The scandal that refuses to go away, the blunder that cripples a
candidacy, the error that defies every effort at correction -- this
is what the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has become for Sen. Barack Obama's
campaign.
In early March, when an ABC News report pushed Wright's
incendiary sermons into the national news spotlight, it was
possible to believe that the uproar would be a short-lived
controversy.
Americans would be shocked by video footage of Obama's pastor
shouting "God damn America" from his Chicago pulpit, but political
observers reasonably expected the damage would be limited and of
short duration. The candidate would face questions from the media,
he would downplay or disavow the inflammatory remarks, the campaign
would move forward, and the controversy would fade from memory --
such is the standard political playbook for dealing with these
kinds of imbroglios.
That hasn't happened with Wright, however, and the failure of
the Obama campaign to deal properly with this scandal may
ultimately doom Obama's candidacy.
MONDAY AFTERNOON, following Wright's appearance at the National
Press Club, former Clinton adviser Dick Morris appeared on Fox News
and compared Obama's plight to that of Michael Dukakis in 1988 --
but added that, unlike Wright, "at least Willie Horton shut up
[because] he was in prison."
The case of Willie Horton -- the convicted killer who went on a
crime spree after being furloughed under a program defended by
Dukakis -- comes easily to mind in any case of a racially explosive
issue involving a Democratic candidate. Yet the analogy is
ill-suited for the problem that Wright poses to the Obama
campaign.
The Horton case became a legitimate issue in the 1988 campaign
because it touched directly on Dukakis's policies as governor and
thus reflected the candidate's overall stance on criminal justice
issues. No one can yet point to any official action by Obama that
reflects the "black liberation theology" espoused by Wright.
Because of the fundamental irrelevance of Wright's sermons to
Obama's record in public office, it would have been the easiest
thing in the world for the candidate to condemn the pastor's most
outrageous statements and then return to campaigning. Yet that
didn't happen, and Obama has only himself to blame.
A few days after the ABC News broadcast about Wright, Obama
decided to travel to Philadelphia and give a nationally-televised
speech about race, nearly 5,000 words long, during which he
attempted to explain away Wright's rants, saying, "I can no more
disown him than I can disown the black community."
While the Philadelphia speech immediately drew rave reviews from
the media, in hindsight it looks like the first unforced error of
Obama's campaign. If, as Obama suggested, Wright was morally
coterminous with "the black community" -- so that the candidate
could not "disown" one without disowning the other -- then wouldn't
the reverend and his opinions be newsworthy subjects deserving
further scrutiny?
Wright seems to think so, and thus the pastor's recent media
tour, including an appearance with Bill Moyers on PBS, a Sunday
speech to an NAACP meeting in Detroit and the Monday morning event
in Washington. Defending Louis Farrakhan in his National Press Club
appearance -- with notorious anti-Semite Malik Shabazz in
attendance at an event where Nation of Islam members reportedly
provided security -- it was as if Wright was daring Obama to
"disown" him now.
OBAMA'S PREDICAMENT now resembles nothing so much as that faced by
George McGovern in July 1972, after the Democratic presidential
nominee belatedly discovered that his vice-presidential choice,
Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton, had previously been hospitalized for
mental illness.
As with Obama's mishandling of the Wright controversy, the
Eagleton disaster was an unforced error on McGovern's part.
McGovern and his campaign team had dawdled over choosing a running
mate, evidently in the mistaken belief that Ted Kennedy could be
talked into taking the No. 2 spot.
When Kennedy finally gave a definitive "no," and other top
possibilities also declined, the McGovern campaign scrambled and
came up with Eagleton. There was no time for a background check and
when Eagleton was asked if he had any skeletons in his closet, he
said he didn't -- even though he'd been hospitalized three times
for severe depression and had twice undergone electroshock
therapy.
It was only after he'd been nominated as vice president that
journalists began reporting about Eagleton's history of mental
illness. Rather than to take responsibilty for his deception and
resign from the ticket, however, Eagleton tried to hang on. The
Democratic campaign endured more than a week of agonizing limbo --
at one point, McGovern famously declared he was behind Eagleton
"1,000 percent" -- before Eagleton was finally forced out.
Some say Richard Nixon would have been re-elected in 1972 no
matter what, but McGovern's mishandling of the Eagleton affair
destroyed whatever hope the Democrats had.
OBAMA'S MISHANDLING of the Wright controversy resembles the
Eagleton affair in that it reveals a lack of foresight and
preparation. Wright's sermons were available for sale on DVD, and
Ronald Kessler of NewsMax.com had reported about Wright's
controversial views as early as January. Yet when the ABC News
story broke in March, the Obama campaign appeared to be caught
flat-footed.
Much like McGovern's initial "1,000 percent" support of Eagleton
-- which only encouraged Eagleton's attempts to stay on the ticket
-- Obama's Philadelphia speech defending Wright has prolonged the
crisis, with Wright now refusing to leave the spotlight.
And, like McGovern in '72, Obama finds himself with no good
options. If he fails to repudiate Wright's racialized theology,
Obama can't hope to win in November -- and Sen. Hillary Clinton's
campaign has made "electability" a crucial part of her appeal to
the superdelegates who will ultimately choose the Democratic
nominee. But if Obama does repudiate Wright, it will contradict his
earlier statement that doing so would be to "disavow the black
community."
Obama could have put this controversy behind him six weeks ago.
Instead, the candidate of Hope and Change allowed it to mushroom
into a crisis that threatens to undermine whatever hope for change
the Democrats might have in 2008.
topics:
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Islam
