Wright Talk

From the perspective of Sen. Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Rev. Jeremiah Wright's decision to speak publicly about the controversial soundbites and snippets culled from sermons could not have come at a worse time. Obama has seen his meteoric rise derailed, at least temporarily, by Wright's statements and Obama's ill-conceived remarks about the bitterness of white blue collar workers in Pennsylvania. What resulted was a re-energized Hillary Clinton eagerly pouncing on Obama's remark as "elitist" and"out-of-touch" with those voters. And despite outspending Clinton by at least a 3 to 1 margin, Obama lost by a margin slightly less than 10 percent. Now comes an unapologetic Rev. Wright to set the record straight; first on PBS with Bill Moyers last Friday, Sunday in Detroit at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner, and today at the Washington Press Club. At each venue, Rev. Wright has demonstrated that he is far more substantive and complex than his detractors are willing to give him credit for and hardly the ranting racist portrayed in the seemingly never-ending loops featured on cable television and youtube. That being said, while it is understandable that Wright would seek to set the record straight by speaking for himself, his media blitz seems to be more about the pastor's bruised ego and an inflated sense of self-importance as opposed to racial injustice or, as he puts it, an attack on the black church tradition.