I agree with the view of the post, but that's not what the Wright controversy is about, or the issue of BO not putting his hand over his heart, when all other candidates did as The Star Spangled Banner played. On the Wright issue it's not that Wright is patriotic or not, but that his sermons entice hatred towards the whites with a broad brush. On the BO issue, is about tradition, and the way some will view it. Traditions are not sacred, but it's a sign of respect to follow traditions for cultural UNITY, unless those traditions are harmful to a higher purpose, e.g. separation of races on a bus.
Posted by Prabhata at April 7, 2008 12:53 PMThanks for the info Turkana. I hadn't done much research on Wright, and this will perfect to throw in all my winger relatives faces.
They will of course ignore it as do anything that doesn't fit their preconceived notions. But they wil shut the hell up about Wright knowing I have a counter.
Ahhh blessed silence! For a few seconds anyway.
Posted by SnarkyShark at April 7, 2008 12:55 PMI agree Prabhata, not whats at issue. He's a Marine, thank you for your service Jeremiah Wright. Whats with all this talk after your service? That's the issue and Barry Obama's allowing his kids to be immersed in this hatred. Turkana, you must feel guilty or something to bring up the patriotism thing here.
Posted by peter at April 7, 2008 01:05 PMPeter, McCain's spiritual advisor's hate speech is ok with you?
Posted by goose1 at April 7, 2008 01:17 PMActually I don't think the whole "patriotism" and "hate against whites" stuff can be segregated the way the posters here think. The whole meme, if I can use it, is that Wright is a black nationalist/anti white/unpatriotic/liberal bastard. To discover that he is a marine with a signficant history of service and commendations cuts against that in a huge way. It cuts against that in the letter by contrasting his actual service/sacrifice with Cheney's cowardice and fakery. So anyone reading the letter has to come back to the phony "he hates america" crap with a slightly new view of wright. And that can only be to the good. These shadow plays the republicans do with our democratic voters and actors rely on our people never being able to get back into the discussion to redefine themselves after they've been slimed. Whether wright and obama can use this to say "wright is an old man who has served his country honorably and made a few mistakes" or to say "you know, different american histories give us different takes on american history, but we all love this country" this letter and its information give us a wedge to discuss this issue and overturn the false attacks on wright, the black community as a whole, and obama through wright.
aimai
Posted by aimai at April 7, 2008 01:22 PMPersonally, I think Wright is a nothing issue.
Will the Republicans use it? Of course they will.
I like you post Turkana but...
What would Rush Limbaugh's response be?
Timothy McVeigh volunteered to serve his country, fought in a war for it and received a Bronze Star from it. But we all know what he did to his country after he served it.
Posted by snark at April 7, 2008 01:23 PMIf the wingers can walk around with bandaids on their chins with painted purple hearts on them while young men and women are coming home in boxes, do you think for one second these guys are gonna give two shits about Wright's service? Patriotism means something vastly different to the peters of the world, Turkana, you should know that by now.
And when Dems go around apologizing for a "lefty" calling John McCain a "warmonger," you know there's no way the Dems will ever win the "patriotism" argument.
Posted by iamcoyote at April 7, 2008 01:25 PMThe problem with what you are saying is that it doesn't matter. We had a choice between a man who cheated to get out of serving (Bush) and a man who served with distinction (Kerry). Guess whose service was used against him? Guess who got lied about?
What is a nuanced understanding of the life of Jeremiah Wright won't get into the sound bites. It won't be what the vast majority of America will remember about him. It will be the nonstop "God Damn America" and "US of KKK-A" that will be remembered. It will be the blatant racism of his hate speech.
And the republicans won't even have to make anything up, as they did with Kerry. This is poison, no matter how much Obama supporters won't acknowledge it. And it will work, just as it always does.
Good catch, Turkana. Like most people, Wright is a very complicated person.
Did Obama mention this? If not, why not?
Posted by BDBlue at April 7, 2008 01:31 PMRemember, only Republicans can be patriots. Democrats who served in the military and fought in Vietnam are cowards at best and traitors at worst. Just because Cheney was able to game the system and G. W. Bush went AWOL (technically deserted) they cannot be put in the same category because they are Republicans. A courageous and patriotic Republican will profit from war not take part in it. We need to remember this when the election comes up so we don't get confused and vote for the wrong party.
John McCain obviously doesn't quite fit into this mold as he was a Navy pilot and POW. Maybe that's why the conservatives in the Republican party are so cool to him.
