Obama’s sleight of hand

Well, nobody can say Barack Obama doesn’t give good speech. (In case you missed it, here’s the transcript.)

Obama addressed the nation this morning and did a superb job of glossing over his little problem with his racist, anti-American pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Like a stage magician who gets you to watch his right hand while he palms a card with his left, Obama “addressed” Wright’s speeches that have recently gotten his campaign in trouble without ever really addressing them.

Last week, when the controversy over videos of his pastor first broke, Obama initially denied that he ever heard words like that from his pastor, but he condemned the words anyway. Then as more of Wright’s anti-Americanism came out, the Obama campaign quietly removed Wright from its committee, but still Obama did not renounce the man he has called a friend and mentor.

Then, Newsmax found in its archives a story that placed Obama in the pews, nodding in agreement, during one of Wright’s profanity-laced sermons at Trinity church in Chicago. Almost immediately, the Obama campaign, echoed by all the major liberal blogs on the Internet, said the senator was in Florida that day and produced a video and travel schedule to back it up. The Newsmax writer who attended the sermon with Obama appeared to back off a bit from the date, but insisted the story was true.

When it was shown that the Washington Post had Obama in Chicago the morning of July 22, the campaign finally admitted the senator was in town, but insisted he didn’t go to church.

This morning, from Obama’s speech:

Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.

In other words, Obama lied about never hearing his pastor spout his racist, anti-American views. And he lied about not being in the church, when and where Newsmax placed him.

Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

He “disagreed” with his pastor, yet he was there in the pew, nodding in agreement, and he has been returning to that church for 20 years. I don’t know about you, but if I “strongly disagree” with a pastor, I don’t attend his church for two decades. So, Obama is lying again, we may assume. That’s three lies just in the space of one paragraph.

In the next breath, he summarizes what he has “strongly disagreed” with from the pew for the past 20 years:

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

And yet, the man who holds those views has been his mentor and adviser for years. Liberals are cooing over Obama’s bravery at dissing his pastor publicly like this, but note Obama still hasn’t distanced himself from the man. It’s one of those “non-denial denials” politicians are so good at, designed to appeal to conservatives, whites and Jews. (And I wouldn’t be surprised if he spent the rest of the day kissing up to his Muslim supporters.)

Then, Obama lists all the reasons his pastor is really a swell guy, including being a Marine veteran, studying at various universities, providing day care, etc. I’m sure David Duke probably has some fine qualities as well, but any politician who claimed him as an adviser never would have made it past the first primary. At the risk of being dubbed racist like Geraldine Ferraro, it’s obvious the media excuse a lot because of Obama’s skin color.

And Obama spent much of the rest of the speech explaining why they, and the rest of America, should gloss over Wright’s overt, and Obama’s implicit, anti-American racism. To be sure, he does make some valid points, but they are only partial truths. For example, blaming the sad state of schools: a valid complaint in all communities, but especially in poor — not black, poor — neighborhoods. Lousy public schools encourage ignorance, crime and an unending cycle of misery. But now ask yourself: Who’s running the schools? Liberals. Whose beliefs shape school curricula more than anyone else’s? Liberals’. Whose representatives fight hardest to keep the status quo in schools? Liberals.

Our schools do need radical change, but it won’t happen just by throwing money at them, as the Democrats, including Obama, are wont to do.

Then Obama cites lack of opportunity, also something that rings true:

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened.

And whose party is the biggest supporter of welfare, and the biggest opponent of policies to shore up families? Liberals’.

Incredibly, at one point, Obama calls Wright’s views conservative. Then he tries to draw a connection between the anti-American, racist views of a Jeremiah Wright and the sort of resentment workers (Obama specifies white workers) when corporations cut jobs, steal pensions and get away with illegal business practices.

Noticeably lacking from Obama’s snow job was anything approaching an apology for his poor judgment. When President Bush gave one speech at Bob Jones University, liberals in Congress demanded he apologize for spending an afternoon there. One would think a few words of apology, therefore, might be owed by Obama for his 20 years of endorsing Wright’s radicalism.

But you aren’t likely to get it. When he couldn’t lie his way out of association with Wright, Obama finally made one thing clear: he sees black racism and anti-Americanism as justified.

If you could get the truth from this man, I suspect you would learn he feels those views are justified because they are his own views.