Despite Sympathy for Barack Obama's Grandmother, He's Still Wrong on Wright
I like some things about Barack Obama's grandmother, the one he's jumped off the campaign trail to visit because she is ailing. Madelyn Dunham, now 85, was a trailblazer for women's rights and a woman ahead of her time, according to the Honolulu Advertiser:
While Obama's views on race relations in America were being shaped, his maternal grandmother—Madelyn Dunham, now 85—received a series of promotions at Hawaii's top bank. And in December 1970, she was named one of the first two female vice presidents at the Bank of Hawaii.
Obama's grandparents were integrally involved in raising him. But Obama also used his grandmother to defend his too-long membership in the anti-American church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and that is wrong:
Dunham's views on race were highlighted in a March 18 speech that the Democratic presidential contender gave in Philadelphia designed to both denounce and defend his former, controversial pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
In his speech, Obama linked Wright and Dunham when he said, "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother—a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."
No one should excuse Madelyn Dunham or anyone else for "uttering racial stereotypes," but neither should anyone forgive Obama for failing to quit Wright's church as soon as he heard Wright make the first of his anti-American comments.
Tags: presidential election 2008 | Barack Obama | Jeremiah Wright
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Reader Comments
You all are stupid this is why...
My best friend cheats on her husband, and I do not like this, but she also has done 1000 other good things. Are you all OCD? We are adults and have the ability to filter out the bad things from the good. Isn't that what we do at every election??? Weigh good and bad and decide who has more good? Because NO POLITICIAN is completely perfect. WE R HUMANS and we screw up.
You can be a total LOSER for 40 years and in your last 5 do things most people only dream of for the good of all the people. Stop the HATE, the "Perfectionist" "Nazi" idealism ...cuz there is NO PERFECT PERSON.
Obamas grandmother has nothing to do with the issues she does however have everything to do with the man he has become.She surely didn't mean to die the night before he is elected president.If you think people are going to vote out of sympathy and ignore the issues and principals that this election has raised you are as out of touch as John McCain.I happen to think that Obama is a practical thinker that wants the middle class to finally get a break.I can't worry about what his minister espouses.Who knows what anyones minister believes or says. Most of us don't care. Being a senior citizen I look to the future for my grandchildren and feel strongly that they need to be led in a new and different direction so they can some day obtain the American Dream !
Narrow Mindedness and Right Winged Rigidity are the Real Terrorists
This type of rhectoric is "more of the same" smear tactics and misinterpretation that has marked and continues to mark the McCain Palin ticket and thinking. It is disgusting, based on the timing of Barack Obama's grief over his grandmother's illness and the lack of real understanding of the nuances of his speech at that time. Those who are truly informed and have kept up to date on the issue with the Reverend Wright know that his statements were condemned by Obama. Obviously, this is a desperate move which mars both the reputation of US News and World Report, the reporter, and further damages whatever good is left of the Republican Party. I for one am SICK SICK SICK of these types of attacks, especially when we are a country and world in crisis and in extreme need of a brilliant leader such as Obama. McCain has sold his soul to the devil, and willingly so, just to be elected, and risk the entire country and world with his totally inept choice for the VP candidate. As one who once respected McCain, I can say that he has gone beyond any redeemable point, and the world will celebrate once the election is over and we have Barack Obama at the helm.
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