NBC’s political director had it right about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright when, as The New York Times reports, the newsman paraphrased a Carly Simon song: “You’re so vain, I bet you think this campaign is about you.”
Sen. Barack Obama also had it right when he told his now truly former pastor: Bon voyage, hasta la vista or, in the vernacular the reverend likes to work into his talks, don’t let the doorknob hit ya where the dog shoulda bit ya.
The Rev. Wright had every right to defend himself from the death by a thousand soundbites that he was being dealt via the Internet and other media with snippets from old speeches he gave. But last week, rather than distance himself from that caricature of himself, the reverend, as Sen. Obama said, “caricatured himself.”
Worse, the reverend insulted a multitude of African-American churchgoers by saying that the slings and arrows he has suffered are an attack not on him or the senator but an attack on the black church. It’s really scary if he really believes that. Because it means that the reverend, who obviously is very intelligent, is blind to the fact that he’s become a convenient tool for Sen. Obama’s political opponents.
The Rev. Wright has become exactly the kind of distraction that fellow Democratic presidential challenger Sen. Hillary Clinton was longing for and presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain was planning for. The Clinton camp has worked hard to knock Sen. Obama off of his unifying themes and down into the political mud. Judging by the worst aspects of his performance last week, the Rev. Wright was only too happy to oblige.
But the Rev. Wright also is showing once again that for all their rhetoric, too many African-American “leaders” are mainly about self-promotion. I believe Sen. Obama when he says the man who preened before the National Press Club is not the guy he met 20 years ago. Because despite a long career in the pulpit, the reverend last week lost himself in the spotlight.
“As I said,” he told the press club for the umpteenth time, “this is an attack on the black church. It is not about Obama, McCain, Hillary, Bill, Chelsea. This is about the black church. This is about Barbara Jordan. This is about Fannie Lou Hamer. This is about my grandmama.”
Barbara Jordan? Fannie Lou Hamer? “Breathtakingly selfish” is how one observer accurately described him. It’s one thing if the reverend’s ego occasionally runs amok. But don’t blame this mess on any of them, much less Jesus.
The reverend is typical of so many of his milieu in our African-American communities who still are trying to grow up to be Malcolm X. Our love of our fiery ministers and imams too often is testament to the ease with which they emotionally can rouse us, even as their disrespect of our minds manifests in lack of progress in the very neighborhoods around them. In too many cases, their black liberation theology delivers more for such leaders than anyone. In contrast, Malcolm understood that rhetoric is not an end in itself but a tool to be used in time and season for greater benefit than self-aggrandizement.
That may help explain why on Tuesday the prevailing sentiment on black talk radio clearly was that the Rev. Wright “should shut up.” One caller suggested the reverend was psychologically trying to sabotage the senator because he believes a black man can’t be president.
That brought to mind my dear father-in-law, an accomplished retired contractor. In explaining the Hillary sign on his lawn, he described how as a young man he had scraped to buy a new truck, only to arrive at work with it to hear his white boss tell him, “Nigger, I’m paying you too much money” – and fire him on the spot. In Dad’s view, blacks are crazy if they think white folks are going to allow a black man to be president.
The Rev. Wright apparently thinks the same. I respect elders who experienced what they did and think as they do. But others, particularly young people, think Sen. Obama holds promise precisely because he understands black folks’ issues, white folks’ issues – people’s issues of all stripes – and wants to lead the nation in taking a saner approach toward solving them. His potential to unify people has been on display for most of his life, all of his political career, but particularly in Congress where he worked successfully across party divisions.
Still, I’ve always felt that to deliver on his promise, Sen. Obama has to deal with all these distractions and much more yet to come. Though obviously pained and exasperated by his former reverend, he delivered a strong, clear statement in saying that the Rev. Wright is not who he is, nor what his campaign is about.
I strongly agree with the reverend on one thing. “In my tradition,” he told the press club, “what God has for you is for you. If God intends for Mr. Obama to be the president, then no white racists, no political pundit, no speech, nothing can get in the way, because God will do what God wants to do.”
Still, that’s no excuse for the Rev. Wright to act so irresponsibly. Which is why Sen. Obama was right in saying, in vernacular that the reverend might use: That’s fine. But in your own time and on your own dime. Not mine, and not this campaign’s, which obviously has outgrown you.
