Two days ago Rev Wright appeared at the National Press Club and put in a performance that Toby Harnden described as "angry", "defiant", "proud" and "unrepentant". He was, blogged Toby, "determined to be vindicated". His bodyguards were from Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.
Yesterday Barack Obama finally distanced himself from Rev'd Wright - his pastor for twenty years, the man who married him, baptised his daughters and prayed with him on the morning on which he announced his presidential bid:
"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church. But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS; when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century; when he equates the U.S. wartime efforts with terrorism — then there are no excuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced, and that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.”
But was this anti-Americanism the real reason he was disowned. Bryon York has an alternative theory:
“Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls,” Wright told the Press Club. “Preachers say what they say because they’re pastors. . . . I do what pastors do. [Obama] does what politicians do.” A few days earlier, in an interview with PBS’s Bill Moyers, Wright said Obama, in his Philadelphia speech attempting to calm the controversy created by Wright’s sermons, had said “what he has to say as a politician.” That, not Wright’s wide-ranging social theories, is what forced Obama to denounce Wright at a hastily arranged news conference Tuesday. By questioning Obama’s honesty, Wright was striking at the heart of the Obama campaign. The most damaging thing Wright could ever say is that he knows, based on his long personal relationship with Obama, that Obama agrees with him but can’t say so publicly for political reasons."
Some bloggers now think that this will stop the bleeding but a Republican strategist told The Politico that it would not:
"For Obama, Wright is like an infected tattoo. I mean, you can treat the flare-ups, but the stain is self-inflicted and lasting."
What has certainly happened during the Wright, Ayers and 'Bitter Pennsylvanians' controversies is that the number of Americans holding a negative view of Obama has risen considerably.
