Uneven Fields

Geraldine Ferraro:

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position."

Rev. Jeremiah White:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people."

White is talking about a white government, not a black government. This is clearly a statement about race.

Ferraro:

"Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up."

White:

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye.

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Hillary Clinton immediately distanced herself from Ferraro ...

"I certainly do repudiate it and I regret deeply that it was said. Obviously she doesn't speak for the campaign, she doesn't speak for any of my positions, and she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee."

... and before the end of the first day of full-blown media frenzy, she was sacked from her position in the Clinton campaign.

I've just scanned the Brietbart U.S. politics headlines, and there's no big news story about Obama apologizing for his pastor, quitting the church, and urging us all to have a big group hug. That could come tomorrow, or Obama may try to say it's not fair to have a "religious test" for him, any more than it was for Mitt Romney. But Romney's church is a church, not an ongoing racist political rally under the guise of weekly sermons.

Granted, the same quick fate that met Ferraro met Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power after she called Hillary a monster, she was canned, and Obama issued a statement distancing himself from her. But Power didn't ist-speak -- nothing racist, nothing sexist -- just something in crushingly bad taste.

Now, if Ferraro had used rhetoric in the style of Rev. Wright, her comments would have been more along the line that because Obama is black, he sells crack, has a long rap sheet with prison time, and is a sexual threat to decent white women everywhere.

And even though we all know what Powers said is a pretty accurate characterization of the junior senator from New York, it was far short of what she would have said if mimicking Rev. Wright's style. After all, he said the 9/11 victims got what they deserved.

Obama had to know this was coming. He's sat in the church and has heard the sermons. He knows that the preaching there pushes blacks away from America, as Victor Davis Hansen said in delightful understatement:

Most who could sit through those diatribes and venom each week might find it difficult to have a balanced view of so-called “white” people or the country at large.

Yet Obama, knowing America's double standard when it comes to race speak, didn't bother to distance himself from Wright, other than saying the Rev. sometimes gets wound up and is a bit of a crazy uncle. Well, you can't leave a crazy uncle; he's family. But you can leave a church, and should if the teachings are inflammatory and make you uncomfortable.

If this blows over without doing serious damage to Obama, without changing the media's go-light coverage of him, we know that what I've been worrying about is true: The GOP will not be able to challenge Obama without cries of "Racist! Racist!" from every corner.

Or "Sexist! Sexist!" if Hillary wins the nomination.