The latest anti-Obama video circulating

What's weird about this video is that Obama did not "keep Wright" -- in fact, Wright left the campaign due to the comments that surfaced.

Posted by crazymonk | March 21, 2008 12:26 PM

This is so dumb. I've been feeling pretty pessimistic this last week, but suddenly, for some reason, I really think this will be the election cycle when this stuff finally stops working.

Posted by Brendan | March 21, 2008 12:29 PM

And don't forget (c):

"I am happy to give free media space to people attacking Obama without any sort of critical commentary, although of course I would never post anything that supports Obama without also explaining the ways in which I think it is misleading or counter-balanced by other considerations, because that is just the way I roll."

Posted by DTM | March 21, 2008 12:30 PM

Wow. Imus singled out a group of young women, calling them "nappy-headed hos". When did Wright ever attack white people, or call them names?

If the Republicans continue to conflate black anger against institutional racism with offensive white comments about blacks, they are going to just completely destroy their party. My own parents, hard core Republicans and super religious and conservative and all that jazz, are already getting really queasy with this stuff and think it's "unfair" that so many people are attacking Obama because of Wright. They may be in the minority, but if people keeping pushing this so hard (specifically that one video with the black panthers and Malcolm X and Public Enemy song), then it's going to drive reasonable Republicans and independents to the Dems.

In sum - I'd say that this stuff is really short-sighted and just not very properly thought out.

Posted by Craig | March 21, 2008 12:34 PM

I am sorry but by posting it and encouraging your readers to see it you are promoting it.

How in the world is embedding an anti Obama video a good idea?

Posted by lfo | March 21, 2008 12:35 PM

Do you not see the many issues with equating shock jock Imus' "nappy headed hos" in reference to young educated black women (purely for entertainment) with the community work of Rev. Wright? Then there's the clever use of "Fight the Power" at the end to associate the music of a controversial rap group with Obama, with the goal being to associate Obama with those militant blacks. Classy.

Rev. Wright said some pretty bad things that look even worse out of context, but overall he and the Trinity Church preach self help in their community.

Posted by melwrc | March 21, 2008 12:37 PM

I am sorry to double post but this is a ridiculous video and I can't believe you are leaving it up so it can get 'the credibility' that being posted on The Atlantic does. Have some sense and take it down.

Posted by lfo | March 21, 2008 12:38 PM

As Al Sharpton correctly pointed out on FOX in the last day or so, there has been nothing that Wright has said that is racist that has come forward.

Sure, he may have said some things that were a bit crazy, he may have been over the top.

But we're talking about two different things.

Now, who knows... Maybe Wright has said something like "tight-assed honkies"

Maybe, but nobody has come forward with this kind of thing.

Again, calling admirable college athletes "nappy-headed hos" is quite a bit different than anything that Wright has been reported to have been said.

Please also see this Roland Martin piece to give some context to some of Wright's comments:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/21/the-full-story-behind-rev-jeremiah-wrights-911-sermon/

Posted by Vermonter | March 21, 2008 12:40 PM

I guess I know what you mean by "not racist." It's not hate speech. But the effort to tar someone by association with others completely unrelated to them except for by race certainly relies on the assumptions that a) people of the same race share certain characteristics and b) those characteristics are bad. (I'm talking about Public Enemy and the Black Power movement here, not Wright; it's perfectly fair to associate Obama with Wright.) That's racism in my book.

Anyway, the thing that struck me about this video when I first saw it is how bad it is; from the descriptions, I expected to be outraged, but I was just bored. Soren Dayton's video production skills are, as they say, hot enough for radio.

Posted by professordarkheart | March 21, 2008 12:40 PM

lfo: Yes, it's odd that Ambinder put this up on his site and is leaving it up. But reasonably we can deduce a bit of his bias from it, and others who read his posts can more clearly recognize that his other posts do have a bit of an anti-Obama tinge to them.

He shouldn't aspire to come across as neutral if he's not, in fact, neutral.

Posted by Craig | March 21, 2008 12:43 PM

This posting should be contextualized with some deeper longer form of Wright...

Rev Wright is unfairly attacked by the media and you are enabling that attack.

Here is Wright, long Form, in the two most offensive sermons, which once watched in context, reveal there is much less offensive there.

