WSJ on Obama speech
Wall Street Journal editorial on Obama’s speech is critical, as you’d expect, but also quite fair-minded in characterizing the Obama-Wright controversy:
Mr. Obama, of course, is in the midst of a chiefly political crisis. No one honestly believes he shares his minister’s rage, or his political and racial beliefs, which have been seen all over cable news and reveal a deep disgust with America. Mr. Obama’s fault, rather, was to maintain a two-decade entanglement with Mr. Wright without ever seeming to harbor qualms about the causes espoused by his mentor and spiritual guide.
Such complacency couldn’t simply be waved off, as the Senator tried initially to do, because it drills into the core of his political appeal: that he represents new thinking and an attempt to end cultural and racial polarization. Mr. Wright imperils the possibility inherent in the first black candidate who has a genuine shot at the Presidency, in part because race is only an element of the Senator’s political character, not its definition.
JustASC is written by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of the 