the view from here

If Obama were as convinced as his fans that he had put his pastor problem behind him, something tells me he wouldn’t be making a stop on The View in his continuing apology tour. But that’s where he’ll be today:

Obama’s ‘View’: Defend Man, Not Words

The Senator, who is currently leading Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in the pledged delegate count for the 2008 Democratic nomination, agreed Wright’s remarks are “rightly offensive.”

Obama described Wright as a “brilliant man who was still stuck in a time warp.”

“View” co-host Elisabeth Hasslebeck expressed concern that Obama’s choice of pastor may show a lack of judgment.

The candidate explained, “Part of what my role in my politics is to get people who don’t normally listen to each other, to talk to each other, who [say] crazy things, who are offended by each other, for me to understand them and to maybe help them understand each other.”

Obama said he talked to Wright after the controversy erupted.

“I think he’s saddened by what’s happened, and I told him I feel badly that he has been characterized just in this one way, and people haven’t seen this broader aspect of him,” Obama said.

I see he stopped by and talked to ABC’s Charlie Gibson, too:

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., defended Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his pastor for 20 years, telling ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson that it’s unfair to judge him based only on the controversial remarks of a few sermons and not his entire career. (Ida Astute/ABC)

Will this stop the bleeding?

Tom Maguire doesn’t think so:

Can someone help me with what looks like the latest fantasy from Obama as he explains his Reverend Wright (emphasis added):

WASHINGTON - White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama’s campaign, not stepped down.

“Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying at the church,” Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, “The View.” The interview will be broadcast Friday.

Let’s make the working assumption that this excerpt is accurate and in context - time will tell, since the show airs tomorrow.

So, when did Wright acknowledge that what he had said was deeply offensive and inappropriate? The AP story recounts some of Wright’s controversial comments but oddly omits to mention his apology, as does all other news coverage with which I am familiar. And I am strangely certain that a Wright apology would have made the news - unless he never made it publicly.

In case you think I’m being too hard on Obama, think again: I’ve been talking about his hollow PRopaganda^TM image for quite a while. Now I’m just watching it unravel.

Barack Obama and his handlers are apparently so arrogant that they thought they could ignore the first rule of celebrity-image construction: the man must consistently reflect the message. Unfortunately, with Obama, you scratch the highly polished surface and you get a bundle of contradictions that you cannot make consistent with his message, no matter how hard you try.

He says he’s a uniter, and yet for 20 he has chosen to stay inside the bosom of a church whose pastor a) promotes the nursing of grievances in the black community and b) routinely says all kinds of crazy shit. And then, instead of addressing this issue (which, of course, he cannot address in any way that will make him, as a man, consistent with his messiah image), he chose to lecture us about American racism.

I don’t know about you, but no matter how much I admire the political dexterity, I find his politics very old school. If this is change, I don’t want any part of it—particularly since I still don’t know what he stands for.

And if you think I’m cynical, read Kaus. But do not fail to note his reasoning, because it’s sound [e.a.]:

e) The “profound mistake” of this sermon is not that Wright “spoke as if our society was static”–Obama’s analysis on Feb. 18th. The problem is that “white folks’ greed” is not the main cause of a “world in need.” I’m not saying voters shouldn’t cut Obama a lot of slack on Wright’s anti-white fulminations. But the Senator should have spoken up publicly against the semi-paranoid “white greed” explanation a long time ago, no? And he could show a little humility. Again, this wasn’t the occasion for him to be lecturing everyone else. …

Me, I’m thinking that Obama agrees with the Reverend, at least partly. And guess what? I agree! He’s right! (After all, the evils of capitalism—and there were evils of capitalism—were all perpetrated by white people, because white people ruled America.)

But if you’re planning to run for president of the United States, you evict people like the Reverend from your life. You disown them—yes, even if you’re black and you have a long list of righteous reasons to be aggrieved.

Because it’s nasty shit, and no one wants to think of their president as having breathed in that polluted talk—even if he was only nodding in tune to the atmospherics—for 20 years.