Dear Senator Obama,
I’m writing this letter because I know this has been a rough 48 hours for you. I can’t imagine the shock of finding out that your pastor for 20 years, the man who married you, who baptized your children, who brought you to Jesus… has been hoodwinking you for the past two decades.
Oh sure, you’d heard stories over the years of things he’d said, but it was all secondhand. Maybe he said something that made you squirm a little in your seat once or twice, but you never heard anything like what he said at the National Press Club! No, for that your Pastor waited until you weren’t in church, and then he’d let loose. What must it feel like to find out these things with everyone else!
Then, of course, there’s the egg on your face. For months now talk show hosts like Hannity, Hewitt, Rush (and dare I mention myself?) have been saying these comments were vile. Now you’ve seen the light, but how embarrassing must it be to know that these folks are going to crow about this on their shows? And drafting that letter of apology to them… whew, I don’t know how you’re going to do it. Just remember, you had the wool pulled over your eyes. You were bamboozled!
I mean, last month you said:
“He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.”
And now today it’s:
“He was never my quote unquote, spiritual adviser, my quote unquote spiritual mentor, he was my pastor.”
(Better check the Chicago papers on that though, Senator. I seem to recall a 2004 story in which you talked about the three spiritual mentors you had. James Meeks, Father Michael Pfleger, and Jeremiah Wright. I’m just trying to help you avoid any future controversies.)
From like family a month ago to just “my pastor” today. It’s like you’ve managed to wipe your memory of that close kinship you two shared for twenty years. That’s amazing, though a therapist may say you’re just blocking those memories out of your brain because they’re too painful.
Well, if it makes you feel any better Senator… this whole episode has been tough for me too.
You see, two of my five kids are actually my stepkids. We don’t make a big deal out of it. In fact, they’ve always called me “Dad”. Just like your father, who wasn’t around when you were growing up, my two oldest kids haven’t seen their biological father in years. And like you, they’re the offspring of a white mother and a black father. Our other three kids are as pale as milk, so we’ve gotten our share of odd comments over the years. I’m sure you remember similar comments when you were a kid and were out with your grandparents.
But as a parent, you try to deal with it the best you can. You tell your kids that most people are just ignorant, and that skin color doesn’t make you any different. You thank God that the civil rights movement has been as successful as it has, and that the comments you do get are few and far between. You teach your children that people should be judged on the contents of their character, not the color of their skin.
Then Jeremiah Wright becomes the story of the day and now you’re trying to figure out what to tell your 7-year old when he asks if it’s true that he’s different than his older brother and sister, and if we love him more or less than we love them. You wonder if your 17-year old son and your 21-year old daughter have bought into what Rev. Wright is peddling, and if the bond of family is stronger than race-based rhetoric. And yes, you wonder why it took Senator Barack Obama twenty years to figure out Jeremiah Wright when most of the rest of us figured it out in about five minutes.
Sorry Senator, but I’m starting to wonder if your comments distancing yourself from Reverend Wright are really sincere. I’m also wondering if you were really that close with him to begin with. I’m wondering a lot of things about you, but it boils down to one concern: are you lying to us now, or were you lying to us all along about Reverend Wright? Either way, it would make you the worst kind of politician. You know the stereotype: slimy, oozing with contempt for the voters, willing to say anything to get elected. The exact opposite of how you present yourself, basically.
And I don’t know how you get beyond that Senator. You’re either A) the worst judge in character the world has ever seen or B) another lying politician who just wants to get elected and thinks Americans have the intelligence of tree stumps. Either way, when it comes to the content of your character… you fail. You could have walked out of that church at any point over the past twenty years. You could have used your big speech in Philadelphia to put to rest this issue, not claim the Reverend Wright as a member of your family. Because of your failure of character, you’re now merely following the conventional political wisdom instead of exhibiting true leadership and principle.
But don’t worry Senator. If you’re right about the American people, we’ll be too distracted by American Idol and the price of gasoline to remember any of this come November.
