listening can be an affirmative act.
In either case, taken with Obama’s view of himself as more closely approximating the average voter than the other candidates, he begins to sound like someone who doesn’t quite know who he is, and maybe isn’t ready to recognize he is the sum of his choices. Not qualities you want in a president. Especially if he actually thinks the problem is everyone else’s failure to figure out what year it isn’t.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:57 pm on Sunday, May 4, 2008
One Response to “Obama Who?”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
May 5th, 2008 at 9:05 am
How could he be insecure in his identity as an African-American man? He’s much closer to actually being an African-American than the vast majority of the population, considering that his father was actually an African.