The Wright Stuff

I was firmly resisting saying anything about the latest round of ZOMG Surrogatez!1!! at the center of which is video of Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, giving a fiery sermon in support of Obama, which is heavy on race-centered rhetoric. My position is that, despite my disagreement with some of the things Wright says (including his feminist-piquing statement that Hillary "ain't had to work twice as hard just to get accepted"—please, it hasn't been a stroll through a rose garden for her, either, and can we not stop playing that game already?), I'm just bloody done with posting about anything said by any "surrogates" who are not part of the campaigns.

The problem is he's as much a part of Obama's campaign as Ferraro was of Clinton's, holding a "largely honorary, advisory" position on Obama's African American Religious Leadership Committee, and the Obama campaign "couldn't immediately say whether he'd remain on the committee."

Shockingly, not only is Obama not a zomg monster for this zomg outrageous refusal to zomg instantly push Wright from an honorary position, but, somehow, it's still all Clinton's fault. Josh Marshall:

[T]he simple fact is that we wouldn't be seeing this stuff now if it weren't for the fact that this is the kind of campaign Hillary Clinton's campaign has decided to wage -- often directly and at other times indirectly by not reining it in in her supporters when it crops up on its own. Wright is news today because Ferraro's been news yesterday.

Ah, I see. So Hillary must take responsibility for her surrogates and campaign staff, as well as Obama's surrogates and campaign staff, and neither Obama nor Wright have to take responsibility for anything. As long as we're clear on that, then.

That explains why I've never gotten a satisfactory response from the Obama campaign about its co-chair Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s sexist and race-baiting statements about Hillary back in January, before the South Carolina primary. I should have been directing my complaints to Hillary this whole time.

And in case my dripping sarcasm hasn't made it abundantly clear, I would not like to see Obama treated as unfairly as Clinton has been; I would like to see Clinton treated as fairly as Obama has. The world is not ending, nor is Obama being treated like evil incarnate because of this situation. I wonder if we could give Clinton the same respect.