The Observation Deck

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The video was produced by a right wing talk radio hack.

As a supporter of Obama, I have to say, sadly, that I think he's done for. The pastor thing is going to sink him, even if he gets the nomination, because the right is never ever going to let go of this. The pastor is a horror, but all I can say as a lifelong churchgo-er is that in Protestant churches--I dont know about Catholic churches--you join a community when you join a church. When you start forming relationships with people in the pews, your kid goes to sunday school, the whole nine yards, you dont up and leave because the pastor is a moron. It just doenst work that way.

But even if he gets the nomination, the ever charming Clinton family is going to game this Michigan-Florida problem all the way to the convention and really weaken Obama. He'll be defeated by McCain, which wont be horrible. Neither will Hillary, though I think the Clintons are the bonnie and clyde of american politics.

But its a real shame because I am convinced that Barack is a really special person, as anyone could tell who saw or read his speech the other day (he wrote it himself--WHAT A CONCEPT!!!). But the smelly unwashed underworld of "consultants" and pseudo-journalists and paid and unpaid political hacks who make it their occcupation to find mud to throw at people who oppose their clients and sponsors makes it impossible for a special person to survive.

Ryan Salo wrote:

Bryan Schwegler wrote:I know I certainly don't agree with the priests at my church all the time but I still go there. That doesn't mean I endorse what they say 100%.

So, lets say your pastor said the US invented HIV, that we deserved 911 and said the GD USA from the pulpit you would stay at the church and even take on that kind of person as a mentor?

If that person said those things, I wouldn't necessarily leave, especially if that was not the bulk of their preaching. Church, I would hope for anyone, is a community, not about one person. I would let them know I disagree and I do today.

I find that no different than all the people that follow Dobson, Falwell, or Robertson. I mean Robertson said gays caused 9/11 and that God purposely destroyed New Orleans. Falwell preached hate and said God sent HIV to kill gay people. Alot of Evangelicals say a lot of hateful things that I don't consider very Christian, but that doesn't mean everyone in those churches necessarily believes them.

Ryan, I'm sure if you or I looked hard enough, I could find objectionable things even your minister has said. Can you honestly say you've agreed with them 100% of the time?

And I don't mean to pick on the right-wing nut jobs, because they're on the left too. For as obnoxious as Hagert, Falwell, Robertson and the lot are Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and this guy from Obama's church are just as bad.

But I don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Ryan Salo wrote:I figured this would be fun.
How many crazies have to endorse him before people think he may be closer to them than we think??

Any thoughts on the topic?

Hagee?

And I'm sure there are many others.

IMO McCain has more than his share of crazies.

If you can find me one scrap of evidence, from Obama's published works to any of his countless speeches, that Rev. Wright's more radical views have had one iota of influence in shaping Obama's political outlook, then I'd give some credence to this manufactured hullabaloo. Surely, if he's got some secret radical agenda to unleash on us all, he'd have made some unconscious slip of the tongue at some point and revealed himself, right?

So wait, now Obama isn't some pre-programmed Manchurian Candidate created by the Muslims? Now he is pre-programmed from the Christians! I can't keep up with the conspiracies!!

Obama is going to do fine. First of all, it is early. He responded quickly and with a speech many are praising as his best. People are becoming sick of mudslinging politics and my hope is the party that uses it the most will profit the least, though I fear at times that I may hope too much. McCain says he wants to run a clean campaign, too, but he also can claim to not know or endorse any "Swiftboat/Moveon.org" style group out there that takes the potshots for him. Obama too, for that matter. I hope both rise to the occasion, do their best to campaign fairly and do what they can to reject right and left wing nut hatcheries that spring up throughout the campaign. The fact that Republicans are so dead set on Obama being ousted now so that Hillary, the easier-to-defeat candidate, gets in speaks highly to Obama's chances in a head to head with McCain. The fact that party jumping was so prevalent speaks to this as well.

I think Obama did what he needed to do, will weather out the press on this for another week or so and will move into the spring clear of this mess. Let the Republicans and the Clintons bang and clatter all the like since it is easier to be against a candidate than for one. As the saying goes, if you can't say anything nice about your candidate, say something nasty about the other team.