Prabhata,
Go to a baseball game and see how many people put there hand over their hearts during the National Anthem. You might be surprised to see almost half do not; I do and it surprised me. That is because there is no “requirement” to do so. Should Obama have done it? Maybe, but it has nothing to do with his patriotism, or lack of it. At other times he has placed his hand over his heart but this picture, like the three sermons from Rev. Wright’s decades of sermons, is the one people are trying to make an issue of.
Chris
Wheaton, IL
I have no doubt RushBo and company will be ready to point out that Benedict Arnold had led the American military to perhaps it's greatest victory against the British up until the point he committed treason.
Wright service is laudable. But millions of other have served without being driven to God Damn America. Using his service as a defense will inscense the veteran crowd even more.
Posted by ineedalife at April 7, 2008 01:41 PMI'm sorry, but citing what Rev Wright did 45 years ago has little to do with the many anti-American and bigoted comments he made very recently.
If Wright WAS patriotic a long time ago, something obviously changed him.Tey as you'd like, there isn't enough lipstick you can rub on that pig.
Wright forcefully objects (to a private Christian community) against Imperial America and its endless discrimination, militarism and military actions and he's "anti-American" and a "pig".
The new progressivism.
Were you really so very offended by Wright's sermons and rhetoric OxyCon? How very Republican of you....or is this just "faux offense", another Repub specialty?
Posted by euzoius at April 7, 2008 02:15 PMCan someone clue me in? I literally have no idea of what Wright said that was so bad. I never thought his views reflected on Obama, so I never bothered to listen for myself.
But I am curious. Was it actually offensive?
Posted by space at April 7, 2008 02:23 PMMcCain lives what he talks. Three of his son's are or have been in the military. Jimmy just got back from Iraq. His brother is due to go by September. The oldest is 48 and has served for a while. Democrats will not be able to throw the Bush twins anymore. His sons have joined a group of Congressmen, both Democrats and Republicans who's sons have been in Iraq.
"Remember, only Republicans can be patriots." What a crock. No wonder you're an indy, swaying with the wind.
Maybe you want to be like district 34 in/near Seattle. They had a Democratic Caucus there and nobody wanted to do the "Pledge". They actually had a vote of the delegates there and voted the "Pledge" out. They lead by example up there...
Posted by peter at April 7, 2008 02:28 PMBut I am curious. Was it actually offensive?
Not to me, but that's not the point. The point is, the Limbaughs of the world will turn it into the monster that they need.
petey, maybe Johnny's boys were trying to get away from their insane poppy - many a kid has joined up to do just that...
"At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." — John McCain, responding to his wife commenting that his hair was thinning, as reported by three Arizona reporters on the campaign trail in 1992, from Cliff Schecter's upcoming book The Real McCain.
Posted by iamcoyote at April 7, 2008 02:38 PMShakesville was where I found that McCain quote, btw.
Posted by iamcoyote at April 7, 2008 02:41 PMHoly shit what a great post! Thanks man!
Damn. Yep, this works.
Posted by paradox at April 7, 2008 02:55 PMPeter, feel free to throw in your own service record history, since it's so fucking important as an American.
Posted by paradox at April 7, 2008 02:57 PMI knew of Wright's service, but it is sad but true that has little to do with today. If service to your country meant so much, Kerry wouldn't have been Swiftboated, Clinton wouldn't have beaten Bush Sr, and McCain would have a substantial lead in the polls right now. I've got a lot of family members who distinguished themselves in Vietnam, including my cousin who is a general. My family has a long military tradition as do a lot of others.
It's not about what Wright did to distinguish himself in the past, it's about what he's been doing lately, that is the problem. There are Klan leaders who have distinguished military careers and it would be all too easy for a Republican 527 to make a commercial about that in relation to Reverand Wright (pretty ironic, i think).
Wright's words will still haunt him bc they're tangible and easily accessible. The only possible damage control would have to be about the work he's done in the community, but even that isn't enough. The problem really is his current silence bc they think it hurts Obama.
Posted by kacey at April 7, 2008 02:57 PMNot to me, but that's not the point.
Actually, it is an important point. I am tired of hearing Democrats roll over and play dead because "Rush Limbaugh is going to say something".
You never hear Republicans say, "I need to distance myself from Limbaugh because Rev. Wright will say..."
Posted by space at April 7, 2008 03:07 PMTurkana:
Interesting but a non- sequitur. Whatever his personal virtues are, it does not change one whit what his announced beliefs are.
It may be true that right-wing low-lifes see his beliefs as unpatriotic. But it doesn't mean that patriotism is the correct dimension to evaluate his beliefs. Don't buy into this low-life value system by answering in kind.
