Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Stop Talking, Reverend. Please.

I have defended Jeremiah Wright in the past year. He has used language I wouldn't use, but we do not preach in the same context. I have tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, and have even blogged about how unfair it is to lift words and phrases out of the man's sermons in order to somehow taint him, and by extension, Barack Obama.

But I wish now that he would go on retreat and spend some time alone with God, working through his prejudices. Because when one doesn't have the sense to avoid making blatant anti-Semitic statements into a microphone, it's time to go up on the mountaintop and get straightened out. (Yes, I said "straightened." It's only a word, and it has more than one meaning. In this case it means "subjected to a little can of divine whoop-ass.")

Asked by a reporter whether he had talked to his former parishoner Barack Obama, Wright answered "Them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me. He'll talk to me in five years, when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office." You can listen to it here if you have the stomach.

Questioned about the remark later, Wright said that he misspoke.

You think?

Unfortunately, he elaborated. What he meant to say was "Zionists."

Oh, well that's alright then.

I wonder who stayed up all night thinking of that clever semantic dodge?

Here's what he should have said: "Yeah, that was an awful thing to say. I had no idea that I was capable of such a hateful stereotype, and I'm ashamed to have said it. I apologize to the Jewish people, and to anyone who was offended by my remark. I am going up on the mountaintop now."

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