When Push Came to Shove, Obama Stood Alone in the Spotlight

For three days Jeremiah Wright made the rounds in America’s TV studios and conference auditoriums and increased his valuable fame as Barack Obama’s former pastor. Then he stabbed his former spiritual foster-son in the back. Wright’s racist and anachronistic paranoia, stuck in the Black Panther mindset of the 1960s, could spell doom for the first promising black candidate for president

Even admirers of the 46-year old senator of Illinois are beginning to harbor doubts about his judgment – or worse, doubts about his moral compass. The suspicion that Obama is being blamed for the words of someone else doesn’t hold up when you consider that this gifted politician stands on the power of speech and the value of each and every word. Someone who is placed in the noble company of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King cannot at the same time claim that he didn’t understand how inflammatory the sermons of his pastor were.

Barack Obama must have taken note of the fact that on Monday, hours after Wright’s scandalous speech, he stood alone. Neither Ted Kennedy nor Oprah Winfrey, nor any of his famous friends – not even one of the many black ministers who could call into any TV-show and offer commentary – came to his aid.

No one called out Wright’s impudence as he denounced any criticism of him as an attack on the “Black Church”: the white Trinity United Church of Christ, which Obama joined in 1992, does not even belong to the 65,000 black churches of seven different denominations in the US. Wright is an exception, he speaks only for himself. If he had wanted to help Obama he would have kept silent. One can only be concerned that he will keep on speaking.

Hilary Clinton is certainly entitled to capitalize on her political rival’s “Pastorgate”. Up to now, she did this by remaining silent about it and instead speaking about the topics that are uppermost on the minds of the Americans. On Tuesday the voter in North Carolina and Indiana can determine whether or not a black preacher will have a potential black president on his conscience