Exit, Stage Left — As Soon as Possible, Reverend
That’s what I like about Obama. Forget about his political positions—he is a garden-variety Democrat, like John Edwards, or Hillary Clinton. His stands on “issues” do not stray far from the liberal reservation.
But the guy has a brain, and he has an incredible ability to understand human nature. That’s what we need in a President. Forget the Hillary nonsense about “experience.” How much experience did her husband have, or Harry Truman, or Richard Nixon, or Calvin Coolidge? Do you think the sainted JFK had “experience”? He spent his Senate career screwing his secretaries. Did that help him during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
After twenty-some-odd years of imbeciles in the White House, it is time for a change—don’t you think? I am very cynical about politicians, but I admire Obama, because he says things that I feel. For example:
Last week, when he was asked why he didn’t “talk tough,” he said, “If you are really tough, you don’t have to talk about it.”
Touche. My father said almost the exact same words to me when I was a kid. If you’re tough, you don’t have to talk tough. Weak people talk tough. Obama understands that.
Unfortunately, when he was young and inexperienced, Barack Obama made a pact with—no, I’m not going to say the devil!—but with someone who would always have to hog “center stage.” Beware of the company you keep!
I have no doubt that when Obama hooked up with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright twenty-odd years ago, he didn’t do it in order to “find Christ,” or because he believed that the Rev. Wright had God’s private cel number. Obama is too smart for that.
Let’s be honest: Obama linked up with Wright to get his foot in the door in Chicago politics. He did it because he was an unknown entity from Hawaii, and he wanted to get into the game. He needed a base from which to grow, and the only way to build that base was to work with the powers that be. Rev. Wright was one of those powers. That’s what aspiring politicians do. That’s the way the game works.
In other words, Obama went with Rev. Wright for political expediency. As Gomer Pyle used to say, “Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!”
(Hillary Clinton claims to be shocked at all this, but she has stayed married to a smarmy adulterer all these years for political expediency, too. She’s no saint, either. Whom is she kidding?)
I have no animosity towards the Rev. Wright. From what I have read, his ministry has done some great things. Yes, he says that the U.S. government created AIDS, and that sounds crazy to some, but I know how to spell Tuskegee. He mocks John F. Kennedy’s “Aaask not” accent, and he is 100% correct. In Boston, they say “aaask,” and that’s perfectly fine. In Bushwick, they say “axe,” and that is not fine. The Rev. Wright has a great point there.
But the Rev. Wright has a fatal flaw, and that is because he has forgotten his seven deadly sins. One those sins is envy. That sin, on his part, is about to destroy something that could be the most transformative event in American history: electing a black man to the Presidency.
Jeremiah Wright has done more damage to Barack Obama’s campaign than any David Duke, or any white supremacist, or any Strom Thurmond Dixiecrat could ever do.
And that’s because—as Obama so shrewdly noted—the Rev. Wright no longer has “center stage,” and Jeremiah don’t play that.
The Reverend Wright—and those of his ilk—don’t like to see their power slipping away. The Reverend Wright looks at his disciple, Barack Obama—a man who can truly see—and he is not happy, he is not proud that he contributed, in a large way, to Obama’s success. He won’t pass the torch. He is not able to leave the past, and look to the future, which is where my children, and your children, will live.
I respect Rev. Wright. Would I have had the guts to live like he did, if I grew up like he did, and looked like he did? Honestly, I don’t know.
But that was then, and this is now. That big sign that is always behind Barack Obama says CHANGE. Our younger folks understand that, which is why I am audacious enough to hope for our future.
Watch the Reverend Wright on YouTube during one of his now-famous sermons, but don’t look directly at him. Look beyond him. Look at the audience. Pay particular attention to the young folks sitting in the stands.
They don’t look inspired, they don’t look fired up, they don’t look angry.
They look bored. God bless them.
This past week, I heard several people say, vis-à-vis this Reverend Wright stuff: “I was going to vote for Obama, but now I don’t know….”
As Don Corleone said: Your enemies don’t destroy you. Your friends do.
It is going to be very interesting to see how this all shakes out. I take faith in the fact that Obama is 46 years old, a baby in political life. If he gets beaten, he can always come back in four years, when he will be the ripe old age of 50.
And if he does go down, it will be due to his pastor, his friend, his “spiritual advisor,” the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the man who married him, and baptized his kids, but who ruined him, when Obama had the temerity to nudge him over to stage left, out of the spotlight.