After hearing the litney of abuse the American Government has wrought upon it's people, versus the rock that GOD is to most Americans, one is left wondering just how bad "God Damn America" really is...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvMbeVQj6Lw

and After 9/11, when the Chickens came home to roost, it was all infact a Quote read by Wright from a Reagan Administration Official who was on Fox News the day before... the Hypocricy is striking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ

Wright doesn't hate america...

Posted by Steven R | March 21, 2008 12:44 PM

Marc, since you have posted this "hate" video let us see how many of those anti-McCain videos you will be posting in future. It will make clear whether you are a republican hack or not.

Posted by Ed | March 21, 2008 12:45 PM

The Right is so up in arms over Wright.....it isn't race...it is that a democrat has religion and their base, the Christian right, is now up for grabs. Think about it...they don't like or trust McCain and Obama is a devout Christian who can talk to them about poverty, charity, social justice, loving-thy-brother, etc. They don't agree with him on abortion, but they do on gay rights(Obama says that the church shouldn't be forced to recognize gay rights and it should be the choice of individual demoninations). All this means is that there is no distrust, just starting points for compromise. McCain demonized them in 2000 and is now pandering to them.

Rove's ticket to greatness is on the table and they're scared to death of Obama bringing them over to the democratic side.

Posted by Sharon Wilkes | March 21, 2008 12:49 PM

This is just another example of how Republicans wouldn't recognize context if it ran them over with a tractor-trailer. And frankly, it's why Republicans have to make dumb appeals to dumb people to keep winning elections.

In a professional context, in which the only relationship you have with someone is as a media subject in dealing with a media personality, you "punish" that person for their actions by not associating with them anymore. After all...that's the only relationship you have with that person. What else can you do?

But in a personal context, in which your relationship is deep and intertwined, and probably very complex - not unlike that of a family member, if you are close with your clergy - it isn't that easy. It's clear that Obama does not agree with Wright's comments; nothing in his words or actions suggests that he does. But given that Wright, when presented as a more complete person, has also done a significant amount of good (including bringing Obama to God), it's not hard to understand why Obama can't just tell him off.

This is why the media sucks. I'm not saying the media should have to argue Obama's case for him. But in an honest effort to present both sides, shouldn't the media have to present some semblance of context for Wright, instead of simply running select clips over and over again and questioning what will happen to the polls?

The day America is ready for a serious discussion on race is the day America's media gets over its ADD.

Posted by SDinIA | March 21, 2008 12:50 PM

I don't get it. What on earth does suggesting that Don Imus doesn't belong on the air waves have to do with Rev. Wright? It's not as if Rev. Wright were on the airwaves, or like Obama were asking that he gets to stay on the air.

Perhaps this has something to do with my own biases, but this feels a lot like a comparison of apples and oranges.

Posted by david | March 21, 2008 12:54 PM

Take this garbage down Marc. You're giving it credibility that it doesn't deserve

Posted by Lloyd Webber | March 21, 2008 12:56 PM

Obama a hypocrite, fork-tongued, and busted.

Posted by Tom | March 21, 2008 1:03 PM

Don't click on it! It just increases the numbers and makes it look "viral."

Thanks, Marc, again, for helping to spread right-wing garbage.

Posted by evie | March 21, 2008 1:05 PM

Marc,

I respect your campaign connections and reporting even if I've disagreed with aspects of it here at times. It's clear that you have been and will continue to be an important source of "what's going on inside the campaigns this year."

But posting this embed this way is questionable. It's also just really, really depressing. Let me offer a push back.

Have you considered that one of the goals of circulating these videos is simply to amp up racial animus, period? The content of the video and it's "logic" aren't even relevant, Marc.

The point is to foment division and make life hell for people of color.

Dealing with this kind of video without acknowledging that context or the fact that many in your readership are directly and personally affected by this kind of attack. Well, to be honest, that sucks.

Posted by kid oakland | March 21, 2008 1:07 PM

Well put, kid oakland.

Posted by Craig | March 21, 2008 1:11 PM

thank you Craig and Kid Oakland.
Marc, you could have just linked to it like Sullivan did yesterday. You choose to embed it. I cannot believe you did this. Just take it down.

Posted by lfo | March 21, 2008 1:20 PM

kid oakland -

You rock - I have really been enjoying your posts on Kos.

At least Ambinder has now linked a Wright serman.

