On Obama's 'A More Perfect Union' Speech

There are so many things I could nitpick about Obama's speech that I have trouble finding just a few to comment on.

Obama, for example, said of the anti-white, anti-American, anti-Semitic, hate-filled Rev. Jeremiah Wright today:

"I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother."

My response to that is simply: Bullsh-tuff.

You can't pick your grandparents. You CAN and DO pick your church.

You don't get to make a choice about who you're related to, but you CAN and DO make a choice to walk into that church each week, and plant your butt in a pew, and listen to the rhetoric that Rev. Wright was spewing.

And, in the past, Obama has been clear that he chose that church specifically BECAUSE OF what Rev. Wright was spewing.

I'm also struck by the fact that it appears Obama's having a bit of trouble getting his story straight. In his speech today, he said (SOURCE):

Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely.

However, that's a bit contradictory to what he said over the weekend before the issue blew up.

From Anderson Cooper 360 (SOURCE):

COOPER: But, I mean, uncles are blood relatives who you're kind of stuck with at family gatherings, even when they say outrageous things. You can't get rid of them. You can walk out of a church. You can walk go up to a pastor and say, this is wrong.

(CROSSTALK)

OBAMA: And, as I said, Anderson, if I had heard any of those statements, I probably would have walked up, and I probably would have told Reverend Wright that they were wrong. But they were not statements that I heard when I was in church.

So ... which is it, Barack? Did you hear him make the controversial statements or not?

And, if they weren't 'particularly controversial' last week, before the issue really came to light and blew up in your face, what makes them suddenly something that you need to distance yourself from now?

Or, is your sudden revelation that you need to distance yourself from Rev. Wright and his hate-filled statements contrived, too?

After all, according to Jeremiah Wright himself, you said back in April 2007 -- almost a year ago -- that you'd probably have to distance yourself from him.

“If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me,” Mr. Wright said with a shrug. “I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen.”

And then, just a couple of weeks ago, before ABCNews ran the video of the hate that flows from Rev. Wright's mouth, Rev. Wright told the New York Times:

Mr. Obama then told him, “You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.”

That sounds, to me at least, like the same sort of "I'm going to tell the voters one thing, but don't think I actually mean it" under-the-table dealing he did with Canada over the NAFTA comments he'd made.

And, even the folks over at the Huffington Post are noting how Barack's repudiation of the statements, rather than an outright repudiation of Jeremiah Wright himself, isn't going to be enough.

Obama said he repudiated the statements but not the man, and Olbermann did not follow up. Note that in his Special Comment earlier in the week, [Olbermann] had specifically said to Hillary Clinton that it was not enough to reject the comments of Geraldine Ferraro, she had to "reject and denounce" the person or else Ferraro was "speaking with your approval."

Boy, it's sure a good thing Obama's different from all of the other politicians, eh?