Chris and I were debating this Jeremiah Wright business over dinner last night. He thinks the good reverend is just some egomaniacal publicity hound wallowing in the spotlight like David Vitter in a bowl of hookers. This is the most national attention Wright has ever gotten, and, by god, he intends to milk it for all it's worth--even if that means destroying Obama's shot at the White House.
I, too, think Wright is digging center stage. But I also suspect he specifically wants to tank Obama's candidacy. I mean, this is a man who has spent a fair portion of his career spreading the message that blacks cannot get a fair shake in this country; that America was, is, and always will be fundamentally racist; that the U.S. government in particular has it in for blacks. So what happens to all that if suddenly a black man--and not just any black man, but one who has been counseled by Wright and so cannot be dismissed as some pathetic Uncle Tom--is elected president? With Obama in office, it suddenly becomes much harder for Wright to rage against the evil of America in general and the government in particular. Certainly, he'd have a harder time spinning new tales along the lines of AIDs was a government creation aimed at wiping out the black race.
But if Obama loses, Wright's ugly vision of America is confirmed yet again, and so he can keep on fighting the good fight at even greater volume and with even uglier rhetoric. How nice for him. How sad for the rest of the country.
--Michelle Cottle