Posted by Ohio Republican | March 21, 2008 1:25 PM

"Have you considered that one of the goals of circulating these videos is simply to amp up racial animus, period?"

Have to agree with Kid Oakland on that one.

And don't gloat Hillary supporters, if Senator Clinton gets the nomination we'll see the exact same crap, but probably with the Bangles or the Go-Go's as background music.

Posted by Richard | March 21, 2008 1:47 PM

At the risk of being attacked by the mob, I think Marc did the right thing. I come to this site for coverage of what's going on in the race, and I don't need -- or want -- to have somebody else, like Marc, determine what I should or should not see.

I though the basic premise of the First Amendment was that, in the long run, society benefits from the free flow of information. And within certain limits (e.g., I would be opposed to the unthinking propagation of totally unfounded and scurrilous rumors), I do not want Marc or anybody else filtering stuff like this out to protect me or Obama, or doing so in the misguided belief that shoving stuff like this under a rock somehow cures the problem.

And I say this as somebody who really, really, wants Obama to win.

Posted by retr2327 | March 21, 2008 1:51 PM

retr2327

the point is not about mentioning it, linking to it, encouraging us readers to look into it.That is his job and ours as interested readers to know about it. But he went much much further, he embedded it and made it legitimate. This is far right wing nut propaganda. If these people did something about Hillary and their crazy theories about her--just choose one like her behind the death of Vince Foster would it also be ok to embed it?

Posted by lfo | March 21, 2008 2:03 PM

lfo:
Maybe I'm just not experienced enough in internet protocol to know about the distinction between embedding it and linking it. To me, they seem more or less the same: if you think it's completely scurrilous, don't embed it or link to it, but if it's otherwise newsworthy (which to my mind, this is), what real difference does it if you embed it versus linking to it, particularly if it's a video that isn't even playing unless you click it?

(The fact that I'm not sure how to do either may have something to do with my feelings on this issue).

Posted by retr2327 | March 21, 2008 2:29 PM

This is a rather badly designed video. The comparisons are incorrect, they are apples and oranges. Imus is an entertainer. He is known for his invectives and has had a varied career. He is chosen to be listened to or not. The Rev Wright is Obama's pastor of 20 years. Wright has helped Obama find Christ, has married Michelle and Barack, has baptized his children. Obama and his family hear this man on as regular a basis as they go to Trinity for church services. Obama's two daughters hear this man speak. They hear him on a regular basis. Whereas Imus said this once, Wright is a constant voice in his and his family's head. As I said Imus is an entertainer, Wright is not, he is the religious icon for a man who wants to be President. I don't care about Imus, he can be switched off. Wright on the other hand is a serious influence on Obama and his family.

As Obama said he wouldn't hire a man like Imus, yet he has long relationships with men like Wright and Rezko. He has hired some pretty flaky Harvard brainiacs as well. Who Obama surrounds himself with is of concern for all Americans, especially if he is the next President.

Peace.
Ted

Posted by ted | March 21, 2008 2:31 PM

While I agree that circulating this video is somewhat newsworthy, what about the next one and the one after that? Media giant Salem has the staff and the equipment to put these videos out continuously. At what point should they be ignored? There are lots of crazy stuff out in the internet so do we give Salem the circulation because they are big or because they are right-wing?

Posted by Michael Fisher | March 21, 2008 2:42 PM

Is this Marc Ambinder's website or Sean Hannity's ?

How about the John McCain Version 2001 and 2003 that the Bush tax cuts are worng for the economy and an unfair giveaway to the rich with McCain 2007 that says they are necessary for him to pander to Grover Norquist and the GOP powerbrokers.

Posted by Joe Woo | March 21, 2008 2:53 PM

Is this Marc Ambinder's website or Sean Hannity's ?

How about the John McCain Version 2001 and 2003 that the Bush tax cuts are worng for the economy and an unfair giveaway to the rich with McCain 2007 that says they are necessary for him to pander to Grover Norquist and the GOP powerbrokers.

Posted by Joe Woo | March 21, 2008 2:54 PM

Is this Marc Ambinder's website or Sean Hannity's ?

How about the John McCain Version 2001 and 2003 that the Bush tax cuts are worng for the economy and an unfair giveaway to the rich with McCain 2007 that says they are necessary for him to pander to Grover Norquist and the GOP powerbrokers.

