Ironic word of the day: Jeremiad

[PurityOfEssence]

n. A literary work or speech expressing a bitter lament or a righteous prophecy of doom.

(That's from the American Heritage Dictionary, from Dictionary.com)

This guy's ego has dealt a body blow to his friend, and he doesn't seem to have any remorse or feeling of responsibility at all. He doesn't even have the self-control or loyalty to be gently absent for awhile, and he has the foolhardy hubris to make snotty and coded comments in his endless lecture to us inferiors. Some friend.

I'm not a fan of Obama. Much of this is because I can't stand religion in the public forum, and he's used it shamelessly. This is just the second BIG backlash of unintended consequences, the first being McClurkin in the "40 Days of Faith" cavalcade of coded identity politics.

Still, the guy could have a great future and he's inherently a decent guy and on the good side of things, just as Hillary Clinton--for all her faults, many of which are identical to Obama's--is.

They're corporatists alright, and that's part delusion and part collusion, but they DO give a damn in their hearts, and they DO have hearts.

I don't know how he recovers from this; the knotted up frustration of racism and belief are sad to see. At this point, I'd say he's not as electable as Clinton, but I don't give her too great a chance either.

Nonetheless, ANYTHING can happen this year other than a resounding Republican victory.

Wright's ego is enormous, and he's really made a mess of things here. When he could dismiss previous sound bites as being within the family of his church, the speech last night and the question answering period today were known to be public and he provided so much ammunition that it's staggering.

It will take a political genius like the one many Obama supporters claim he is to get this under control, so we shall see.

Chalk up another field day for religion.

Yeah, a lot of Obama supporters have been snotty triumphalists, have bandied around accusations of racism and have been mighty harsh on Senator Clinton, but like most of the people on this board, the majority seem to be really in love with the guy and filled with optimism and joy. I hate to see that crushed, and I hate to see our party take flak like this, but it rubs off on us all.

Reverend Wrong.

[guyanakoolaid]

1. "Chalk up another field day for religion,"... as keyboard jockeys like you continue talking about it

and fulfilling your own prophesy. Hillaryously ironic.

"Beware of the big bad black scary preacher!"

The racists continue to flood out of the cracks in the walls.

[Moochy]

6. The Cavalry of the Keyboard Commandoes, To Arms!

Is that a cavalry bugle or a dog whistle I hear?

[rgbecker]

2. Could you be more specific about what it is Wright said that bothers you?

You say " the speech last night and the question answering period today were known to be public and he provided so much ammunition that it's staggering."

But I listened to the various news reports of his appearance at the press club and am still wondering what is bothering people.

[PurityOfEssence]

5. In a world of unfair usage of sound bites, he delivered a crate of gems

It's amazing how a guy who's upset that people took his words out of context to use against him and his friend would give so many others from which to pick.

The mock-white voice repeating "bombastic" is combative. The mocking of how a hypothetical white person expresses love for Jesus is worse than dynamite; it's thermonuclear: you don't tell others that their faith isn't really real. That's lame as well as mean.

The JFK moment and the "Ed" Kennedy moment are easily useable to paint the guy as bigoted, whether he is or not. The sheer strident stentorian screaming plays right into the hands of those who are uncomfortable with fundy-speak or have a latent fear of blacks. There was serious anger there, and there was serious lecturing of the audience as naughty inferiors; that may play well in the fire and brimstone land of fundamentalism, but it doesn't among the more calm and relaxed denominations, and it seriously rankles the unaffiliated.

The whopping egocentrism of equating his being called into account for saying "god damn America" to an ATTACK ON THE BLACK CHURCH and the threat of vague retaliation for talking about his mama's religion is just plain juvenile and creepy. Go ahead, threaten society when you're outnumbered seven to one; that's sheer genius.

Can one criticize this man without being a vicious hater of black religion?

[guyanakoolaid]

7. And since this IS GD-Primaries, perhaps you could share Obama's take on the matter

or does that not fit into your smear-by-association? Don't want to actually look at the candidate's words, do we?

[PurityOfEssence]

9. For the record: I saw a clip of him on the tarmac, and he distanced himself

I'm sure this hurt him to do to a friend and a hero, and I believe him that he doesn't agree. This was and continues to be a very hard time for Mr. Obama: he's torn with loyalty and his own personal beliefs. In many ways, this needs to be looked at as a generational thing, and Wright's anger is borne of different times and the different rhetorical style of his particular kind of pulpit.

I feel for your guy at this moment; this is devastating, and I don't see a really good tack to take. He doesn't want to be seen as throwing his friend overboard no matter how overboard his friend is and has been. More than just thinking about how people will perceive his actions, he's probably very conflicted about what his actions should be. What a shitty thing to deal with.

Yeah, I can make glib comments about the dangers of fiddling with religion in politics, but that must be pretty obvious to most of us at the moment. There's no cryptic insinuation intended to link Obama with Dr. Bombast's Traveling Medicine Show; I think Obama got a really raw deal here.

Still, Obama has played fast and loose with religion--as he did with the 40 Days of Faith Tour in South Carolina--and a fair amount of this is simple causality: religion brings vast sweeping power and money with the turn of a phrase, but it's unruly as all hell and its intertwined with some pretty unpleasant facets of human behavior.

Obama probably did about what he should have with that terse statement. It's really a no-win situation and he's probably smarter to move on.

[Yossariant]

3. Another ironic word for the day: Reverend.

[MadMaddie]

4. So I am just waiting for the racial derogatory comments

from what I have seen lately, it's coming.

Simply pathetic.....

[FtWayneBlue]

8. After watching him on Moyers PBS show,

I have to totally disagree with you. Rev Wright is intelligent and spot on in his analysis of what is wrong with this country.