Obama: nightmares from my father substitute
The biggest question for Obama in the wake of the Wright controversy is: why didn’t he more forcibly repudiate his pastor, or at least question him? Surely, as a political animal, he knew this was a political time bomb.
Part of it no doubt was a form of hubris, the result of never really being pressed to answer the hard questions before. Obama has led an unusual life, but in the political sense it has been remarkably sheltered. But the other part, I believe, has at least some connection to his own particular emotional history as a black male raised by whites (mostly women) with an absent father.
I wrote to someone the other day that Obama should have saved his remarks about his grandmother for the therapy couch, not the political speech. I don’t believe Obama is an especially troubled or disturbed person. But I do believe he has some unresolved issues (to use popular psychobabble) that are markedly affecting his run for the Presidency.
I’ve not read either of Obama’s books. But I’ve read enough about the first one, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, to conclude that it’s highly possible that Obama’s search for his absent father and the black part of his heritage has been a huge factor in his attraction and loyalty to Wright.
It’s a cliche, and perhaps an obvious one, but there’s an excellent possibility that Wright, Obama’s pastoral father, stands in the psychological place of the biological father who deserted the young Obama and his white mother. As such, Wright would have filled the gaping psychological hole left by that trauma. Thus the difficulty of breaking with him, even if politically expedient, even if failure to do so would be political suicide. How can Obama desert his own psychological father, Wright, after he searched for him for so long?
Obama said he could no more leave Wright than he could leave his grandmother. I submit that this was not hyperbole; it was a psychological truth. This does not mean Obama shares Wright’s views, but it does explain his cowardice in failing to challenge them back when it would have made a difference, or to condemn them strongly enough when the issue first emerged in the Presidential race.
Explain—but not excuse.
Thank God we’re about to be rid of the dominant neo-con influence that has been destroying our country for the past several years…You’ll again be relegated to the caves from whence you came…..Hey…while your there, let the civilized world know if you run into bin laden….We’ll still be able to read entertainment like this article, but at least it will find it’s way back to the comics and extremist web pages where it belongs….
Marshall shows the love toward his fellow Americans.. cant you feel it?
Marshall spews hate with impunity.. Doesn’t say much for Marshall’s character or values.
Conservatives think Leftists are stupid.
Leftists think Conservatives are evil.. thus it’s legitimate for Leftists to hate and so they do.
Good post, neo. Your analysis fits with my own conclusions about Obama.
Interesting how neo-cons equate disagreeing with them as spewing hate…..Not going to miss you guys, your delusions or your damage to my country when you’re gone….soon…
***The biggest question for Obama in the wake of the Wright controversy is: why didn’t he more forcibly repudiate his pastor, or at least question him?***
Because he agrees with him.
Marshall: So you’re saying that by you saying you’ll be glad that the “neocons” are goign to be banished to caves is a term of endearment?
Can you honestly not see that you went way beyond disagreement? Or has this invective become so commonplace you can’t even see it for what it is?
Marshall:
I used to be a Democrat. People like you drove me from the party.
They used to fear witches, now it is the neo-cons they fear.
Your post assumes that Obama made a huge error in not making a stronger rejection of Wright. I believe that is a bad assumption.
I’m a Brit, and maybe things work differently in America. But our experience is that any group we have previously enslaved, colonised, or otherwise oppressed harbours resentment. And once that oppression is lifted, it takes a generation or three growing up without it for it to fade. Those who experienced it directly (such as Wright) will never be free of its effects, that’s just part of the human nature shared by all of us.
So you have to maintain the worst kind of prejudice to let a few wild comments adversely sway your opinion of such a person’s value as a human being. Yes, even pastors can be allowed to have human failings. I’m not even American, but I know that members of the KKK held responsible roles in the US community, have even gone on to be on the Supreme Court. It should not be controversial for an old black man to talk about the US of KKK. It is not a double standard to cut a once oppressed group more slack than the group that did the oppressing – it is in fact completely rational.
What’s even more amazingly hypocritical is that some of his comments have been made in the white community. When he talks about the blowback theory (chickens roosting etc), he bases it on the comments of a white US ambassador. Of course, the soundbite so many whites have taken offense to does not include such important context. Any objective analysis of the situation requires it be taken into account, and yet it is rarely mentioned.
Like I say, maybe as a Brit I’m missing something. But it seems unlikely, because the fundamentals of the effect of oppression on human nature isn’t likely to change. So I struggle to see what is so terrible about Obama’s decision to value the good in Jeremiah Wright, while condemning such words and beliefs that are negative and divisive. It’s a basic negotiation / reconciliation process to understand that is not only an admirable stance to take, but a necessary one on both sides.
