Huck On Wright

He isn't the first person to make this point, obviously, but it's still a smart thing for a Republican politician to say about the controversy:

"His (Obama's) campaign is not being derailed by his race, it's being derailed by a person who doesn't want him to prove that we have made great advances in this country," Huckabee told reporters.

Wright has claimed AIDS was created by the U.S. government to kill "people of color" and that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were spurred by the United State's "terrorism" against minorities at home and abroad.

"Jeremiah Wright needs for Obama to lose so he can justify his anger, his hostile bitterness against the United States of America," Huckabee said.

The Huckabee-Romney-Pawlenty primary contest in 2012 is going to be a doozy ...

Comments

Hah. You don't think McCain, Jindal, or Petraeus will be running?

Posted by Chris | May 1, 2008 10:41 AM

Indeed, Race has absolutely nothing to do with this. Where would anyone get that idea?

Posted by John Hagee, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham | May 1, 2008 10:57 AM

"Wright has claimed AIDS was created by the U.S. government to kill "people of color" and that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were spurred by the United State's "terrorism" against minorities at home and abroad."

The former is as false as the latter is true. The real problem is that no one can accept this truism--good ol' america can't do anything wrong.

Posted by rickm | May 1, 2008 11:37 AM

rickm: "the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were spurred by the United State's "terrorism" against minorities at home and abroad."

The former is as false as the latter is true."

I'm a little perplexed about these acts of terrorism by the US against "minorities at home." What are these acts of domestic terrorism by our government against minorities? Why do people of color keep on coming to the US if they are subjected to terrorism here?

And if Rev Wright really thinks the US government is trying to poison minorities and oppress them by acts of terrorism and all the rest of his nonsense, why doesn't he lead his flock out of the country to some promised land where they'll be free? Why isn't he at least making a real effort to overthrow the government?

Finally, I think it's kind of silly to say that most American's cannot accept that "good ol' america can't do anything wrong" - a good part of the uplift in Obama's surge is motivated by a deep sense of unease about America's past and a hope to do right by it. The thing that's going to enable McCain to win an election that he should by all rights lose is exactly the opposite -- the inability of many on the left to be able to see that the good ol' US can do anything right that would make us different from terrorists.

Posted by perplexed | May 1, 2008 12:19 PM

You see, perplexed, when you're black and you're arrested, it means that you were arrested for being black. That's "terrorism," don't you know.

Posted by Philip Marlowe | May 1, 2008 12:36 PM

Is Huckabee implicitly drawing a sharp line between Obama and Wright? His logic seems to be, "Wright needs Obama to lose because he's angry and hateful," to which the corollary would seem to be a Douthat-esque "by contrast, Obama is full of hope and thinks he can and should win."

Posted by SDM | May 1, 2008 1:07 PM

perplexed and Marlowe,

You may wnat to check out some history books, you know, genocide against the Indians, Slavery, lynchings and so on.

Wright is preaching in Biblical, eventually you reap what you sow terms. Not a view I necessarily beleive in, but it is consistent with Christian belief and tradition and really no different than right wing preachers like Falwell and so on who blame problems on the secularization of American society.

Posted by Eric k | May 1, 2008 1:11 PM

I suggest reading Tim Weiner's history of the CIA. After reading this book, one might be forgiven for believing whatever wacky conspiracy theories about our govt. are out there. Katrina, racial profiling, and sentencing policies don't help to dissuade anyone from those beliefs.
As Reverend Wright said at the National Press Club:

And there is no excuse for the things that the government, not the American people, have done. That doesn’t make me not like America or unpatriotic.

Posted by kristi | May 1, 2008 1:18 PM

Remembering Tuskegee

"For 40 years, the U.S. Public Health Service has conducted a study in which human guinea pigs, not given proper treatment, have died of syphilis and its side effects," Associated Press reporter Jean Heller wrote on July 25, 1972. "The study was conducted to determine from autopsies what the disease does to the human body."

I just can't imagine why any African-American would believe that Uncle Sam would unleash a disease upon them.

Posted by Don Quijote | May 1, 2008 1:47 PM

"And there is no excuse for the things that the government, not the American people, have done. That doesn’t make me not like America or unpatriotic."

Well, it does show that Wright is ignorant and, like a garden variety demagogue, working on the basis of false principles. There is no such distinction between the government and people in the US.

Posted by perplexed | May 1, 2008 1:49 PM

"You may wnat to check out some history books, you know, genocide against the Indians, Slavery, lynchings and so on."

Why would anyone want to come to such a country?

Why would anyone who suffered such crimes entrust their life, liberty, and property to the very government that committed these crimes against them?

