In the Arena

More Bad News for Obama

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Jeremiah Wright is back, and unrepentant. Here’s part of what he has to say for himself:

The blowup and the blowing up of sermons preached 15, seven, six years
ago and now becoming a media event, not the full sermon, but the
snippets from the sermon and sound bite having made me the target of
hatred, yes, that is something very new and something very, very
unsettling.

Unfortunately, that’s only a snippet…which is all that Bill Moyers’ folks have released, handful of sound bites. We don’t know if Moyers asked Wright for the context of “God Damn America” or Wright’s contention that AIDs was a government conspiracy to kill black people. One can only hope that Moyers did that, and also asked Wright to place such sentiments in the larger context of his sermons. How often did he preach on politics and how often on, say, parental responsibilities?

Wright will have a full blown press-scrum on Monday morning at the National Press Club and this can only be bad news for Obama…Good news for Obama is that he has decided to show his toughness by going into the Lion’s Den, Fox News, on Sunday morning with Chris Wallace–who is tough, but fair (I’ve seen him rough up Republicans). This is exactly the sort of thing Obama has to do now. He has to prove he’s not afraid, that he’s got nothing to hide. It’ll be interesting to see if Obama can clear away the underbush and get to some real issues. It’ll also be interesting to see how many questions about real issues Wallace asks.

Meanwhile… John McCain is having a terrific week. Not only are his opponents killing themselves, but he lambasted Bush on Hurricane Katrina and demonstrated how one should slap down a religious supporter who says stupid things. Credit where credit is due.