There is a kind of magical thinking has pervaded Left thinking for the half-century I have witnessed it. That somehow the fact of oppression by itself gives the oppressed a blamelessness.
Going through the holocaust did not guarantee fair treatment of Arabs. Appearing in front of HUAC and refusing to testify does not mean one was not a Stalinist. And being a Garveyite does not dispel Wright's racism.
Now if Hillary before the 1995 apology, had attended a racist Southern Baptist Church would anyone accept it as being her right?
But Obama, having an African Father automatically becomes oppressed and therefore blameless?
He is not what the Afro-American community calls a "survivor". He does not have the psychic scars of centuries of oppression. Which can lead us to understand if not condone Wright's black racism.
Just what are Obama's "oppressed" credentials? Rejection in a private Hawaii High School?
He is a kid from a broken home. And like a lot of such kids felt marginalized. And like many he retreated to a marginalized group. His attraction to Wright's message seems to be a continuation of his marginalization.
Hillary is boring and solid. Obama is charismatic
but doesn't seem too solid to me.
Isn't eight years of Character Disorder enough
His earlier service is certainly outstanding but I don't see how that allows you to call America the US of KKK A. I don't see how that allows you to be racist. There was a lot of what he said that I certainly agreed with. Certainly the way we treat the poor. Our stupidity in our foreign policy decisions affecting the way the word view America. But as soon as you preach hating America, I'm sorry, I'm outta there and I don't understand anyone else staying unless you agree with that specific viewpoint. There are too many religious institutions that help the poor and underprivileged that don't preach hate. There has to be hundreds of churches in Chicago. And the fact that Senator Obama took his children there makes it all the worse for me. Whatever the Reverend did when he was a young man does not give him a pass on what he's been preaching lately.
Posted by lisadawn82 at April 7, 2008 03:23 PMTurk,
Thanks for your enlightening post. Keep up the good work.
"Knowledge is Power"
"Loyalists are not Patriots"
One World,
Domino49
Posted by Domino49 at April 7, 2008 03:31 PMWho needs all those republican-neocon-chickenhawks and their patriotic quackery? The fraternal order of holier-than-thou and more-patriotic-than-thou?
A major quality of Obama that I admire is his refusal to knuckle under to fakery and posing. However one chooses to show respect for one's country, in a free country, should be up to the individual. We don't endorse loyalty oaths and demand that it's necessary to wear a lapel pin. It's in totalitarian, unfree society, where one is made to feel coerced to adopt the outward shows of of patriotic feeling.
I'm personally sick of the lapel pins (which you see only a tiny minority of people wearing) and I'm more sick of the inference that a candidate for president is in the wrong somehow, or doesn't genuinely love his country, if he doesn't feel like wearing one.
You can see the endless little gestures of patriotism, made by cynical republican politicians, whose only purpose is for show, and to make a demonstration of their feeling of superiority.
Posted by Copeland at April 7, 2008 03:37 PMThere's a very stong incentive to hold onto the idea that Wright "hates America" simply by strongly criticizing it---the "God Damn America" sound-bite, which was actually part of a longer argument.
Denouncing certain behavior is "hating", basically. Anti-American. That's what people on the Left have heard from the jingoist Right all my life. The old "Love it or leave it" shitola.
I understand that most Americans are a lost cause, but apparently many Dems seem to be convinced by this Repub frame of Wright's rhetoric as well.
Copeland, exactly.
Yes, the Repubs will demand that every candidate do the "appropriate" salute, perform the outward rituals of "patriotism", the equivalent of the "Heil Hitler", spittle flying, eyes blazing, mind empty. Where's YOUR lapel pin, Herr Korporal?
It's how every nationalist, militarist, totalitarian Rightist movement thinks and operates. Let's definitely agree that they've got a good point!
Posted by euzoius at April 7, 2008 03:51 PM
The swift-boating of Obama will make the attack on Kerry and other Dem. military men look like a slap on the wrist. Not wearing the flag pin, his pastor, his wife's comments will make a difference to the farmer in Kansas, and blue collar rural Pennsylvania. The move-on endorsement isn't going to help - we're in trouble if this guy gets the Democratic nominiation.
Plus the tape of him saying that he doesn't want his 16 year old daughter to "be punished with a baby" should she not use contraceptives is going to be played over and over. I'm pro-choice and I find it offensive.
Posted by jmac at April 7, 2008 04:24 PM"Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five years younger than the African-American youth, used their student deferments to stay in college until 1968. Both then avoided going on active duty through family connections."