One can only hope that the failure to accept Obama’s response on the issue stems from the simple mistake of failing to think things through. The alternatives are not good: genuine racism, or a lack of desire for America to get over its racial divisions, maybe a smug contentment that the white community has always had the upper hand, perhaps an ignorance of the importance of wealth built up by successive generations. None of these are good, but all are unfortunately very plausible.
What is it with these simple minded Obama apologists thinking they’re so clever and anyone who disagrees is the real simpleton?
These apologists are taking 100% of the statements of the Obama campaign at face value with absolutely no critical thinking.
Listen very closely…. America is probably the least racist country in the world. Most of us have moved on. Somehow it’s the Transracial Uniter Obama and his supporters who are bathing themselves in framing everything in terms of race.
Stop it already! There’s no freaking racism problem. Just because you got some self-loathing guilt about the West doesnt’ mean it’s valid.
Get the f*ck over it.
For those of you who have no information about the political ecosystem of the Hyde Park neighborhood of southside Chicago, it’s all about Black Identity Politics.
There are two locuses of power in the Cook County/City of Chicago Democratic Party Machine.
The City government is under control of the white Richard Daley.
The County government is under control of the black Todd Stroger who is from the South Side
The State of Illinois Senate’s President is a black political Emil Jones from the South Side.
Jesse Jackson Jr is in the US House of Reps.. he’s from South Side.
All of these people form the black Party machine Obama is the circle.. Obama’s church is in the circle. Nation of Islam is in the circle.
The problem with you Leftists is that you’ll whore yourselves to anyone who appeals to your childlike need to have your precious emotions appealed to.
Obama knew the perfect face to put on for you folks. I guess he never expected the MSM to expose him for the black identity politics machine clog that he is.. so he was completely unprepared to address the truth about himself which explained his inconsistant responses earlier this week/last week.
Dont tell me that I’m ignorant or i’m simple minded.
It’s you who are you simple and stupid. This guy says two words “hope” “change” and you’re ejaculating all over yourselfves in a frenzy.
The stupidity in this country is reaching such expansive proportions America deserves Obama.. Yeah, you’ll get change.. You’ll get more change than you ever even conceived is possible. Then you’ll hope that somehow things can be turned back… but it’ll be too late..and your stupidity brought it on us.
To back up what I said, I’m going to post two things.
This here is a story that describes the circle in Cook County that launched Obama from a nobody to US Senator, orchastrated by the President of the Illinois Senate.
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Then, in 2002, dissatisfaction with President Bush and Republicans on the national and local levels led to a Democratic sweep of nearly every lever of Illinois state government. For the first time in 26 years, Illinois Democrats controlled the governor’s office as well as both legislative chambers.
The white, race-baiting, hard-right Republican Illinois Senate Majority Leader James “Pate” Philip was replaced by Emil Jones Jr., a gravel-voiced, dark-skinned African-American known for chain-smoking cigarettes on the Senate floor.
Jones had served in the Illinois Legislature for three decades. He represented a district on the Chicago South Side not far from Obama’s. He became Obama’s kingmaker.
Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city’s most popular black call-in radio program.
I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:
“He said, ‘Cliff, I’m gonna make me a U.S. Senator.'”
“Oh, you are? Who might that be?”
“Barack Obama.”
Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.
“I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen,” State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. “Barack didn’t have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.
“I don’t consider it bill jacking,” Hendon told me. “But no one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the one-yard line, and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and the stats in the record book.”
During his seventh and final year in the state Senate, Obama’s stats soared. He sponsored a whopping 26 bills passed into law – including many he now cites in his presidential campaign when attacked as inexperienced.
It was a stunning achievement that started him on the path of national politics – and he couldn’t have done it without Jones.
Before Obama ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, he was virtually unknown even in his own state. Polls showed fewer than 20 percent of Illinois voters had ever heard of Barack Obama.
Jones further helped raise Obama’s profile by having him craft legislation addressing the day-to-day tragedies that dominated local news headlines.
For instance. Obama sponsored a bill banning the use of the diet supplement ephedra, which killed a Northwestern University football player, and another one preventing the use of pepper spray or pyrotechnics in nightclubs in the wake of the deaths of 21 people during a stampede at a Chicago nightclub. Both stories had received national attention and extensive local coverage.
I spoke to Jones earlier this week and he confirmed his conversation with Kelley, adding that he gave Obama the legislation because he believed in Obama’s ability to negotiate with Democrats and Republicans on divisive issues.
So how has Obama repaid Jones?
Last June, to prove his commitment to government transparency, Obama released a comprehensive list of his earmark requests for fiscal year 2008. It comprised more than $300 million in pet projects for Illinois, including tens of millions for Jones’s Senate district.
