The Wrongheaded Reverend Wright

The media are reporting that Mr. Obama is outraged by his former pastor's remarks and that he is seeking to distance himself from them.  In discussing Mr. Obama's reaction, Reuters described Rev. Wright's recent remarks at the National Press Club:

Asked about another sermon in which he suggested the U.S. government created the AIDS virus to kill black people, Wright said: "Based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything."

That's an insult.  As a tool of genocide targeted at blacks, the AIDS virus has serious defects:

1. It kills non-black victims.  In military terms, killing your allies is called "friendly fire."  No weapon which kills so many allies is ever deployed.
2. It's not effective.  The worst-infected country has at most 30% of the population suffering from AIDS.
3. It takes far too long to finish off its victims, costing white taxpayers and foreign-aid donors billions to treat and care for the dying.

If the AIDS virus had been deliberately designed as a tool to kill black people, more of them would be dead and white people wouldn't be dying from it at great expense.  White people should be insulted that Rev. Wright thinks they are so stupid and so incompetent that they'd release such an ineffective weapon.

Are the NAACP Fools?

The real question is why the NAACP would invite Rev. Wright to speak at their annual dinner.  Let's review history:

1. The Rev. Wright's two decades of sermons about AIDS and drugs being white plots to destroy blacks got enough media attention to damage the Obama campaign.
2. Mr. Obama made a speech saying that although he didn't agree with Rev. Wright, he wouldn't abandon him.
3. Rev. Wright kept quiet for a while.
4. Rev. Wright resurfaced and his speeches at the NAACP and the National Press Club reignited the controversy.  Rev. Wright eloquently reaffirmed the statements made on his tapes; his criticisms of America can no longer be dismissed as "old news" or as aberrations taken out of context.
5. Mr. Obama disavowed Rev. Wright as vehemently as he could.

It ought to go without saying that the NAACP would welcome an Obama presidency.  There are some pretty savvy people in the NAACP.  Why on earth would they invite the Rev. Wright to speak at their high-visibility dinner?  The obvious reason is that they regard what Rev. Wright says about AIDS, drugs, and God hating white people as being a) totally obvious and b) noncontroversial.

In his speech to the NAACP, Rev. Wright said that black people's brains work differently from those of whites.  If a significant fraction of black people can so easily swallow this sort of fatuous nonsense in the face of abundant evidence and every argument of logic to the contrary, he may be right.

Maybe They're Smarter Than We Think

There is, however, another possibility - destroying Mr. Obama may be essential for their political survival.  The NAACP is the black political establishment.  Far from being the culmination of a half-century's civil rights efforts, Mr. Obama's campaign is an existential threat to them and to their power.

As we've pointed out, most of today's black political leadership has ridden to power by promoting the idea that white people systematically oppress blacks.  They tell black people that the only way a black person can advance is for the black political establishment to agitate for programs whereby whites pay off black people through affirmative action and other such racist programs, thus providing benefits that black people otherwise would neither receive nor deserve.

In effect, the current "black leadership" has internalized the ancient libel of the KKK that blacks are incapable of making it on their own because nature made them inferior.  The more that such black luminaries as Colin Powell, Dr. Condoleeza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Dr. Bill Cosby, and Oprah Winfrey (to name just a few) give the lie to this belief, the harder the Sharptons and Jacksons of the world work to shore up their scam and enshrine racism into law come what may.

Mr. Obama's "Yes We Can!" campaign is a mortal threat to the power and influence of the older generation of black leaders.  Just before the Mississippi Democratic primary, the Wall Street Journal pointed out that Mr. Obama would have an uphill struggle in that state because the black political establishment had endorsed Hillary.

The Journal wrote that no Democrat had ever won the Mississippi primary without the endorsement of the black establishment.  They noted that Mr. Obama's only chance to win that state was to bring in volunteers, go around the establishment, and influence black voters directly - which is exactly what he did.

By going directly to black voters, Mr. Obama demonstrated that he didn't need the black establishment.  One can well imagine how they liked that.

We see their response this week: by forcefully putting the Rev. Wright back onto the national scene, the NAACP has fired a warning shot across Mr. Obama's bow.  If he starts giving them the attention they feel they deserve, well and good.  If he doesn't, they may very well sink his candidacy.

Sinking him would be fine with the black establishment because Mr. Obama is young enough to run again, and again.  The original Clinton administration was the first black presidency in the minds of many blacks.  A Hillary candidacy which pays them homage would be better for them than an Obama candidacy which has declared and demonstrated its independence from them.

Hillary can't win the general election without the support of the black establishment; Mr. Obama doesn't need them.  Given the choice of a white Democratic nominee who needs them and a black nominee who doesn't, it's a no-brainer.

One can't help but wonder how Mr. Obama feels at Rev. Wright's gleeful cooperation in kneecapping him.  Having the pastor who married you, christened your children, and offered twenty years of spiritual mentoring gleefully blow holes in your life's greatest dream must be a bitter pill indeed.

At least Obama tried to stay loyal to his pastor and didn't throw him under the bus until he had absolutely no choice.  What a sorry sort of pastor, less faithful to his friends than a politician!