More Demagoguery from Obama

Here's his speech. It does not answer the question as to whether he was aware that he was a member of a racist and hatred-mongering church. A few days ago, in an interview with Major Garrett, he said that he was not aware of any such content in his church and would have left if he'd heard it more than once there, so he cannot come clean now without admitting that he has been lying about it until now. He admits only that he heard some "controversial" things from Wright. Perhaps his audience won't discern the difference?

Are you making the distinction? Does the long discussion of slavery at the beginning of the speech tend to make you feel guilty for doing so?

Obama simply has not admitted that supporting a hatred-mongering church was wrong or that he knew that he was doing it. If you still think he is lying, then the rhetorical structure of this speech implies that you should feel guilty about rejecting the candidate of racial unity who is healing the nation after its legacy of racism. After all, as Obama reminds us, some are trying to bring up race in this campaign, moving us back to the old days, and you do not want to be one of them. Perhaps you feel that his church is "too black." After all, Obama says asking him to reject Wright would be like asking him to reject "the black community."

Being scandalized by Obama's twenty-year membership in a hatred-mongering church might just be a case of moving us back to the old days when we need to go forward. And here is the candidate of racial unity who admits that his pastor went over the line, so how far do you want to push this? And Obama said a couple of days ago that he never heard Wright say the wicked things. Do you have any proof that he did?

The candidate who supported a racially hate-mongering church for twenty years is portraying himself as the candidate of racial healing. If you see through this, you better be careful not to be made to feel guilty about it by Barak Obama's rhetoric. After all, hasn't he reminded you sufficiently that black people do, after all, have a reason to be so angry with you?

Obama says his rejecting Wright would be like rejecting either his grandmother, who was a little bigoted, or "the black community." A true leader would have either spoken out against a hatred-mongering church or left it. Obama, however, draws a moral equivalence between a privately bigoted old grandmother and all blacks, on the one hand, and a minister who preaches hatred to thousands, on the other. The moral equation is staggeringly obtuse.

Obama simply has not admitted that what he did was wrong or that he knew that he was doing it. Wouldn't you feel guilty about requiring him to leave his grandmother or leave the black community? Do you feel guilty, then, to require that he leave his hatred-mongering church?

Of course, the speech is peppered with points about blacks that make millions of white people guilty, and millions of black people resentful, to hear them. This has the effect of making it difficult for his audience to analyze what he is saying sufficiently to see that he has not admitted that what he did was wrong or that he knew that he was doing it.

The speech was pure demagoguery.

UPDATE: I'm not the only one. VDH: ...Obama will enlighten you, as your teacher, why you are either confused or too ill-intended to ask him to disassociate himself from Wright. [SNIP] Obama is right about one thing: We are losing yet another opportunity to talk honestly about race, to hold all Americans to the same standards of public ethics and morality, and to emphasize that no one gets a pass peddling vulgar racism, or enabling it by failing to disassociate himself from its source — not Rev. Wright, not even the eloquent, but now vapid, Barack Obama.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Roger L. Simon is "pointing out the obvious": that anyone who finds moral equivalence between Wright's racist screeds and his white grandmother's admitting to him in private that she feared black men on the street has got a serious problem.

UPDATE: John Derbyshire: You can go through Obama's speech pulling out questionable points like that from nearly every paragraph. The speech is slippery, evasive, dishonest, and sometimes insulting.

Read the whole thing.

TO SUM UP:

Obama denies that he heard Wright spew his monstrous venom during the twenty-year relationship. His speech today covers over the fact that he denies it. He simply isn't believable.

Obama exposed his children to a church which inculcates hatred of the middle class, of whites, and of America. In my opinion, that's child abuse.

Obama never spoke up about Wright's hatred-mongering, as a leader who disagrees with Wright would have done. Until he got caught last week, that is.

Obama laces his apology for his failure of judgment and leadership with multiple reminders that blacks have reason to be angry. This is the psycholgizing of a demagogue.

If one must judge a man by his deeds and not just his words, then we must conclude that Obama is a black separatist and racist, as well as a leftist. If thinking of that innocent face and noble-sounding voice makes you feel guilty about drawing this conclusion, then he's got you.