Shortly after Jones became Senate president, I remember asking his view on pork-barrel spending.
I’ll never forget what he said:
“Some call it pork; I call it steak.”
And here is more information on the Machine politics between Obama and the Daley/City of CHicago wing
http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2008/03/09/was-there-an-obama-daley-deal-on-presidency/
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Daley called Obama in for a series of meetings that lasted two months. Obama’s major problem with Daley was that he was a corrupt sonnovabith, having just seen 4 of his top aides convicted in the city’s largest patronage scandal. It seemed a given that the squeaky clean Obama would endorse the candidate promising to clean up city hall.
Then, in late December of 2007, the tumblers all clicked into place and Daley made his nearly unprecedented endorsement of Obama for president. About the same time, it was announced that his brother Bill would be going to work for the Obama campaign.
It is hard to overstate the coup Obama pulled off by getting both Daleys on his side. Bill Daley has a rolodex of Democratic contributors that could rival Hillary and Bill’s. It would be an interesting counterfactual to imagine the Obama campaign’s finances without the younger Daley.
So what did Obama promise in return?
In effect, Obama surrendered to the Machine by promising to endorse its corrupt mayor rather than his reform minded challenger (commentary in parenthesis):
That’s not all. A couple of months later, Obama endorsed another crook from the Machine:
Though it didn’t make national news, Obama inflamed many residents in his old state Senate district last March when he endorsed controversial Chicago alderman Dorothy Tillman in a runoff election.
This behavior is not unusual for Obama if you examine the record. To wit:
1. His very first race for state senate, he used the time honored Machine tactic of challenging the nominating petitions of every other candidate, getting all 4 of them removed from the ballot.
2. He cultivated a relationship with the ancient President of the Illinois State Senate Emil Jones who told a colleague in 2002 after the Democrats swept into office “I’m gonna make me a senator.” Jones then proceeded to give Obama credit on the passage of 26 key legislative measures — almost all of which had been pushed by other state senators for years — thus giving Obama a record of sorts to go with all that charisma. Obama calls Jones his “political godfather.”
3. While in the Senate, Obama has had numerous opportunities to live up to his promised “post partisan” reforms and has never — repeat never — participated in any bi-partisan agreement reached by Democrats and Republicans on any issue. He has gone so far as to reject the outcomes of those compromises on immigration reform and an agreement on confirming federal judges.
4. When faced with a choice between supporting a mayoral candidate who stood for clean government and the corruption of the Chicago Machine, Obama chose old fashioned power politics.
Obama’s political career is replete with examples of opportunism, cynical deal making, hack politics, and business as usual relationships with crooks and scam artists like Tony Rezko. His entire presidential campaign is built on a lie; that he is a different kind of politician and will be able to change the way business is done in Washington.
When given the opportunity in the past, Obama has usually chosen doing things the old fashioned way. Why in God’s name should we believe him now? Did he try and “reform” Chicago politics? Did he try and “reform” the Senate while his colleagues worked on bi-partisan agreements on vital issues?
You can support the man’s policies without holding him up (and throwing in our faces) the idea he is some kind of “new” politician who will change everyone’s lives. And if he keeps pushing that meme, he will look like the emperor with no clothes as facts about his relationships with various shady Chicago characters come to light, giving the lie to his grandiose claims like “We are the change that we are seeking.”
Now all that stuff I posted.. those are the facts…
So you Obama supporters.. use your brains a little bit and tell me.. how do you reconcile Obama the Messianic Motivational Speaker you know.. and Obama , pawn of Emil Jones and Richard Daley, you don’t know.
Now remember , the challenge to you was to “use your brains”.. So dont take the cheap way out and turn the tables on me … dont talk about anyone except Obama.
Tell us.. how do you reconcile these two faces?
Gee Johnathon thank you for the lecture. It is always enlightening to get the British perspective.
As it happens, I have worked rather extensively in the U.K. and I am all too familiar with the the fairly common English attitude toward those with “brown” or “black” skin; as well as those who wear “rags” on their heads. If you are not familiar with this prejudice, then I suggest you leave the cloistered halls in which you find yourself and sample your national culture.
I believe the United States has worked very hard to come to grips with the ramifications of our mult-ethnicity. But, constructive criticism from superior cultures is always–well if not welcomed, at least expected.
Correct my last sentence. I should have written “cultures that presume superiority”.
Vince…
Apparently metaphor isn’t one of your neo-con strengths, so I’ll explain….My “cave” comment means you will be removed from positions of power and influence in our government and can do less harm….and the bin laden comment means you tough guys never caught the guy responsible for 9/11 because you were too busy with your hidden agenda. I’ll try to keep my posts simpler if that helps….
