Wright and Moyers

The Nightly Build...

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Rev. Wright and the Right Wing Spin Machine

Now that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has talked in public for the first time since the furor caused by airing sound bites from his sermons, the right wing spin machine is in overdrive again, reading between the lines to tell us what Wright really meant in his interview with Bill Moyers. Mike Hashimoto, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, asks, "was that entire 'race in America' speech delivered 'as a politician'? And is the implication that we should have fallen for it only as far as that goes?" A reader replies "Obama just got thrown under the bus by his pastor!"

All that just from Wright calling Obama a politician. Let's look at the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's quote in context, to see if Wright considers politics the dirty word that Obama's detractors want to make it.

"He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. Those are two different worlds. I do what I do. He does what politicians do. So that what happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the sound bites, he responded as a politician. But he did not disown me because I'm a pastor. ... I don't talk to him about politics. And so here at a political event, he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of god about the things of God."

If one believes that politician is synonymous with liar, and pastor is synonymous with truth-teller, then what Wright said is unflattering to Obama. But Wright didn't say that. Wright, in fact, praised what Obama said "as a politician." Wright went on:

"In Philadelphia Senator Obama made a very powerful speech in terms of our need as a nation to address the whole issue of race. That's something good that's already starting."

For Obama's detractors to now say that Wright was criticizing politics or Obama as a politician requires reading a whole lot into Wright's words that simply isn't there. Wright simply explained separation of church and state, which was good for America in Thomas Jefferson's day and is still good for American today. But it's not good for the right wing spin machine's interpretation of reality.