Sincerely,
Cam Edwards
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April 29, 2008 - 10:44 pm
[…] Read the rest over at On Tap Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)The first rule when you are in a holeNot happy with the choice of candidates?Cross-Cultural Love Poetry: A Dangerous CombinationJanuary 4th 2008 […]
April 29, 2008 - 10:57 pm
[…] From Cam Edwards. Go read it. […]
April 30, 2008 - 9:09 am
A rough 48 hours? Heck, its been more like a rough 48 days. He’s got to be praying the North Carolina Primary comes quick so he can finally get another win an get to some positive spin. In a year I had little hope of not seeing a Dem in the White House, the sun continues to shine on the horizon.
April 30, 2008 - 10:03 am
I was going to comment and say how hilarious the post was, but I read further and it got kind of sobering, and finally reminded me that actually, more than anything, I’m angry at Barack Obama. He came in with a completely different story, and although I disagree with the guy on almost every policy issue, I have to admit I was sort of excited and not all sorry with the concept that we might elect a black president.
I’m not immune to the criticism that America is a racist country. I don’t like being thought of that way, I’m not that way, and I truly believe I never have treated anyone differently on account of their race, and here was a guy who genuinely seemed to have transcended race, who had rejected the main impediment to a black man being elected: the perception that he harbored great resentment against white people and he would rectify those resentments when in office. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton made no secret of this agenda. That makes them, at least, more honest. I was more than ready to take the guy’s word at face value. I was HAPPY to.
But Obama hasn’t transcended race at all. Right now, and on through this election, and no matter who wins and forever after, he has severely damaged race relations in this country.
Personally, I thought we’d made progress. Call me naive or stupid, I had no idea there were black preachers who held such animosity toward whites, and congregations who would whoop and hollar approval for such animosity. And I never knew such a cynical, devious, calculating man as Obama could rise so fast and come so far with no one finding out the pernicious lies and hate to which he and his wife surely ascribed and were teaching their young daughters, week after week, ensuring the hate would continue through the next generation.
While we stupid, unseeing white people thought things were improving and tensions and prejudices were easing on both sides. Ok, now I know we were wrong. I don’t know how to fix it, or what I’ve personally done wrong, but there is still a boiling pool of racial hatred out there.
I feel like there is a great mass of people in this country to hate my guts because I’m white and nothing will ever change their minds, and there is a gulf between us that nothing I can do can ever change it, and with the way things are going, what will ever break the cycle? If they are teaching their kids that white people invented AIDS to kill black people, how can they ever look at a white face and smile back? How can a member of that church, or any such, not see an evil monster in every white person? How many black people attend a church that teaches as Rev. Wright’s does?
Judging by the cheers at the press conference, there are more than a few. I wonder just how many? All of them? I don’t know, I really don’t.
What the heck is going on? I don’t even know this country, I guess, just like Obama didn’t know his pastor.
I’m angry, I’m hurt, yes, and I’m resentful. I doubt I’m alone. And there’s nothing he can say, no speech he can make that can fix that or make it go away. And I’m plenty pissed off about it, and I shudder than had he pulled it off for a few more months he might have fooled everyone until it was too late.
April 30, 2008 - 11:34 am
Remember the times Barack Obama stood stoically with his hands clasped in front of him during the National Anthem? He can’t even respect the symbols of the great nation he wants so badly to lead. As far as I’m concerned, he showed his character on those occasions, and all this is just another affirmation of what I already know…BHO isn’t fit to lead America.
April 30, 2008 - 3:01 pm
I’m really glad I don’t live where B Smith lives. Then I might have to really get into the REAL issues that are causing my pocketbook to be slimmer and my friends house to not be foreclosed. After all, why would we want to focus on this issues when we can focus on such important areas as lapel flag-pins and clasping ones hands during the national anthem.
Thanks for bringing up the IMPORTANT stuff B Smith!!!!
(That’s sarcasm if you aren’t bright enough to catch it).
April 30, 2008 - 6:18 pm
You Democrats never cease to amaze me. You finally have a candidate that’s got some momentum and you go ahead and vote for Billary Clinton. When will you American’s open your eyes to what’s been happening for 20 years!!!
BUSH/CLINTON/BUSH/CLINTON - Two families running the Whitehouse for twenty years…it’s criminal. Just get over all this bad press and nominate Obama - at least it’ll be an exciting election.