And as far as invective goes, yep…I’m pretty tee-ed off at how you guys have exploited fear and ignorance and appealed to the worst in us all…..I didn’t realize you were so sensitive and well mannered, what with having Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld as your poster boys for appropriate behavior…
I would seriously question your “least racist nation in the world” comment, but more to the point, please clarify what level of racism is ok with you…Don’t worry, Vince….Us middle-aged white guys will protect you from the big, scary black guys…..and would “simple-minded” qualify as invective or is it ok because it’s coming from you..??
Maybe you’d be able to make a more rational argument if you listened to something longer and less biased than Fox News soundbites, ’cause, golly, I may be simple, but I’ve heard Senator Obama use all kinds of words…even big ones….with a whole lot of meaning….
And Terrye…as a life-long independent, I’m sorry to hear about your career as a democrat….Maybe if you didn’t feel the need to join a club you could think more clearly for yourself and not be “driven out” of anything…..If I accept what you say about dems being afraid of witches, I would have to add that the neo-cons were the ones doing the burning. I have no idea what fear you’re talking about….I disagree with you ( I know disagreement is not an acceptable neo-con term ) and the essentially un-Ameican way you guys think our country should do business and I strongly argue against it, but fear doesn’t come into it….
Love your guilt by association, Barb…..I guess you can only hang out with people you agree 100% with if you’re a neo-con.
And note to blog….Everyone please be aware than what Vince posts is FACT….He said so himself……
Marshall you sure type a lot to say so little.
Watch out for carpal tunnel. It is a bitch. But then again it must already be a bitch to be so angry and so powerless.
Marshall: I was never a Liberal.. So you can call me a “neocon” all you want… it doesn’t apply to me.
Thank you for changing the subject to the Bush Adminstration.
In other words, my points stand.
Wow…Impressive responses, guys….
You really need to look up the meaning of “neo-con”, Vince.
Brief enough for ya, Oldflyer ?
ne·o·con·serv·a·tism /ËŒnioÊŠkÉ™nˈsÉœrvəˌtɪzÉ™m/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[nee-oh-kuhn-sur-vuh-tiz-uhm] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation
—noun moderate political conservatism espoused or advocated by former liberals or socialists.
——————————————————————————–
[Origin: 1960—65; neo- + conservatism]
Which is precisely what I said. So maybe you should look it up.
I don’t believe Obama is an especially troubled or disturbed person. But I do believe he has some unresolved issues (to use popular psychobabble) that are markedly affecting his run for the Presidency.
Obama definitely has issues: the Man Without a Country, the man who has never belonged, who has fit in chameleon-like to whatever environment he finds himself. Given the many divisions in his childhood, this is perhaps inevitable. Given what I have observed of caretakers of one race raising a child of another or mixed race, Obama has turned out remarkably well.
I know of two cases of interracial adoptions from my childhood, where white professionals adopted an Asian child in one case, and a Black child in the other case. There was plenty of love from the parents, but the reality was that having one racial identity when the parents had another was a difficult matter, and the children suffered in later life for not having been prepared for how people outside the family might treat them.
The Asian child fit in quite well in a prosperous northeast suburb. However, when the family moved to California for a year, where Asians and Whites were expected to socialize with their race, this created problems for the adopted Asian child, who heretofore had never any experience with being categorized as an Asian. She ended up years later killing herself. The Black child adopted by white professionals, living in a 99+% white environment, identified with his white parents, and later had difficulty in being viewed as a Black. A Black friend from childhood informed me that when visiting the Black child adopted by white parents, who lived in a different town, that the Black adoptee had the attitude: what are you doing here? The Black child adopted by white professionals ended up in prison.
IOW, while parents or grandparents can offer love and care in raising a child of another or mixed race, the child may face problems in being treated differently outside the family circle due to the child’s race. Caretakers need to take this into account, and educate the child accordingly.
Obama’s living overseas, while it was definitely alienating for him, giving him the feeling that he did not belong anywhere , prepared him for life in the US, where he would have to cross boundaries. Being treated as an American and also as a Mixed Race when in Indonesia prepared him for the way that American society would treat him differently from his White mother and grandparents. While Obama has issues, and I would not vote for him, given my Ex-Liberal political beliefs, he has shown remarkable resiliency in coping with a wide variety of issues in his childhood. His mother and especially his grandparents deserve high praise for how well Barak Obama has turned out. ( But I still will not vote for him.)
I find it interesting how quite a few Obama supporters have extolled us critics to be more informed about Obama, because obviously to be against Obama must mean that we know nothing about him.
