[lbo-talk] the Rev Wright

[Michael McIntyre]

Adolph Reed is almost always right, but I think he's wrong on this one.
(1) Obama joined Trinity UCC a long time before he ran for office,  
and this mega-church was the smart place to be if you were organizing  
on the far south side.
(2) Obama had a foot firmly planted in the left until 2004 or so.   
His 2002 opposition to the Iraq War was consistent with the rest of  
his record up to that time.  See also Ali Abunimah's comments on  
Electronic Intifada on Obama's onetime support for Palestinians,  
including a photo of Barack & MIchelle having dinner with Edward &  
Mariam Said.  Having a foot in the left cost him nothing in his state  
senate district or in the south side generally.
(3) Obama's real change started when he lost the 2002 US House  
primary to the incumbent, Bobby Rush (former Black Panther Minister  
of Defense in Chicago, now a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T).  Being  
the candidate of Hyde Park liberals probably did cost him that race,  
and having been a member of Trinity UCC for 15+ years didn't help him.
(4) Having lost the race for Harold Washington's old House seat,  
Obama had no future as a mayoral candidate in Chicago.  His lucky  
break came when the Republican incumbent in the Senate, Peter  
Fitzgerald, stepped down after one term.  Obama's disadvantages in  
IL-1 became advantages in the statewide Senate race.  His luck held  
when the Republican nominee in the general election turned out to  
have a few kinky skeletons in his closet, skeletons disclosed in the  
divorce filings of his ex-wife, Jeri Ryan.  So Obama made The Speech  
at the 2004 convention, won in a landslide, and remade himself as the  
Obama of today.
(5) So why didn't Obama distance himself from Wright starting in  
2004?  Partly because any negative fallout was already unavoidable at  
that point.  Partly because Jeremiah Wright isn't all that fiery a  
black nationalist.  He's a minister in an overwhelmingly white  
denomination.  Trinity UCC is a mostly middle-class black  
megachurch.  Since arriving in Chicago in 1985, I've never heard  
anyone call Jeremiah Wright or Trinity UCC a purveyor of hatred.  So  
I don't think Obama expected someone who's a very mainstream figure  
in black Chicago politics to be portrayed this way.

On the other hand, I think that, given her remarks today, Hillary  
Clinton's strategy is now crystal clear.  She knows she can't win the  
nomination.  She plans to burn Obama so that he loses the general  
election badly; then she plans to run again in 2012.  I guess that  
does make her the more evil of the twins.

Michael McIntyre

On Mar 25, 2008, at 4:59 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:


> I just asked Adolph Reed, who lived in Chicago at the time and
> watched Obama's rise up close, why a man who, as David Gergen put it
> on CNN the other night "doesn't have a radical bone in his body,"
> buddied up to a fiery black nationalist preacher. Adolph said that
> Obama probably planned to run for mayor of Chicago, and needed to
> broaden his support beyond his base among Hyde Park liberals and the
> foundation world, so joining Wright's church would help. It's the
> only explanation I've heard that makes any sense.
>
> Doug
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