Was Rev. Wright Wronged?

This evening, Rev. Jeremiah Wright breaks his silence before a sympathetic interviewer, PBS' Bill Moyers. Bobby Seale and Louis Farrahkan apparently were unavailable to interview him.

Wright's big point is that he was wronged. Here's his exposition:

Wright defended his sermons, telling Moyers, "the persons who have heard the entire sermon understand the communication perfectly ... those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they want to do, which is to paint me as some sort of fanatic."

Actually, I didn't need Wright's help to come to this point; I've thought about it quite a bit because I've seen my fair share of out of context quotes, so fairness mandates that I consider the "out of context" question here. As an example, let's look at this infamous Wright quote:

" ... and then [America] wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

I would actually like to hear a pastor say this, if the context around the quote is that God is within his rights to withdraw his favor from America because of the millions of his little ones we have suctioned and cut into oblivion in America's abortion mills.

But that wasn't the context behind the quote. We have the context, and it is this:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law ..."

And that's why God should damn America. Any black leader who says the (white) government (deliberately) gives black drugs and passes three strikes laws as a racist tool to imprison people who should still be on the streets even though they're three-strike criminals should expect media coverage, whether they're Obama's pastor or not.

In other words, we don't have to listen to the entire sermon, or the entire 20 years of sermons when Obama (theoretically) attended the church. Rev. Wright gave us the context. And if Al Campanis can get the boot for saying blacks "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager," then Wright can certainly feel some heat for saying this.

Back to the interview:

He said his critics' motives are clear: to undermine Obama. "I think they wanted to communicate that I am unpatriotic, that I am un-American, that I am filled with hate speech, that I have a cult at Trinity United Church of Christ. And by the way, guess who goes to his church, hint, hint, hint?"

Of course Wright has been used by some to undermine Obama and the story is bigger because he is Obama's pastor. That doesn't make the statements any less outrageous and any less newsworthy however, and a great deal of the newsworthiness of this story was the shock most of America felt upon hearing Wright for the first time. News is by definition "new," and this language from a pulpit was new to most of us.

Besides, before he accuses others of exploiting him because of Obama, Wright would do well to ask himself if he did not, in fact, benefit more from Obama than he suffered from him. How many times did Wright use his famous parishioner to aggrandize his church? How many favors did he ask Obama to do? This cuts both ways, Reverend.

Finally:

But he added, "They know nothing about the church. They know nothing about our prison ministry. They know nothing about our food ministry. They know nothing about our senior citizens home. They know nothing about all we try to do as a church and have tried to do." Focusing only on the snippets, he said, "was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons."

The same can be said of Hezbollah. They have "ministries" that feed and heal and educate. But they also fire rockets from Muslim civilian neighborhoods into Jewish civilian neighborhoods and send martyrs duped idiots into crowds of Jews with explosives strapped around them.

And Mussolini got the trains to run on time.

Hezbollah is not remembered for its schools; Mussolini is not remembered for his train schedules. And Wright won't be remembered by most of Americans for his outreach because it's nothing more than expected that a church the size of his would have numerous outreaches. Having them, then, does not exonerate him from his wrongs.

So you see, what's unfair is not the media focusing on the "snippets;" rather, it is unfair that Wright calls them "snippets." They are his rockets and explosive vests, so of course the media and the people will focus on them, and running crying and sniffling to broadcast's ubber-Lib will not change that one bit.