Jeremiah Wright In Context Pt. II

Michael Weiss takes me to task for insufficiently gnashing my teeth over Jeremiah Wright and his preachments. I say he's missing the point of my writing on the matter entirely.

I don't regard Wright as much more than a left-wing Falwell, whose ass politicians on the left periodically feel themselves required to kiss, like Bill Clinton did in 1998. Jesse Jackson is a morally ambivalent figure. That didn't prevent him from being Clinton's go-to confessor. Remember Joe Lieberman lauding Louis Farrakhan in 2000? Democratic candidates still feel compelled to ritually smooch Al Sharpton's rings, and Sharpton's antics — e.g., doing his damnedest to get an innocent man, whom he knew was innocent, convicted of rape — are a match for anything Wright has done.

Michael's position — and mine — that associations with these awful priests constitute a mark against every candidate (though not a disqualifier), and that that standard applies across the board, is not a popular position. In particular, it's not the position of those who think Obama's tie to Wright is an exceptional disqualifier. I most certainly said, but maybe should have been more explicit to avoid misinterpretation, that context clearly justifies King and Douglass and clearly inculpates Wright. Because of the contextual discrepancies, there is no comparison between King's or Douglass's indictment of America and Wright's. (Though Wright's lack of eloquence relative to King and Douglass is hardly the problem with his preachments. Would Michael have less of a problem with Wright if he were more eloquent? I wouldn't.) And that's just the point.