It depends what you mean by "giving him a pass".
It's a fundamentally different issue. The people who work for Obama's campaign aren't saying this, or acting on the reverend's principles, or screwing up international relations on the basis of it. The retired reverend represents a not uncommon view in the activist black churches. It seems to me that Obama accepted the good in the man and his church and overlooked the small amount of bad (small being relative- but to me it's a small issue, in the greater scheme of things.)
The reverend was not an important part of Obama's campaign, and except for a stick to beat Obama with, I really don't see how it matters. Obama clearly isn't a racist, and he's an articulate, intelligent man, who by his very presence, and calm logical demeanor, might manage to diffuse some of the more bizarre memes in the black community just by being who he is. It gets harder and harder to say that the white man is keeping all the black men down when one is in the white house setting policy. I would like Obama no matter what color he was- just as I liked McGovern, and Mondale, but it's a nice dividend that we will finally have a person of color. That white house has been too white for too long- it would be nice to have a woman too. That white house atmosphere probably needs a testosterone break too. I wish Oprah were running, but since she's too canny for that, I'm for Obama. |
