Obama is in a no-win situation. How does one handle the question "When did you stop beating your wife"? He should have separated from Wright many years ago - at the latest, on the day when for the first time he thought seriously about running for President.
I think he should have pitched the original idea that he maintains his relationship with the preacher to receive his spiritual guidance, and not to absorb the preacher's political views. Many of us probably have excellent jewelers who are also racists, fantastic accountants who smell bad, wonderful surgeons who are sexual deviants, and outstanding dentists who hate the USA. We maintain our relationship with them for the purpose which suits us, and their offensive characteristic is a side element of which we are unaware, or it is 1% of their relationship to us while 99% is their ability to deliver they quality service to us.
Some churches are more political than others. If 2% of the sermon in a church over the course of the year is an expression of the preacher's political views, do you really think every congregation member than holds opposing political views leaves the church? I don't. Are these congregants who stay with a church that occassionally espouses political views other than their own flawed for not finding a church who's preacher expresses the political view that they hold? No. Most people go to Church to study their religion and praise God, not to discuss US politics.
If a boss makes racist remarks once a year, do his employees quit? No. If your gardener tells you once every three months that he hates some minority group, but does excellent inexpensive gardening three times a week, do you fire him? Probably not.
Hell, the Catholic church kept known pedophiles on the job for decades until their crime was finally uncovered. How many of those churches lost 100% of their membership? How many lost 50% of their membership? None.
My point is that if the best the enemies of Obama can do is to attack him with this type of "guilt by association", then he's pretty strong. A vote for Obama is a vote for Obama, it is not a vote for every single person that Obama has been close to during his lifetime. Every 50 year old on the planet has had close relationships some individual who is reprehensible to society - that's just a numbers game.
To dispel this so called "major controversy" over time all Obama has to do is tell us that he is not the preacher, he is his own man, end of story. Who will insist that all of us can only have meaningful relationships with people who mirror our own personal politics? |
