That would be the sound of me spitting out the kool-aid because I've finally (almost too late) figured out it's laced with something funky, quite possibly even deadly (to my moral clarity if not literally).
I know what you're thinking...."DUH, where have you BEEN Deb? Under what rock were you hiding when it was first reported that the so-called "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright was a racist, separatist, America-hating lying bat-shit-crazy asshat, and that he also happened to be Obama's PASTOR (as well as "mentor," "inspiration" and "spiritual advisor.")"
(Deb hangs head in shame)
I wish I knew...Same place as everyone else who (apparently) didn't know either, including people who's job it was TO know (and to report to the rest of us, you know, the fawning sycophantic media that has--either stupidly or cruelly--waited until NOW to fully vet the guy they've been fawning over for almost a year).
That's all I've got for an excuse, and it's pretty piss poor, I'll grant you that. In the pain of my shame, I try to tell myself that my support for him was mostly of the cynical variety. I saw "intangible victories" in a black man with a strange Muslim name becoming our President, and I didn't consider myself racist for it because I thought this particular black man with a Muslim-sounding name was different, was above and beyond his skin color, was not using it to get ahead and rejected identity politics because they were simply anathema to his character. I believed that even if people elected him because of the things he downplayed or refused to use to his advantage, it would be OK because he was the real deal, not putting one over on us or smooth-talking us into believing he was colorblind or truly an agent for change just because he's smart enough to realize it's what we so desperately wanted to hear. I believed he would eventually sway, "convert" if you will, even those bigots and cynics.
How pathetic is it to be naive in your cynicism? I can't think of anything more humiliating in the blogosphere than sticking your neck out, against your political ideals and against your friends in many cases, to support an unlikely choice for President--in an effort to be REAL, to be honest and the opposite of a partisan hack or sheep-in-the-fold--and find yourself a lemming racing headlong off a cliff.
I've spent the better part of today sharing this truth on my own discussion site, and what have I received in return? Not support for throwing myself under the bus I can tell you that! Instead, I've gone from being "that-conservative-we-kinda-like-because-she- had-the-good-sense-to-see-the-light (or the halo, depending on what you think provides the source of that light.../eyeroll)," to (heavy sighs from them) "that-poor-pathetic-right-wing-bigot-who-can't-separate-politics-from-religion."
Ironic in view of what else I was called, namely "hypocrite" because I was--AM--so disappointed in Obama, but (apparently) not McCain, simply because I posted about Obama exclusively and didn't toss McCain into the same discussion just to prove how "fair and balanced" I might be.
Indeed, no matter what I tried to say about Obama, the discussion turned back to something along the lines of "Oh yeah, but McCain's solicitation of Parsley's endorsement is worse because Parsley's a bigot too and McCain sought him out PURELY for political reasons!"
Really? I didn't realize there needed to BE a worse than anti-semitism, black-separatism, reverse-racism, anti-Americanism, lunatic conspiracy-theories, historical lies and plain old garden-variety raw-naked HATRED for all the things I (and I thought my fellow Americans) hold dear.
Of course when I tried to point this out, that "two wrongs don't make a 'Wright,'" as it were, it only made the real hypocrites in the discussion angrier and more prone to dismissive condescension and denial.
As you can imagine, it's been a rough day. This also explains why I'm still awake and too frustrated to sleep right now.
So where am I now? Honestly??? Seriously considering staying home, for the first time in my adult life, I may not vote. I'm about 90% sure at this point, unless something dramatic happens to drive my ass to the polls, only I can hardly imagine at this point what it might be. Obama used to the the one candidate who didn't scare me on *some* level. Now? As far as I'm concerned, the whole election is a fucking horror movie, and I don't go to horror movies as a rule. Not ever.
I had hoped to go into detail about what in particular offends me so deeply about Reverend Wright's sermons, but it's so late, and I'm brain fried, and the pregnancy hormones aren't helping, so I'll have to rely on someone else's words for now. Suffice it to say, this guy couldn't have done a better job expressing how I feel if he were me:
Loose cannons in the pulpit are nothing new.But what makes this one worthy of a closer look is that he's Barack Hussein Obama's pastor, friend and spiritual mentor.
This would-be president, about whom much too little is known, has, in fact, been an active member of Wright's flock for the past 20 years, certainly long enough to have known what the man is all about, and long enough to have left in protest if he found the sermons offensive.
In a bristling series of shoot-from-the-hip observations, now being played on America's airwaves, Wright can be heard railing against the bombs we dropped to end World War II, as well as the stance we have taken against Palestinian terrorists, somehow concluding they naturally led to the attacks we've experienced on our own soil, bloody crimes he pastorally pooh-poohs as chickens coming home to roost.
Obama, who claims the title of his second book, "The Audacity of Hope," was inspired by Wright, is now audaciously hoping to defuse the latter's inflammatory rhetoric by suggesting his comments were "part of his social gospel."
It's not going to fly. Even a smooth talker can't get away with that.
It's true, Christianity does have a social gospel as well as a saving gospel, and no one personified the former more passionately or effectively than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who gave his life for it 40 years ago next month.
To his everlasting credit, King called black extremism exactly what it is, which is every bit as evil and dangerous as white extremism, because neither side of that lunatic fringe moves us any closer to the common ground he died believing we could all attain.
Listening to Wright's racially polarizing polemics is to realize Obama's rationalization is ridiculous. Social gospel? Please. George Wallace, Lester Maddox and Orval Faubus all thought they had a social gospel, too.
Black or white, a nut is a nut.
The unflappable candidate's staff, now working on damage control, insists, "Senator Obama does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms."
Really? He must be sleeping through the sermons.
Which would mean he's well rested indeed, but that still doesn't make him a guy with good enough judgment to be my President.
Apparently we (as in Western Civilization) have already lost the battle with islamofascism. Why bother continuing to fight and die against them if we're going to do shit like this.
Just fit me for my burqua and call it a day I guess!
/eyeroll