Hannity, Fox News now criticize Obama for speaking out against Wright

 

In new political commentary that itself seems more than a little disingenuous, Sean Hannity on his radio show today and numerous pundits on Fox News are now saying that Obama is disingenuous for speaking out against his former pastor.

 

On his radio program today Hannity repeatedly emphasized that Obama defended Wright's comment last month and right up until a few days ago, so it's blatant dishonesty for Senator Obama to suddenly denounce them. Of course the problem here is that as usual Sean has his facts wrong, whether it's because he's deliberately trying to mislead his audience or because he's just naturally stupid I won't deign to speculate.

 

In fact, Senator Obama defended Reverend Wright — the man himself — as someone who had helped the poor and done many great things for his community, but Obama was from the very beginning unswervingly clear that he denounced the controversial statements Wright appeared to be making in the sound bites playing on the news.

 

Hannity and many of the other pundits query, "So what's changed?" — a question to which the answer should be so blatantly obvious to these supposed journalists that they should probably be flogged, or subjected to whatever form of torture their hero Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says is legal (because according to Scalia, torture may be "Cruel and Unusual" but in his view it's not "Punishment" so it's completely Constitutional). The flogging would not be "punishment". It would be torture for the personal amusement of the many people in this country who are sick of the constancy of their disingenuity.

 

What has changed is that Wright said in no uncertain terms, on more than one occasion over the past several days, that he doesn't think Senator Obama disagrees with his views. He just thinks Obama "said what a politician had to say" in order to get elected. Senator Obama wanted to make it clear that he does in fact disagree with Wright's controversial views and he is beginning to see from Reverend Wright's recent actions that the Reverend is too wrapped up in his own views about race in this country to even open his mind to the possibility Obama is striving for: Transcending race, with the entire nation coming together.

 

In fact, even Sean Hannity seems to agree that Wright is deliberately trying to sabotage Obama's campaign. The general consensus is that Wright wants to prove race is still very much an issue in this country, Obama wants to prove we can transcend the issue of race, and Wright's ego and personal beliefs are driving him to do as much damage to Senator Obama's campaign as possible.

 

Oddly though, despite the general agreement that Wright must know he is damaging Obama's campaign and is likely doing it deliberately, Sean Hannity and many other conservative pundits have decided to believe Wright's insinuations that Obama secretly agrees with his views — despite all evidence to the contrary. Anyone who has ever actually listened to Senator Obama speak with an open mind would know that he doesn't agree with any Wright's divisive views or divisive politics.

 

So as usual Hannity and his colleagues are promoting theories that only make sense if you completely ignore some of the facts (like Obama never defended Wright's comments, and in fact denounced them) and place extreme importance on other facts, like Obama went to Wright's church for 20 years. That means (according to Hannity & co.) Obama must not only have heard Wright make these comments, but that he also secretly agrees with them.

 

Let's take a look at the facts. Wright was the pastor of that Church for about thirty years. After thirty years of preaching, someone was able to find a handful of soundbites that were offensive. I'm not sure how long they've been recording the masses, but in the interest of being fair to Mr. Hannity let's say they were recording them for only ten years. That's over 500 Sunday morning masses. So in over 500 preaching sessions, the conservative media (and Clinton supporters) have only been able to dig out less than two minutes of quotes that can be deemed "controversial".

 

So, with less than two minutes of "controversial" statements in over 500 Sunday morning masses I'd have to say it's downright silly to assume that everyone who goes to this Church agrees with those views, it's ridiculous to assume everyone who goes to the Church even heard Wright say those things.

 

I mean, to hear Wright's detractors tell it, you'd think the man was spreading this sort of vitriol every week, but if that were the case then let's see more recordings! They've got basically three statements they say are controversial, and two of them (as I wrote in my last article) aren't even that controversial! Three statements in 10 years, 500+ Sunday masses. That's not even enough to suggest it's typical of Wright — and many of Wright's parishoners have said it absolutely not typical of the man they know — so it's even more farfetched to make the claim that these statements have something to do with Senator Obama's beliefs.

 

In a nutshell: These ultra-right-wingers are painting Obama with colors that aren't even in their paint set. Believe anything they say at your own risk.