Obama Rats Out His Racist Granny
Just saw this online in Taranto's column in the WSJ, but I actually thought the same thing Taranto did when I read Obama's speech about Wright this morning in the print edition of the LA Times. But, first, an excerpt from Obama's speech:
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
And my thoughts on this: Private people will say things privately that they would never say publicly. Like Obama's granny, who he threw under the wheels of the campaign bus as a defense for his failing to run in disgust from Wright.
Taranto, likewise, writes:
Our first thought was that it was pretty low of Obama to exploit his (still living) grandmother in this way. Is it really necessary for the whole world to know about her private expressions of prejudice? Doesn't simple decency dictate that a public figure treat embarrassing facts about loved ones with discretion?Obama was trying to accomplish something very specific by dragging his "white grandmother" into this political mess. He was trying to diminish Wright's hateful theology by implying that it too is a private matter.
Yeah? Well, it's not. The way I see it, you are who you associate with. What you can stomach. Or, at least, it says something about who you are.
And in Taranto's words, it's this:
So here we have, on the one hand, an old white woman who would be completely ordinary and anonymous but for her grandson's astonishing political success, and who harbors some regrettable prejudices; and, on the other, a leader in the black community who uses his pulpit to propagate an ideology of hate.Obama said this morning, "I have asserted a firm conviction--a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people--that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union."
But if he cannot speak out unequivocally against the public, organized bigotry of his spiritual mentor, how can he possibly live up to this promise?