By Connie Kaplan, RegainAmerica Staff Writer, May 29, 2008

You've got to feel sorry for presidential hopeful Barack Obama. 

First his 44 year old wife, Michelle Obama - the one who attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School, and who has enjoyed an illustrious career in addition to having two children and a husband who is running a campaign to be elected President of the United States - his wife found it necessary to inform us all that it was only last February that,

"For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country  because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

This starchy comment caused a minor tempest in a teapot for the Obama camp who quickly backpedaled into the usual series of explanations and rationalizations.  It was pointed out that Obama had said "adult life" and, since she did not turn 21 until 1982, she was REALLY referring only to the last 26 years.  Finally, after further parsing of the paragraph, Michelle Obama explained that what she had actually been trying to say - what she REALLY meant to say, she said, was simply that we are now in a time where "people are hungry for change".

The next person America heard from was Barack Obama's esteemed Minister, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  Reverend Wright and Barack Obama go back some 20 odd years since Obama joined Reverend Wright's Chicago church back in the 80's.  As Obama's campaign moved along, the media uncovered a number of controversial statements in a sermon or sermons delivered by Reverend Wright.  It turns out that, among other things, the good Reverend Wright felt that America had brought 9/11 upon themselves because:

The stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards.  America's chickens are coming home to roost."

And:

The government lied about the Tuskegee experiment. They purposely infected African American men with syphilis.

And:

The government gives them [citizens of African descent] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America — that's in the Bible — for killing innocent people. God damn America, as long as she pretends to act like she is God, and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent.

And:

“The government lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq being a threat to the United States peace. And guess what else? If they don’t find them some weapons of mass destruction, they gonna do just like the LAPD, and plant the some weapons of mass destruction. Governments lie.”

Of course Reverend Wright has a God-given and constitutional right (and that's the United States Constitution, Reverend) to say whatever he wants, idiotic or no.

The bigger problem was Barack Obama's - e.g., how much of this, er, rhetoric, might rub off on him.

The Obama camp, who were still dusting themselves off after the Michelle Obama dust-up suddenly found themselves once again down in the muck. 

The thick, sticky kind of muck that clings to those who stand too close to it.

First, Barack Obama denied ever bein' round on the date this inflammatory sermon was given: 

Sen. Obama told the New York Times he was not at the church on the day of Rev. Wright's 9/11 sermon.

Then Obama went prim and pious. 

Out came Obama's press spokesman, Bill Burton, to state that:

"Sen. Obama has said repeatedly that personal attacks such as this have no place in this campaign or our politics. . . . Sen. Obama does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms. Like a member of his family, there are things he says with which Sen. Obama deeply disagrees."

So, yes, Obama has known Reverend Wright for 20 years, and yes, Obama knows that Reverend Wright harbors this kind of ill will towards the US government and the LAPD and most, if not all white people. . . .but Obama is cool with all that because "personal attacks. . . .have no place in this campaign or our politics".

And, besides Obama wasn't even at church on the day Reverend Wright said all these nasty, upsetting things.

With which the next potential President of the United States deeply disagrees.

One could certainly understand how Barack Obama might be a bit worn out after these upsetting episodes.

And why, at a recent campaign speech, Barack Obama himself brought up a member of his family of which he is justifiably very proud.

This would be his uncle (or possibly a grand-uncle) who was among the first to march into Auswichtz and to personally liberate the Jews.

And if that isn't a heart-warming Star-Spangled scenario, what is.

And everyone who heard this speech was touched.  Until it turned out that Obama's uncle (or grand-uncle) would have to have been a member of the Red Army since it was the Soviets, and not the Americans, who liberated Auschwitz.   

The Obama camp (or, as the Wall Street Journal cheerily referenced, "The Obama Gaffe Machine"), when presented with the news on Obama's uncle (or grand uncle) who was inconveniently not among the first to march into Auschwitz, wearily investigated and then explained that yes, it was Obama's uncle (or great uncle) but it wasn't Auschwitz, it was some other concentration camp, Dachau or Treblinka, or Buchenwald, or. . .  something.  You could almost hear them say "whatever" as they laid down to take a nap.

Of course a gaffe here and an error there doesn't hurt.  But lots of gaffes and errors start to add up.  Insensitive comments by the candidate's spouse is not good.  And the fiery invective (excuse me, "inflammatory rhetoric") of the most Reverend Wright, Obama's good friend and spiritual advisor, albeit one with whom he "deeply disagrees" is most definitely not something dearly to be desired.

What would really be good for both Barack Obama -  and for America -  right about now would be if Barack Obama would stop running around putting out public relations fires, and instead get down to a serious focus on the numerous troubling issues currently facing the US. 

If Mr. Obama is serious about his ideals, and about how he is America's new hope, it is time now to share the details.  Otherwise, we are left to search through fluff.

As Karl Rove so aptly stated in the Wall Street Journal:

"Mr. Obama's problem is a campaign that's personality-driven rather than idea-driven. Thus incidents calling into question his persona and character can have especially devastating consequences."

Mr. Rove observes that "Stripped of his mystique [Obama] could become just another liberal politician – only one who parses, evades, dissembles and condescends. That narrative is beginning to take hold. If those impressions harden into firm judgments, Mr. Obama will have a very difficult time in November."

Barack Obama still has time to ensure that he does NOT have a difficult time in November.  Hopefully he will use his time wisely.

There are currently no posts in this category.