It's official - Barack Obama, however belatedly, threw his Meshugenah Minister under the bus at a press conference today. According to Obama's telling, Jeremiah Wright's appearance yesterday at the National Press Club made it clear to Obama that Wright is a crackpot, a lunatic, a nut. (The preceding are my terms, not Obama's.) So, in other words, Wright's oddness managed to elude Obama during 20 years of spiritual mentorship and while the Obamas were sending $40,000 worth of support to Wright, but yesterday Obama had a proverbial Road to Damascus experience. At the risk of being blunt, pull the other leg, Senator - there are bells on it.
Obama's style during the extended presser is worth some commentary. His delivery, as is ever the case when he doesn't have a teleprompter, was weak and halting. He claimed outrage, but instead he showed a low energy level form of sorrow.
I thought of three other political appearances while watching the Obama press conference:
1) Just prior to the Iraq War, President Bush gave a presser where he tried to emphasize his seriousness and not look at all cowboy-ish. The results were disastrous. The press labeled Bush as "slouching off to war" thanks to his grim, low energy efforts. Similarly, Obama should have shown some feistiness and fighting spirit today. Instead he looked like a beaten man. (Perhaps he had seen the latest SUSA Poll for North Carolina that shows Hillary Clinton pulling to within 5 points.)
2) Ted Kennedy's "Mudd Slide" - Ted Kennedy's 1980 presidential ambitions bit the dust when he stumbled over a series of innocuous questions that Roger Mudd asked him. That interview has long been the gold standard for a politician giving a disastrous interview. Like Kennedy during the Mudd Slide, Obama was strikingly inarticulate. Obama always says "um" a lot when speaking extemporaneously, but today's effort was particularly disastrous in that regard. Obama said he was outraged by Wright, but he spoke slowly and laconically, hardly traits that one typically associates with outrage.
3) Bill Clinton in the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing called the perpetrators cowards and vowed that they would face vengeance. Clinton was visibly angry, and appropriately so. It was the first time in his presidency that he obviously was telling the truth. His tone and his emotions matched the moment perfectly.
Obama needed to forcefcully and perhaps a bit angrily distance himself from Reverend Wright. Reverend Wright's comments would outrage just about every American, and Obama had more reason to be furious than most. And yet he spoke in measured and hesitant tones. Some might think this style evidences a heightened state of thoughtfulness. Regardless, Obama's tone today did not match the moment.
As such, it will do nothing to put this issue to bed.