Posted by perplexed | May 1, 2008 1:58 PM

Perplexed-

Are you kidding me? "There is no such distinction between the government and people in the US."

What is that even supposed to mean? Every American citizen is personally responsible for the manifold acts of the US Gov't? That 'america' is one unitary category of thought that includes all US citizens and the actions of the US Gov't? Thats really silly.

Posted by rickm | May 1, 2008 1:59 PM

It means that the people is sovereign, that it has created and empowered a government as its agent to protect its rights, and that when the government ceases to do so, the people may exercise its natural right of revolution. You know, "We the people" and not "We the peoples."

I'm sure you recall that it was the Southern secessionists who challenged this unitary view and argued instead that the federal government was a compact agreed to by the various peoples in the states.

So, rickm, the people is not responsible for the acts of the US government? Even though the people voted them in and could remove them? In what sense do the people rule then?

Posted by perplexed | May 1, 2008 2:31 PM

Perplexed-

When reasonable people have grievances about the US government, they don't take up armed revolution. They complain, protest, or vote.

Posted by rickm | May 1, 2008 2:38 PM

The problem, I think, is that racism in our society isn't fully understood or experienced by the majority of white people. For instance, there have been many studies showing the black defendants receive harsher prison sentences for the exact same crime as white defendants. Why is that? My guess is because when when a judge or jury see a white kid on the stands, they see the crime, but they also see someone sort of like someone they perhaps know (like a young relative who is confused or doesn't know his or her limits), whereas when they see a black defendant, they don't experience a similar empathy, and hence are less willing to show mercy. Jesse Helm's ads were brilliant because they played on this lack of empathy in the reverse direction - giving people a situation in which they could empathize with someone who was wronged (by, say, a black person getting a job over a more qualified white person because of affirmative action).

The important point here is that, except for cynical manipulation conducted by unprincipled politicians (a category to which I would include persons like Jesse Helms and Cynthia McKinney), this doesn't require evilness or even racism, in the traditional sense of the word, to happen.

No one has credibly come up with a solution to get beyond the empathy gap except to enlarge our view of who our neighbors and peers are (and hence, give us sympathy for them) than to expand our view of who we see as fellow Americans. The truth is that it works. The Irish immigrants went from being considered dangerous to being just another group of Americans. So did the Italian and Eastern European immigrants. I think Obama is the first politician who can credibly be called post-racial.

On a personal level, that's what I find so offensive about Clinton's cynical attempts to bring the country back to a nation divided. John McCain and Mike Huckabee, very much to their credit, understand what is going on and refuse to participate in it. Good for them!

Posted by szr | May 1, 2008 3:27 PM

I'm not sure that the corporate separateness of the U.S. government is really contestable. And I'm certain that it isn't ignorant to assert a distinction between the government and the governed.

As Hamilton said, if men were angels, there'd be no need of government. All Government is conceived in operational opposition to the people, even if it governs on the basis of their consent; Wright's wrong about plenty, but he's not wrong about that.

And the confederacy has nothing to do with it.

Posted by southpaw | May 1, 2008 7:26 PM

If you say so, Southpaw. Far be it from me to argue with someone whose knowledge of the American founding is so formidable that he attributes Madison's famous quote to Hamilton.

Posted by perplexed | May 2, 2008 8:40 AM

Don Quixote: You haven't been paying attention to the reports about the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. It did not involve the government injecting the black men with the disease. They already had it. The study was immoral because they were given to believe that they were receiving treatment when the real purpose was to observe the progress of the disease at a time when there was no known effective cure. Evidently the study had the approval and cooperation of a number of black doctors and many "progressives."

Posted by Arnold | May 2, 2008 5:11 PM

Don Quixote: You haven't been paying attention to the reports about the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. It did not involve the government injecting the black men with the disease. They already had it. The study was immoral because they were given to believe that they were receiving treatment when the real purpose was to observe the progress of the disease at a time when there was no known effective cure. Evidently the study had the approval and cooperation of a number of black doctors and many "progressives."

Posted by Arnold | May 2, 2008 5:11 PM

The Tuskegee experiments also involved making sure that the participants could not get access to penicillin and other medications that treat syphilis. Our government intentionally kept those men sick.

Posted by Reality Man | May 3, 2008 11:00 AM

What Reality Man said: that Arnold comment is either plain ignorant or else a vile, vile lie. The Tuskegee study went on for decades after penicillin was available; there was indeed a "known effective cure" that was withheld.

Posted by Ben | May 3, 2008 9:56 PM

Very funny! But what if McCain-Pawlenty win?

Posted by Alex Chediak | May 4, 2008 6:10 PM