Actually, President Bush did serve on active duty: training as a fighter pilot. President Clinton's "active duty" service was as Commander-in Cheif.....well, it is as close as he ever came to active-duty service.
"Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?"
Love of country? Quote Reverend Wright: "...G-D America..."
"Some of the Wright's comments are inexcusable and inappropriate and should be condemned, but in calling him "unpatriotic," let us not forget that this is a man who gave up six of the most productive years of his life to serve his country."
People change over time, and I do believe that Reverend Wright is (now) a hater of the U.S.....
...and Obama sat in his church for many, many years.
P.S. How many people currently in the running for Presidential nominations served in the military. (But, then again, military service is so 2004 election.)
Posted by Bagley at April 7, 2008 04:40 PMI applaud Turkana for reporting some details of Rev. Wright's bio today.
As usual the Wright 'story' as posed by MSM was simple, one-dimensional, and knee jerk; neatly framed as the rantings of a rabid, 'anti-American'. That's what they all (really) talk about in those churches, right?
I like to think that many, if not most, of us on the center-left view life with a bit more complexity. Rev. Wright's honorable military service was, in fact, raised by his congregation and by the Obama camp almost immediately after the 'controversy' broke. Again, this is hardly 'breaking news'.
To incorporate the fact of his Marine service into the conventional 'wisdom' was not convenient. It just raised too much dissonance. It required analysis outside a Fox or, dare I say, Clinton sound bite.
Obama said many truths in his race speech. One of them is the generational differences in experience across skin color. Obama is taking a tack that is more consistent with the experience of many of our younger people: try to understand...live and let live.
Since when has reductionism, anger, polarization, and divisiveness ever been productive?
Obama isn't running against Bush. He's running against a prisoner of war, a media beloved war hero.
Posted by jmac at April 7, 2008 04:50 PMI couldn't care less about Rev. Wright's military service - it doesn't make him any less of an ignorant, hateful bigot. His sermons are misogynist, full of hatred towards white people, anti-semitic, and clearly intended to sow anti-white prejudice among his flock. If you haven't heard them, do your own research and stop being so lazy. If you continue to be an apologist for him, well I guess bigotry is OK with you as long as it comes from a black liberal.
Isn't it something to finally realize that the left-wing is as knee-jerk as the right-wing in their zeal to defend the indefensible just so long as it fits their goals.
Wright is a pig - plain and simple - filled with hatefulness and divisiveness. There's no way to justify that crap, let alone spoken in a church. I don't know how to reconcile the fact that Obama, the great uniter, has been attracted to that divisive blowhard for so long. Lots of other people don't either. And, before your knee-jerk responses, I'm not a republican.
right-wing "patriotism" is wearing a flag lapel pin made in China
right-wing trolls like pants pissing peter just love using the troops as a political prop and then throwing them away like used toilet paper
bagless Bagley, Clinton opposed the Vietnam War whereas Bush and Cheney supported it (safely from America, of course). And let's not forget AWOL Bush.
Posted by Gay Veteran at April 8, 2008 10:01 AMThe "issue" is a contrived confusion of meanings which the Right encourages. "Hater of the bad things America does" is not the same as "hater of America". Wright is the former. Speaking out against the evil America regularly causes is patriotic. Silence in the face of evil is unAmerican and unChristian. Those who claim Wright is hater of America choose to overlook his meaning, which is clear if all of his words are included in the quote. Free speech only means something if it is continually defended. Goebbels would love modern America.
Posted by JamesL at April 8, 2008 10:48 AMThe United States Military was integrated in 1947 under Harry Truman. By 1961 there were many officers of color in the services.
When I served in 1952-56, a non-white officer was a rarity.
Here is my take on Obama's patriotism. Being upset about institutional racism and oppression is not necessarily hate speech. You have to be able to listen to boisterous speech without distorting the context and cnotent of the message. This has nothing to do with reality. White church leaders have said much worse. It's because our culture will not allow a black man to assume a leadership role.
Posted by Dr. D. at April 8, 2008 02:21 PMYeah, whatever. I don't care if he's black, white or purple polka-dotted. Hatefulness is hatefulness. Stop trying to excuse it - that's pathetic.
Posted by at April 8, 2008 06:53 PMWhen we use military service to argue about who is or is not a patriot we're accepting a narrow and rather macho view of what it even means to be a patriot. If we're really going to talk patriotism, let's talk about what it means to love this country. These guys are: http://www.truepat.org and I find it really changes the dialog when you realize that loving your country means putting its people before yourself.
Posted by Eli at April 10, 2008 11:42 PM