Recent opinion by Bob Herbert in The New York Times implies that in a decent world, Wright showing up and making his speeches this past week would have been a small paragraph on page 9. But, we live in a world where Republican smear tactics are the norm and blend in perfectly with a pornographic tableau of the entire culture. As long as media companies rely on the generation of fear, hysteria and disbelief in order to generate maximum revenue, it is unlikely that mainstream journalism will be able to ask the tough questions necessary to move past pornography. Even reputable journalists like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews participated in the endless echo chamber of the Rev. Wright “controversy” last week.
There is hope in this opinion by Frank Rich, which suggests that Obama will be able to refute Rev. Wright-based swift-boat style attacks from Republicans. Herbert shows that while everyone is giving McCain a free pass and focused on Hillary’s mad wind-up to defeat, McCain is vulnerable to associations with white televangelist Rev. John Hagee. And, McCain recently praised Jerry Falwell, whose kooky comments about the 9/11 attacks make Rev. Wright look normal.
I wonder if the Obama campaign will draw attention to the fact that Billy Graham spewed anti-Semitic comments and gave advise to Nixon, and yet even with this being in the public record, Hillary Clinton took solace in Graham’s words during the Lewinsky scandal.
Obama should use all this — exposing a double-standard and defusing Wright-inspired “swift-boat” style bombs being hurled by Clinton, Republicans and most mainstream media.
