Yesterday, I opined that Jeremiah Wright should not be off-limits in the 2012 campaign unless research demonstrates that bringing up the Obama-Wright relationship will not hurt Obama. My suspicion is that Obama has some vulnerability here.
That suspicion is confirmed, I think, by the Obama campaign’s shrill reaction, and that of its MSM friends, to reports that a PAC might inject Wright into the race (the PAC decided not to). Team Obama reacted by claiming that the Romney camp is playing the race card. As this headline in Politico puts it, “Race Issues Return With Rev. Jeremiah Wright.”
Now, in context, the headline isn’t entirely unfair. The particular consultant who wanted to bring up Wright apparently was going to do so in an ad that spoke of Obama’s attempt to portray himself as a “metrosexual Black Abe Lincoln.” How stupid can you get?
But there is nothing inherently racial about bringing up the fact that Rev. Wright served as Obama’s spiritual adviser, while denouncing America, hating on Israel, and embracing Louis Farrakhan. Any candidate (of any race) who was closely associated with any minister (of any race) who delivered hateful, anti-American sermons would be expeced to answer for it.
Sure Wright and Farrakhan are Black, but that doesn’t give them a pass for their racism and anti-Americanism. By the same token, the fact that Obama is Black doesn’t excuse him for selecting Wright as his spiritual leader. There were many other black clerics Obama could have looked to for guidance. He chose the Black liberationist who spews a message of hate.
If it wasn’t racist for Obama eventually to disavow Wright, it isn’t racist to hold him accountable for being so tight with Wright for so long.
Accordingly, I doubt that Team Obama and its friends in the MSM will get anywhere by hollering “racism” when the subject of Rev. Wright comes up, provided of course that the subject is raised intelligently. But my thesis can be tested through polling and focus groups. It should be, if this hasn’t occurred already.
Naturally, the Obama campaign would rather play by the “rules” of 2008, under which Rev. Wright was off-limits — their man won that election. Team Romney should write its own rules.
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