Obama is Most Certainly Made of the Wright Stuff

“Are the views of Obama really so different from those of Rev. Wright?”, asks Tim Groseclose at Ricochet:

This video shows the main parts of Wright’s sermon. One aspect of the video is very remarkable, yet almost no one seems to have noticed it. This is the reaction of the parishioners. As you can see in the video, the parishioners agree with Wright. Indeed, they agree enthusiastically. Several cheer when he reaches his climax—that God should damn America. Approximately half clap or stand up during the crescendo. As best I can tell, none of the parishioners are bothered by Wright’s words.

As any reasonable person would conclude, those parishioners do not love America. Even if Obama did not attend the sermon, and even if he never became aware of it, he had to know about the anti-American attitudes of his fellow parishioners. Yet he still chose to attend the church for some two decades.

I believe Obama’s love for America is about the same as any other progressive’s—which means at best tepid, if he’s principled.

Meanwhile, at the Washington Examiner, Byron York asks, “Why are Americans confused about Obama’s religion?”

Whenever the issue pops up, Obama’s most ardent supporters are quick to blame conservative media for misperceptions about Obama’s religion. But it’s possible something in Obama’s public presentation of himself has also created confusion among a significant number of Americans about his religion. The fact is, Obama’s religious roots and development have always been a complicated story.

Made more complicated by the way some in the MSM built up Wright as if he was some sort of misunderstood but beloved cleric — and then universally embargoed Wright once they received updated talking points from the Obama campaign:

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In response to Kevin D. Williamson asking, “Does Barack Obama love his country? Call me a rube for saying so, but it’s a fair question,” Glenn Reynolds wrote: “it’s one that our media folks might have done a better job exploring in 2008:”

But here’s why Democrats, and their media protectors, are so unhappy with this question with regard to Obama in particular: It turns 2008 on its head. Obama’s appeal in 2008 lay in no small part in xenophilia: We’re so open-minded, we’re not just electing a President with a Muslim-sounding name, we’re electing a President with the same name as our most recent wartime foe! It let people feel enlightened, and progressive.

But all those differences that seemed so appealing can quickly flip into grounds for suspicion, especially when the object is behaving suspiciously. After all, if — like me — you believe in evolution, you might think that xenophobia, as such a well-established human trait, must have had beneficial functions: Maybe the xenos couldn’t be trusted, or even expected, to have the polity’s best interests at heart. Maybe, when people start getting worried about the polity’s future, those novel characteristics that once seemed so appealing now seem threatening. So while there’s a general reason the establishment wants to take the patriotism question off the table — patriotism is unsophisticated, and so limiting — there’s also a specific reason, which is that it’s something Obama’s vulnerable on right now, and it’s something the establishment can’t afford to cast Obama loose on, for reasons internal to its coalition.

And finally at NBC, shorter Chuck Todd: How dare Rudy Giuliani treat Obama the same way everyone at MSNBC treated George W. Bush for eight years!

Related:

Rudy Giuliani needs to stop peddling the vicious rumors and lies that Pres. Obama wrote in his autobiography.

— jon gabriel (@exjon) February 21, 2015