So I provide some pretty interesting history that I know a typical Obama supporter is not aware of … and now suddenly they are silent.
Obama supporters where have you gone? Why are you so silent?
Marshall blessedly brief. But, I believe Vince P. put the ball in your court. Don’t you hate it when someone throws facts into a perfectly good diatribe?
Such sentimentalities will get many Americans killed should Obama become President.
Interesting how neo-cons equate disagreeing with them as spewing hate…..Not going to miss you guys, your delusions or your damage to my country when you’re gone….soon…
Strikingly classic case of projection. Neocon’s post is the mildest sort of criticism — even to the point of almost excusing Obama — but it’s seen as “spewing hate.”
Allowing politics to play too large a part in the personal psychological landscape is a flaw possessed and exhibited by both sides but my personal observation, reading both right and left blogs, is that it’s displayed a bit more by the left.
Notice the unstated assumption that the writer OWNS America(“my country”). What are we — interlopers? The “gone….soon..” is a bit chilling and makes the worship of Messiah Obama all the more bothersome. This is the same vein of pathology that Hitler exploited.
I believe that deep inside their own psyches the left realizes the damage they do but that they channel this frightening realization toward the right — thus the hyperbole, the hatred, the perverse desire to rip apart the social fabric, to elevate certain personages(defined as anyone against the evil US — past, present or future) to hero status: Che Guevara posters, anyone?
If only “progressives” invested directing their hate toward the true enemies of this country, our enemy would be on the run.
It is not a double standard to cut a once oppressed group more slack than the group that did the oppressing – it is in fact completely rational.
Thus the Brits have Londonistan, an epidemic of home-grown terrorists and ‘no-go’ areas for British police. Here’s hoping that it doesn’t happen here in the US.
“This does not mean Obama shares Wright’s views, but it does explain his cowardice in failing to challenge them…”
On the contrary, this is a highly educated, experienced, very sophisticated and successful man. It is impossible to believe he didn’t completely share Wright’s views, he has ardently supported and promoted Wright, in a very personal and active way, for two decades. But he is also a dedicated political chameleon, who will say or do what it takes to prevail politically, anytime, anyplace, with anyone; a real life manchurian candidate.
Jonathan, you make some truly insightful observations, but at the end of the day this “race” controversy is much bigger than the issue of white/colonial racism and it’s social and psychological legacy. Framing it in that narrow context, to the point of rationalizing and excusing blatant intellectual dishonesty, dangerously obfuscates the broader complexities and issues at stake here. 9-11, Iraq, the undeniable Islamic world domination agenda, Communist Chinese ambitions, the obscure but profoundly symptomatic incidents of harrassment of English clerics (identified by their collars) by muslim punks, etc. have zero to do with white racism and everything to do with the issues that Obama, and his vague platitudes, is not adequately addressing. Blowhards (“Don’t worry, Vince….Us middle-aged white guys will protect you from the big, scary black guys…..”), with remarkably simplistic perspective, like Marshall, who mostly banter and rant endlessly about “neocons” in lieu of addressing authentic issues, conveniently ignore the realities and gravity that this presidential race, and bigger geopolitical-religious confrontation is about. Of course who could possibly be seriously concerned with a few loose nukes in the hands of the nut job in Iran, when the latest NIE study guarantees there’s on problem, especially when the sky is falling…
Correction to last sentence (above):
Of course who (people like Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense and Cheney, Vice-President) could possibly be seriously concerned with a few loose nukes in the hands of the nut job in Iran? When the latest MSM interpretation of the latest NIE study guarantees there’s really no problem, what, me worry? Especially when the sky is falling…
Johnathon.
The issue is not where the resentment comes from (shouldn’t we all just move on?). The problem is that the clowns who hold these resentments get elected to public office and then act on the basis of these resentments.
This is a Very Bad Thing.
I think it is important that Obama not disown Wright. In personal terms, its almost inhuman to expect him to do the politically expedient thing and break from his “spiritual father”, but the thing is that if Obama does that he will be seen by every black person who has sympathy for Wrights attitude as selling out – it will destroy any potential he has to show them that it is an attitude rooted in another time and that black people now have the same opportunity as anyone in America. Barack need only to say Wright is wrong, and to prove him wrong – this is the most powerful thing he could do.
Somewhat relatedly, I think it must be very validating to blacks who feel racial resentment to see how touchy white America was to Obama’s “typical white person” charachterization. I can’t help but think that it could actually do good for racial harmony in the states (I’m Canadian) for blacks to realize that whites are sensitive – even vulnerable – to racial stereotypes too, and even when they are obviously true.
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