HOW TO DESTROY A PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

We've been pondering why the pastor of a presidential candidate would so blatantly undermine the candidate's campaign for the White House. Who most benefits from the reverend's devastating remarks made at the National Press Club, the NAACP banquet, and on Bill Moyer's PBS interview?

Wright has killed Obama's chances. No doubt about it. What can Obama (or his guru David Axelrod) say that will fix this? Rev. Jeremiah Wright has figuratively ripped off Obama's clothes to reveal him for the empty-suited politician we always knew he was. This shitstorm is exactly what Barack doesn't need.

We strongly suspected that Rev. Jeremiah Wright might have been miffed enough -- insulted might be the better word -- at Obama's disinvitation to his Big Announcement that this was Wright's "get back atcha" moment.

And it doesn't take a Cape Canaveral rocket scientist to figure out that the beneficiary of all this is Her Royal Pantsuit. And the racist reverend himself. (Look for a book deal with a hefty advance soon).

Wright's ego is cock-of-the-walk huge, but is it so large as to obscure the devastating impact he's having on one of his own? Who, despite all the talk of Black oppression, undermines this historic opportunity for a man of color with a real shot at the highest office in the land? What is Wright thinking?

Well, as the adage goes, everything comes out in the wash. And so it has. Today we're learning more about the saga. A very probable reason Rev. Wright was given such a highly visible venue with which to bury Obama might have come from a Hillary supporter. Quelle sur-preeze!

Here's AJ Strata's take on it. I think he's "wright" on the money:

"In my post this morning about Reverend Wright I hinted that this smelled of a Clinton hit piece, and that somehow ‘Ol Jeremiah had become aligned with Clinton - maybe for some favors and some green. It seems I was not far off the mark:

Shortly before he rose to deliver his rambling, angry, sarcastic remarks at the National Press Club Monday, Wright sat next to, and chatted with, Barbara Reynolds.

A former editorial board member at USA Today, she runs something called Reynolds News Services and teaches ministry at the Howard University School of Divinity. (She is an ordained minister).

It also turns out that Reynolds - introduced Monday as a member of the National Press Club “who organized” the event - is an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter.

On a blog linked to her Web site- www.reynoldsnews.com- Reynolds said in a February post: “My vote for Hillary in the Maryland primary was my way of saying thank you” to Clinton and her husband for the successes of Bill Clinton’s presidency.

I predicted the Clintons would do whatever it would take to win the nomination, and that includes turing allies against Obama. It seems Rev Wright has decided to switch camps undermine his one-time parishioner, which he has done. The black community could split wide open over this act of betrayal.

I rarely find anything to agree with Bob Herbert on - he is so liberal I sometimes think we live on different planets. But today Herbert seems to be right on the mark as he exposes the dirty little secret about Jeremiah Wright’s sudden notoriety.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Monday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him.

Smiling, cracking corny jokes, mugging it up for the big-time news media — this reverend is never going away. He’s found himself a national platform, and he’s loving it.

It’s a twofer. Feeling dissed by Senator Obama, Mr. Wright gets revenge on his former follower while bathed in a spotlight brighter than any he could ever have imagined. He’s living a narcissist’s dream. At long last, his 15 minutes have arrived.

…

What he is succeeding in doing is diminishing the stature of Senator Obama. A candidate who stands haplessly by as his former spiritual guide roams the country dropping one divisive bomb after another is in very little danger of being seen by most voters as the next J.F.K. or L.B.J.

The thing to keep in mind about Rev. Wright is that he is a smart fellow. He’s been a very savvy operator, politically and otherwise, for decades. He has built a thriving, politically connected congregation on the South Side of Chicago that has done some very good work over the years. Powerful people have turned to him for guidance and advice.

So it’s not like he’s naïve politically. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Forget the gibberish about responding to attacks on the black church. That is not what the reverend’s appearance before the press club was about. He was responding to what he perceives as an attack on him.

[...]

Herbert is right about Wright. I think the man could not stand being shunted off to the sidelines by Obama, one of his own flock (and I am sure he thinks he ‘owns’ his flock). Wright has found the spotlight to reaffirm his beliefs and show America the wonders of his insights. Wright is so enamored with himself (whereas he used to be so enamored with his work in the community) he probably cannot envision the collective shudder that is going through the nation as he babbles on about his fanciful liberal world view.

And I do think he is paying back Obama for the slight of being rebuffed. Poor Obama delayed his action as long as possible, but Wright’s dementia could not be kept off the airwaves. A dementia so firmly fixed Wright even joked about being Barack’s Vice President. Obama now has to stand up and defend himself and defend this nation. He cannot let Wright make him look like the light weight. It doesn’t matter how much he cares for the one time Wonder Boy of South Side Chicago. Only one of them will be left standing - and I expect Jeremiah Wright is too smart, too bitter and completely unrestrained by the mandates of a presidential election for Obama to be able to handle.

This is the irony of it all - Obama felled by one of his own most trusted advisors. Not by white racism but by the anger of a black racist. Now if someone wants to run with wild conspiracy theories one could ask what did the Clintons offer Jeremiah Wright to go on his little revenge road show? Or is it just that Clinton ‘luck’ coming through in the last moments of a near dead campaign?"


Michelle Malkin weighs in with more info at her site.

I wouldn’t give the press so much conspiratorial credit.

They’re not evil puppet-masters. They’re just idiots. That appearance yesterday wasn’t about intentionally helping or hurting Obama. It was all about aggrandizing Jeremiah, Jeremiah, Jeremiah. And in that task, they succeeded phenomenally. As for being “caricatured and vilified unfairly,” after yesterday’s command performance, I can’t see how Louis can call it unfair to treat Wright as the strutting, ranting loon we always took him to be.

Yep, it's all coming out in the wash. Obama's "Hope" is fading as his candidacy swirls down the drain, like so much dirty wash water. What was it I said yesterday? Oh, yeah. "Too bad. So sad."

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FOUND TREASURE...

"Apropos the fact that Wright’s mental perambulations are really horrible for Obama, some are wondering whether Wright, either out of spite because Obama shunned him or out of avarice because there’s money somewhere, is trying to line himself up with the Clinton faction. If that’s the case, Shakespeare couldn’t have done any better with a plot of ego, avarice, and treachery." Bookworm Room

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