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Episode 11: Sen. Obama does the Wright thing and throws his pastor
under the bus
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Sen. Obama doing his best Kennedy impression |
For
our reality series Make Me the President, we scoured the country
to find the most power-hungry, Machiavellian and downright
unattractive people in the United States of America (“The Greatest
Nation On Earth” ™) to find the man, or woman, who could raise the
most money, be willing to break the most promises and offer the
most bland reason to become — The President.
This week on MMTP:
Sen. John “Call me Mr. President already”
McCain took a little trip to
Baghdad this week. Meanwhile, the Team Democrats nominees, Sens.
Barack “Who’s sane?” Obama and Hillary “I coulda been a contender”
Clinton
were busy kicking the crap out of each other. So, McCain got the
photo op to appear all cool and presidential by wearing body armor
and talking to troops fighting in the war zone, while the
remaining Team Democrats contestants fought over each yummy
delegate-flavored cookie like spoiled twin children. This is how
the next few months are going to be for Team Democrats — as they
continue to rip each other apart, Senator McCain will continue to
appear presidential and build on not only the support of his fans,
but also the Team Republicans fan base and the American public in
general.
Fans of Team Democrats found themselves
disenfranchised this week from the primary stages of MMTP
in
Florida.
After trying to come up with a way to make nearly 2 million votes
count and to seat the state’s 211 delegates at the National
Convention, the Florida Democratic Party threw in the beach towel.
Meanwhile,
Michigan
fans look like they may get another chance to cast their votes in
June to seat their 155 delegates; but unless the Democratic
National Committee changes the rules (which the Florida Democratic
Party agreed to), Florida MMTP fans will be out of the
fruit loop. Now, conventional wisdom has been that rules are rules
and they shouldn’t be changed because a couple of state parties
cheated. Well, as advocates for the fans and not the teams or
contestants, we, the producers of MMTP, believe that to
disenfranchise the votes of almost 2 million fans — many of whom
cast their very first votes this season — in a state with so much
voting controversy would be catastrophic. Either count them as
they stand or have the fans vote again; either way, let the good
folk of Florida and Michigan be heard.
Earlier this season (Episode 8), we looked at
Barack Obama’s connections to Rev. Jeremiah Wright and discussed
some of Wright’s more incendiary comments. Well, the mainstream
media finally caught up this past weekend, exposing Wright and
putting Obama on the defensive, which culminated in him giving a
speech in
Philadelphia Tuesday on the subject of race. MMTP caught it
all on camera.
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect
union….” Uh oh, Obama’s plagiarizing again. Just kidding. But he
does quickly go on to say that the Declaration of Independence
“was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery,” which
will, no doubt, piss off some seriously patriotic
my-country-right-or-wrong types. But, he is right, of course, to
point out that the answer to this sin is in the U.S. Constitution,
a constitution that promises equality, liberty and justice for all
under the law.
Barack addressed the Rev. Wright issue,
explaining that he is from a different time and generation, a time
of civil disobedience, protest and struggle, and even though he
does disavow Wright’s words, he notes that, “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 by her on the street, and who, on more than one occasion,
has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”
And
that is Obama’s weapon: his charm, his appeal. It comes from his
ability to cross the divide, to be just as comfortable with the
old-school angry black preacher as he is with the frightened and
confused white worker, with whom he empathizes, as he says, “Their
experience is the immigrant experience — as far as they’re
concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from
scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to
see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a
lifetime of labor.”
He goes on to say, “So when they are told to bus their children to
a school across town, when they hear that an African-American is
getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good
college because of an injustice that they themselves never
committed, when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban
neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over
time.”
Obama talks of those different races working together. “But it
also means binding our particular grievances — for better health
care, and better schools and better jobs — to the larger
aspirations of all Americans, the white woman struggling to break
the glass ceiling, the white man who’s been laid off, the
immigrant trying to feed his family.”
This sentiment reminds us of a former MMTP contestant who
had to face the religious divide between Protestants and Catholics
when competing back in the 1960 season. Then-Sen. John F. Kennedy
said, “There are real issues which should decide this campaign.
And they are not religious issues — for war and hunger and
ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.”
Senator Kennedy went on to win MMTP and overcame the
religious divide, but the racial divisions in this country are
much deeper — more like the Grand Canyon. But, this is America,
and the promise of this great nation is that someone will make it
to the other side. Could it be Obama? Has he done enough? Can we
imagine him sitting behind that desk in the Oval Office? Well, as
long as his actual policies measure up, yes we can!
Tune in next week as we put Hillary Clinton’s
experience under the microscope. We all know that Senator Clinton
is no stranger aboard Air Force One, but does that make her
eligible to call it her own? Let’s find out.
Hail to the Chief!
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