Clintons smear Obama-Rev. Wright/Patriotism, Barack responds

Obviously, I'm not onboard with the lunatic notion [of] "hate America". I've always been a little puzzled by what that expression could even refer to...Which is more or less how I feel: Asking whether someone loves or hates "America" is a little bit like asking: "How do you feel about music?"

But it is true that, perhaps in part for that very reason, I didn't find most of the YouTube clips of Jeremiah Wright pounding the pulpit especially upsetting, even though I certainly regarded some of them (the AIDS conspiracy-mongering, for instance) as more than a bit loony. That is to say, insofar as "pro-American" and "anti-American" seem like incoherent categories to me, when I hear someone say "God damn America," my first thought is to ask what they really mean: What particular aspects of America or American policy do they intend to condemn?

I don't know how many journalists out there share this view about "anti-Americanism," but I expect that quite a lot of them approached Wright's sermons with a certain clinical eye that brackets visceral reactions, for the same reason that properly trained male doctors don't get aroused examining female patients. And once you dig in with that clinical eye, what do you see? Here's the lead-in to that famous "God damn America":

"When it came to putting the citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters. Put them on auction blocks. Put them in cotton fields. Put them in inferior schools. Put them in substandard housing. Put them in scientific experiments. Put them in the lower paying jobs. Put them outside the equal protection of the law. Kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education, and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strike law and then wants us to sing God Bless America. Naw, naw, naw. Not God Bless America. God Damn America! That's in the Bible. For killing innocent people. God Damn America for treating us citizens as less than human. God Damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and she is Supreme."

As a historical matter, nothing in that first paragraph is especially contentious, even if we might want to say the list unfairly ignores whatever progress America has made on race. But what's more important than whether we think the portrait is (on balance) fair is that it's at least not an unfamiliar one. It's the sort of view you'd encounter, if perhaps in more measured tones, if you'd ever done a handful of interviews soliciting people's views on race in America. In other words, if you're a journalist, whether or not you think this view is correct, it's unlikely to strike you as especially novel or unusual. There are all sorts of views I regard as seriously wrong, perhaps even appalling, but which are sufficiently widespread that I have to conclude they're not currently seen as beyond the pale, even if I might like them to be.

To sum up, then, we've got two factors at work. First, a journalist's initial take on the sermon is likely to involve bracketing visceral reactions and trying to ferret out the underlying critique. Second, a journalist of any moderate experience is likely to recognize that underlying critique as almost tediously familiar, even if worded more angrily than usual. And it's easy to forget that plenty of Americans don't ever hear this sort of attack, and certainly not worded this way. So it's not...that Wright's sermon sounded right to us, I think, so much as it sounded boring.
http://www.juliansanchez.com/2008/06/02/cats-and-dogs-living-together-msm-sla...

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[brghtsd1]

Shame on Bill Clinton for saying those things...that was disloyal to the party.

[chuckinla]

Hitlery Rotten Clinturd is a MESS!

She prefers a pantsuit over a dress

I've watched her lie I've watched her kill

All in the name of her hubby named Bill

She won't give up to save her face

She would rather the country divide it's race

STOP the madness and just CONCEDE!!

And let Obama take over the lead

[Metatronicus]

Fuck them all.

[kawika8087]

great vid!

[kkvh4026]

Rev Wright was calling Bill and Hillary racist in his "sermons" in church, and even brought up Lewinsky. I don't blame her 4 saying personally he wouldn't be her Pastor. It's not a smear. I agree with some of Rev Wright's political views on Hiroshima and Plaestine, but his racist comment towards Bill and Hillary and all white people and his comment after 9/11 were out of line. She's not smearing Obama at all, as otherwise as a Hillary supporter I'd be using Wright against Obama which I don't.

[chuckinla]

+ * + * News FLASH + * + * + News FLASH + * + *

Hitlery Rotten ClinTURD...start packing your pantsuits and orthopedic pumps into your suitcase. It's CURTAIN time for you my shady Lady.

+ * + * + The FAT ANKLED SHADY LADY has sung + * + * +

There was NO way this country was going to allow you and your hard drinking obnoxious husband back into the White House!!!!

We have OTHER plans for you my vicious one...

We have reserved a PLOT right next to VINCE FOSTER and he is waiting for you.

[nimiixxii]

chuckinia: Notice I did not spam your comment, i believe I deserve the same courtesy. This is a public forum.

let all read and may the chips fall where they may.

You love USA and so DO I  You write a good poem.

May God bless us all !