April 30, 2008 - 9:16 pm
If a president’s honesty, judgment and deeply held beliefs about race aren’t important, I don’t know what is. I’m getting a little sick of leftwingnuts telling me that this doesn’t matter, its trivia, the media is pushing this, etc. etc. That’s bunk. There is no more important issue that cuts right to the heart of the guy’s soul: does he believe what he and his wife have been nodding, agreeing and cheering with in front of their impressionable young daughters all these years?
It might not matter to you, but stop telling me that I’m stupid for believing its important to me. I think you’ll find a majority of Americans disagree with you, and if the shoe were on the other foot with a Republican, he’d have been long ago hounded out of the race.
I’ll bet the Dems WISH that could happen in this case. Obama is over as a viable candidate, count on it. Lesser gaffes than this have sunk his predecessors.
April 30, 2008 - 10:08 pm
[…] was going to comment and say how hilarious this post was, but I read further and it got kind of sobering, and finally reminded me that actually, […]
May 1, 2008 - 12:05 am
“Then Jeremiah Wright becomes the story of the day and now you’re trying to figure out what to tell your 7-year old when he asks if it’s true that he’s different than his older brother and sister, and if we love him more or less than we love them. You wonder if your 17-year old son and your 21-year old daughter have bought into what Rev. Wright is peddling, and if the bond of family is stronger than race-based rhetoric.”
All in all, it’s a pretty good open letter, and I get and mostly agree with your basic points, but I sure hope that the above quote contains a bit of dramatic hyperbole.
If the ravings of some lunatic stranger are actually creating that level of angst about your relationship with your kids, I’d suggest you look up a family counselor, pronto.
As a parent and/or “primary care giver” (what a clumsy circumlocution) of black and mixed-race kids (no white ones, but they have a white dad, so that’s something) aged 26 down to 13, I’ve run into these crackpot views here and there for years, and they’re not strange to my kids, either. But they were and are always met with my kids’ succinct, dismissive, and frequently-used 3 word comment on most things “racial:”
“That’s just stupid.”
And that’s about as deep as our “conversation about race” has to get, beyond the healthy and goofy banter siblings always share. I mean, why talk it, when you live it?
(And I really hope you’re not actually trying to figure out just now what to tell your seven-year-old about his older siblings.)
I’m guessing, and hoping, that your family has disposed of these issues long ago, and that your relationship with your kids is far more secure than that snippet makes it sound.
If not, Rev. Wright’s lunacy and Barack Obama’s prevarication are the least of your problems.
May 1, 2008 - 7:44 am
I’m really glad I don’t live where B Smith lives. Then I might have to really get into the REAL issues that are causing my pocketbook to be slimmer and my friends house to not be foreclosed. After all, why would we want to focus on this issues when we can focus on such important areas as lapel flag-pins and clasping ones hands during the national anthem.
The real issues - such as Clinton-era banking regulations that forced institutions to lend to folks who couldn’t afford it and are now defaulting? Or the price of gas that is high because Asian demand is up, the usual suspects are restricting supply, and congress is consistently blocking attempts to open new fields to exploration or build new refineries. Or enacting Clinton-era alternate fuels legislation which doesn’t affect the price of gasoline but does raise the price of food and reduce the mileage of most cars.
Yeah - the real issues that, upon analysis, leads one to the conclusion that both Obama and Clinton are proposing no solutions to the problem but are doing really well at promoting the politics of avarice.
And that is an issue of character.
May 2, 2008 - 5:40 am
[…] On Tap » Dear Senator Obama “You’re either A) the worst judge in character the world has ever seen or B) another lying politician who just wants to get elected and thinks Americans have the intelligence of tree stumps.” (tags: obama politics TUCC 2008 election liars liberal) […]
May 2, 2008 - 6:33 am
[…] On Tap » Dear Senator Obama “You’re either A) the worst judge in character the world has ever seen or B) another lying politician who just wants to get elected and thinks Americans have the intelligence of tree stumps.” (tags: obama politics TUCC 2008 election liars liberal) […]