Wright Stuff

I really find the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over The Rev. Jeremiah Wright's religious ranting to be jejune to say the least. Obama's response to the "scrutiny" was measured, responsible, and broad-ranging, and it didn't really get into what the "scrutiny" is all about: A Scary Black Man Hollering Scary Stuff.

Won't somebody think of the children?

Booga booga.

It does seem to have affected Obama's polling, especially in head-to-heads with Grumpy Gramps McCain, and all those who are trying to deny it need to take a step back and come to grips with the reality of White Fear of Black Rage, especially the fear among older whites who lived through a very tumultuous era of what is delicately called Civil Unrest. Riots, in other words. Again and again, all over the country.

This White Fear is easy to re-energize, and the media has been eager to do it. They play the Wright tapes in an endless loop, designed not to provoke dialogue, but to inspire Fear, fear of Black Rage. And it works.

Clinton sits back and lets it happen. After all, those fear-ridden whites are supposedly her base. Meanwhile it comes out that the McCain campaign was responsible for pushing the Wright stuff, and is laughing about how easy it was to do. And it sure lets Grumps get away with some whoppers about Iran and alQ. Win-win, hunh?

Obama has been running a Generational campaign, trying like anything to push the Old Farts off the bus, let them fend for themselves in the wilderness for all he cares, but let them please just shut up and go away. Including Rev Wright. That tack has a tremendous appeal among the young, and there's no reason he shouldn't use it except for the fact that Old Farts vote, in vast numbers, and the aging Boomer cohort is likelier than most to pull the lever.

"Unity" has been Obama's strength, so, in a classic Rovian ploy, the Media-McCain nexus uses it against him by pulling out Wright's ministry and showing the whole wide world what Obama's Spiritual Mentor has been saying, in Church, in front of the Children(!), and wah-lah, Obama's numbers go into a tailspin.

Suddenly, in a head-to-head with McCain, Clinton is surging, and Obama is way behind.

Rev Wright is... scary.

Funny, though. Hagee's anti-Catholic rants, and reverence for Apocalyptic genocide by Jee-suss throughout the evangelical teevee priesthood is considered just fine by the Powers That Be.

Until Americans are ready to take the Power away from them and their devotees and ilk, and cast them into the fiery pit where they long to be, not much Change is gonna happen.