Posted by Joe Woo | March 21, 2008 2:54 PM

retr2327

For me the distinction is pretty big--maybe others don't think so--but for me it is.

If you link you are directing your readers to another site, given the context of the site--right wing nuts--people will get a sense of who is producing it, and what other ideas they have running on their blogs. When you embed you are bringing the content into your own site, inviting people to see it, click on it and giving it legitimacy (Of a national magazine of prestige like The Atlantic. People will start linking to Marc instead of the crazy site to see the video and it gets promoted as something acceptable)

Again--he could have simply mentioned it and linked to it and I would have never made a peep here. But he is giving this a legitimacy that it is not due. If the video where about any other candidate I would do the same. This is not about Obama, it is about promoting something so scurrilous.

Posted by lfo | March 21, 2008 2:59 PM

Marc,

You are falling into the same hole that so much of our media has... giving time/play/credence to the ridiculous smear campaigns out there (especially recently against Obama). You are doing exactly what much of our media has -- lost sight of the "ball." Gotten caught in campaigns of mud and misdirection. Where are dissections of positions? Where are the postulations on how these candidates will act in office? Where is the substance? There is much substance to find out about all of these candidates. But then substance doesn't "sell" as well "flash."

This is your political blog but it is starting to look like local nightly news.

Posted by Kai_in_LA | March 21, 2008 3:07 PM

The only problem with the video is that there was no double standard. Obama suggested that Imus should be fired and said that if someone on his campaign said something like that he/she would be fired. Was Wright associated with the Obama campaign? Yes. And guess what? Obama did fire Wright. Recall, Wright was on an Obama committee and Obama fired him 24 hours after the videos went public. Wright currently has no affiliation with the Obama campaign because....wait for it.... Obama fired him.

Posted by Mary | March 21, 2008 3:13 PM

Really weak post and rationale for posting the video.
It is pretty much the same argument that people give when they put Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin on television.
Just because they have a differing (and usually stupid) opinion doesn't mean that you have to give them a platform.

Posted by John B. | March 21, 2008 3:35 PM

Congratulations on being a pawn in the Republican smear machine! I hear the pay is great.

Let me know when you get around to covering the stories of the 4,000 lives which have been lost in Iraq. Let me know when you get around to covering the 63,000 jobs which were lost last month, and what happened to those families. I might read again then...

Posted by The Bag of Health and Politics | March 21, 2008 4:42 PM

There's pretty much nothing new or interesting about this video. Why post random Youtube attack ads?

Posted by Hobbes | March 21, 2008 4:45 PM

What I found offensive about Imus' statements is they were directed at a handful of young women who otherwise are just private citizens going about their life with exhuberance. Reverand Wright is NOT casting insults and indignities at a few private citizens who otherwise are of no consequence to the greater civic debate. Wright's criticism is about our government, our military-industrial complex, the financiers and enablers of aggression and oppression.

Do the creators of this clip suggest that a US senator should call to silence Wright's political (religious) speech, because that senator condemned Imus' for broadcasting non-political, racially insensitive insults of private citizens? Our Founding Fathers would be dismayed to learn that "party officials and high-level Republicans" in 2008 have such a corrupted understanding of what their 1st Amendment intent was when ratified in 1781.

Wright speaks to a congregation from a pulpit bought and paid for by the congregation. Imus spewed forth on public airwaves, from licensed broadcasters. I think an elected US Senator is far more justified speaking out about the later.

Posted by fcadmus | March 21, 2008 6:41 PM

That's an okay vid. But without even bothering to get into any of the more thoughtful arguments for why this kind of thing is misleading, divisive, propagandistic, etc...didn't the Obama campaign give Reverend Wright the boot on Monday? Kinda castrates the message here.

Posted by Brian | March 21, 2008 8:00 PM

http://www.americablog.com/2008/03/did-hillary-sit-next-to-rev-wright-at.html

guess who sat next to Rev Wright at the WH prayer breakfast in 1998

(I assume they vet people BEFORE they sit next to the First Lady)

Posted by AMBER | March 21, 2008 9:29 PM

You write, "I'm comfortable posting this." In other words, you are part of the problem, and feel fine about it.

Posted by Former reader | March 22, 2008 12:25 AM

"Good beat, but you can't dance to it."

