Thank goodness it's just a flap

The Globe finally started covering the Jeremiah Wright story after Obama’s speech gave them something they could equivocate about. Today’s front page headline is, “Voters' views diverge over Obama flap.”

Nice to dream about this catastrophe being a “flap,” but I don’t think it’s going to play out as a minor fracas. I think it’s the end for Obama.

A common theme expressed by people who still plan to vote for Obama is that “the black anger Wright has expressed is understandable.” To begin with, I don’t think there’s much justification for black anger in 2008. This fall I volunteered to drive a number of African-American kids to interviews at prep schools in the area—Phillips Andover, Governors, Holderness, etc. The admission directors were all so eager to increase their “diversity” percentages. To think of these kids as somehow discriminated against is ridiculous. It’s true these were a tiny percentage of kids from bad inner city (i.e., black) schools who managed to get out, so the counter-argument would be that institutional racism holds the rest back. I don’t buy it, but, as the Obama voter said, I haven’t walked a mile in their shoes so I don’t understand. It’s possible.

More importantly, even if some lingering justification for black anger remains in today’s America, Jeremiah Wright would not be at the center of this controversy is he was simply an angry crusader seeking to right the wrongs done against black people. This describes Martin Luther King, not Jeremiah Wright. His sermons are filled with hate, racism and twisted lies about his own country. He makes perpetual whiner and liar Al Sharpton look moderate and rational. Wright is in league with Louis Farrakhan, and they both are evil men.

The Globe quoted another Obama voter, who said, "I don't really care what someone's religious affiliation is," she said, asserting that younger generations are more tolerant of racial diversity.” I will forgive this member of the younger generation for being so clueless to think that hate speech against white America is “tolerant.” But we might consider changing the voting age to 30.