The Jeremiah Wright

By
Max J. Castro                                                                      Read Spanish Version

Anyone
who had hoped that the mainstream media had gotten over their
obsession with the most banal aspects of political campaigns must
have been disappointed by the events of the last few days.

The
vast majority of the American people think this country is going in
the wrong direction. With good reason: the American economy is in
serious trouble and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are going
dismally. But that is not what the media is focusing on.

At
home, hundreds of thousands already have lost their homes or are in
real danger of losing them. The net worth of millions of others is
sinking as the value of their homes decreases with the bursting of
the housing bubble. The number of jobs is dropping and the cost of
gas, food, health care, and other necessities is soaring. People
can’t make ends meet but, thanks to the Republicans in power on
Capitol Hill and the White House, it’s harder to declare bankruptcy
than ever.

In
Iraq, amid last month’s sharp rise in American and Iraqi
casualties, another bubble burst: the mirage of the surge as a
decisive reversal of fortune capable of transforming the U.S. debacle
in Iraq into some sort of victory. The security situation in Iraq is
such that the country’s First Lady barely escaped an assassination
attempt last weekend. Four U.S. Marines were not so lucky; they lost
their lives. The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating; last
month the country’s president barely survived an assassination
attempt carried out by members of his own forces.

In
the midst of the tumbling American economy and the wreckage of the
Bush administration’s war policies, on what is much of the media
focused?

The
big issue for much of the media, especially the leading political
journalists who dominate the network weekend interview television
shows, is Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former pastor, his views
and Obama’s reaction to them.

Never
mind that Obama has denounced Wright in clear and forceful terms.
Forget the fact that of the three candidates still in the race, only
Obama opposed the disastrous Iraq war from the outset. Don’t look
at the reality that while Hillary Clinton and John McCain have been
engaging in shameless political posturing by offering voters a
three-month suspension of the federal tax on gasoline, a measure that
has no chance of enactment and would save consumers little or no
money, Obama alone has stood above the demagoguery. None of that
matters. The only thing that matters is whether Obama denounced
Wright soon enough or forcibly enough or showed sufficient outrage
when he did it.

How
many times does Obama need to disavow the views of Reverend Wright?
The answer is that Obama can never do it enough times or get it
right. Obama is black, and he has a progressive political trajectory.
That, not Wright, is why many would like to destroy him. For
Republicans, who such have an awful track record that they
desperately need to change the subject from policy and results to
character and personality in order to have any chance to win the
elections in 2008, Wright is a gift from the gods. As a bonus, they
get to bring in the race card while pretending to be appalled by
Wright’s racially divisive ideas. But why do the media play along?

Theories
abound as to why the mainstream media, labeled “liberal” by the
right-wing, so often favors the very ideological sector that attacks
them incessantly. One factor clearly is that media companies are part
of giant capitalist corporations that benefit greatly from the
pro-corporate policies of the Republican Party. Whatever the other
reasons, there is no shortage of examples of media bias in favor of
the right, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Among the
latter, as journalist Glenn Greenwalt documents in his new book,
Great
American Hypocrites: Toppling the Myths of Republican Politics, the
same media that had a feeding frenzy around Democratic candidate John
Edwards and his $400 haircut while completely ignoring the story of
Mitt Romney and his $300 make-up job. 

The
one silver lining in this shameful picture is that the public does
not seem to be going along with the implication, implicit in the
incessant media attention, that Obama’s association with Jeremiah
Wright reflects a lack of judgment or a character flaw on the part of
the Illinois senator: A New York Times/CBS News poll released May 5
found that the issue of Wright has not affected most Americans’
views of Barack Obama.