Bryan Schwegler wrote:I would hope that there isn't anyone who agrees with their pastor/priest/minister 100% of the time. They're human, their own emotions and political opinions weigh on what they say. They're not always right.

I know I certainly don't agree with the priests at my church all the time but I still go there. That doesn't mean I endorse what they say 100%.

But he hired that priest to work on his campaign

If you look at the geography of how he is winning he seems to be appealing to the poorest, least educated people in society, is this his goal? Are they more likely to vote out of emotion and for greedy reasons like free money than other voters? Are there enough of them to get him to the white house?

How things would change if the poorest and least educated voted in great numbers! I'm all for it.

Actually, if a candidate could charge up the vote, maybe move our participation rate from 45-60% to, say, 80%, that would constitute a revolution and the Republican Party would likely be kaput.

Ironically, if you understand how credit dependencies work in the financial markets, you'd say that it is the speculator who most believes in 'free money.' LOL

Emotion is a fine reason to vote for somebody. It seems very few people would even be able to purge emotion from their voting behavior. I suggest this only as an observer of the scientific capability in its everyday manifestation in the citizenry.

I saw on the TV that 13% of the polled think Obama is a Muslim; elsewhere that 25% believe the earth is 4-6 thousand years old; some large percentage believe they have a personal angel; and a majority can't locate Paris on a globe.

Why even here on the Deck I've read that the Iraqi WMD are in Syria!

This is not confidence inspiring if emotion and greedy reasons are said to be negative reasons.

one of my friends forwarded me the same dumb lies you're writing here, Ryan. It is funnier when he does it though. Because his wife is half-black. So his kids are black also.

ryan costa wrote:one of my friends told me the same dumb shit you're writing here, Ryan. It is funnier when he does it though. Because his wife is half-black. So his kids are black also.

lol... I can almost see the logic

Personally, I find myself agreeing with much of what Rev. Wright said, and I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the real issue here is not race but whether it is appropriate for a presidential candidate, or anyone affiliated with him, to criticize America.

The most controversial statements made by Wright during various sermons are these reported by ABC News:

The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.

We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye.

We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.

And these also reported by ABC News:

The winds of Katrina blew the cover off America. The hurricane exposed the hypocrisy, protecting white folks' property took priority over saving black folks' lives. This storm called Katrina says far more about a racist government than it does about the wrath of God.

The United States government has failed the vast majority of our citizens of African descent. For every one Oprah, a billionaire, you've got five million blacks who are out of work. For every one Colin Powell, a millionaire, you've got 10 million blacks who cannot read. For every one Condoskeeza [sic] Rice, you've got one million in prison. For every one Tiger Woods, who needs to get beat, at the Masters, with his cap-blazing hips, playing on a course that discriminates against women. For every one Tiger Woods, we got 10,000 black kids who will never see a golf course.

Racism remains a serious problem in America. The United States has a long history of the sort of unilateral imperialism that is bound to upset other nations and result in terrorism. In fact, we are one of the leading sponsors of global terrorism. Rev. Wright should be mad, just as all Americans should be mad.

That's a good point, Tracy, and one not getting much play. Being critical of the US is to basically equate oneself with the enemy. Only the enemy is allowed to critique the US. Unless it is someone criticizing the criticizer, in which case that is okay.

It is interesting to read Rev. Wright's words removed one step from his fiery delivery. How much delivery sets the tone. If he had come off as a mild-mannered history professor who was speaking at a slightly energetic level with the critical nature of a scolding father, let's say, it might have come off significantly different. Strongly worded but not nearly as "threatening" as many feel right now.

The more I think about it, the more that it is kind of sad that Obama had to back away from these statements to the degree he did in his speech last week. He did to a degree. He took the ideas from Rev. Wright and turned them into a call for adult discussions that don't devolve into threats, posturing and fear-mongering but it would have been nice to not start the speech off trying to back way far away from Wright, especially to the point of saying outside of the speech that he didn't know his Reverend said those types of things.