In other words, yet another variation of the Atwater-Rove theme of conflating two very different things by finding one point in common and hanging on like a pit bull. American voters aren't dancing to that tune any more. Deal with it.

Posted by Tom J | March 22, 2008 4:26 AM

I would honestly like to know..what the hell WOULD you consider race-baiting...what, do they have to walk around in bedsheets for you to recognize race-baiting and racist propaganda when you see it?
These are the mofos who invented the SOUTHERN STRATEGY and you don't see serious racism here?

Geesh.

Any excuse to imbed this racist garbage.

Posted by rikyrah | March 22, 2008 4:31 AM

"(b) is not beyond the pale or racist . . . ."

Hint: Cross-cutting between images of Malcolm X, the 1986 Olympic athletes and their Black Power Salute, and an African-American politician (while Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" plays in the background (you really didn't recognize it?!)) as an attack against that candidate is, in fact, racist. Sorry.

". . . so far as I can tell."

Try to tell harder.

Posted by S.G.E.W. | March 22, 2008 9:35 AM

Don Imus was paid and carried by a major network--which was the focus of Obama's objection. Rev. Wright, who was not, has left Obama's team.

So the video is strongly misleading. And while it might arguably not be "racist" it is plainly divisive (and the difference is...?).

As we will all see a lot more of this kind of thing, it is useful for it to be posted. Though disappointing that the lack of parallel is not addressed by Ambinder.

Posted by watching in canada | March 22, 2008 11:06 AM

Comparing White Apples with Black Oranges.

---

This whole controversy is (thus far) the best example of sound bite journalism at its worst.

The whole point of Obama's speech was to draw out the internal contradictions in ALL OF US.

God bless those parts of America (that being pretty much all of us) who refuse to tolerate or sympathize with other's contradictions.

Posted by Micah | March 22, 2008 12:55 PM

So, millionaire Don Imus' corny coon stunts about women basketball players' "nappy heads," and calling them "hoes" is just like the "sinister minister's" videotaped comments in his church to his black members, saying what black people say when white people are not around?

Imus' corny joke about black women's hair and social standing, broadcasting everywhere, to everyone is not the moral equal of an Urban preachers shaking his listener's up with strong emotions, strong language and crack pot visions about our government. That makes this video, slick but stupid in a apples and oranges way, and kind of tone deaf.

Maybe Imus should have been left alone, and maybe Obama made a silk purse out of his situation. Maybe people in a free society should get enough rope to hang themselves, as creepy and ironic as that has always sounded to me (I first heard it from an Isreali). We are a free society, and free speech means that anyone has the right to speak her mind, no matter how tasteless, (or corny).

But Imus' employment situation has nothing to do with "the sinister minister" talking to his followers, a limited audience, about his wild social and political visions. Nobody was there for laughs and giggles, like "Imus in the Morning."

It's not hypocritical for Obama to have two standards, one for a comic corn ball, doing coon stunts, years too late and not ironic enough to be hip, and another for a radical preacher's crack pot visions and ruminations to his flock.

The fool that made it, and the fool posting it without "thinking it's racist" need difference finders.

What the hell happend to Michael Curtis? Did he see this stupid posting?

Posted by Lee County | March 26, 2008 3:08 AM

Sadly Obama is nothing but a propaganda puppet of the extreme left! IN his book Audacity of Hope on page 254 first edition he calls JEWS>>KIKES! HOW much more of the RACIST ramblings are we gonna take from this anti American Socialist and his big mouthed wife? Enough is enough America! OH, and his AUDIO version of the above book left out the gratuitous racial slur! You can find it in the first edition. I guess it is more scrubbing of original content by the Obamabots! AMERICA is DONE with this LIAR!

Posted by PreTjenE | July 9, 2008 10:28 AM

Sadly Obama is nothing but a propaganda puppet of the extreme left! IN his book Audacity of Hope on page 254 first edition he calls JEWS>>KIKES! HOW much more of the RACIST ramblings are we gonna take from this anti American Socialist and his big mouthed wife? Enough is enough America! OH, and his AUDIO version of the above book left out the gratuitous racial slur! You can find it in the first edition. I guess it is more scrubbing of original content by the Obamabots! AMERICA is DONE with this LIAR!

Posted by PreTjenE | July 9, 2008 10:29 AM

The latest anti-Obama video circulating

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