It is time for this distraction to go away and for America and the media to get on track with the real issues affecting America and its people, as Elizabeth Edwards put it in her recent Op-Ed, Bowling 1, Health Care 0. For all of those who want this to be an issue, get over yourself and lets get back to what really matters to Americans, Iraq, health care, the gas prices, the economy and the future of the United States of America. The only issue in this distraction is how America refuses to come to grips with the distinction between the African-American’s and the rest of America’s worship experience and how their preachers preach. There is a real difference in the methodology of the African-American preacher. There is a real difference in the religious worship of the two Americas, if you will. Case in point, Sunday morning worship time is the most segregated time in America. If the worship service experience is the same, why is that?
Whether America wants to admit it or not; including some African-American media commentators, there is a difference between how the rest of America is treated over its religious traditions versus the way African-Americans are treated. John McCain has controversial ministers supporting him, John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Hillary Clinton is a prominent member of The Family or The Fellowship. The media stays away from any comments on these associations, yet continues on an endless loop on Barack Obama’s association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Barack Obama should no more be condemn for his association with the Reverend Wright than John McCain’s association with John Hagee and Rod Parsley or Hillary Clinton’s association with the Fellowship. If you disagree with this; than you should hear all the hype over John McCain’s endorsements and Hillary Clinton’s association with the Fellowship. Don’t waste your time looking for it none exist. Further, two of Hillary Clinton’s surrogates Ed Rendell and Bill Clinton praised Minister Farrakhan. Does that make Hillary Clinton a Muslim? Should Clinton now denounce, repudiate and reject Ed Rendell’s and Bill Clinton’s endorsement of her? Should she explain her husband’s and Ed Rendell’s relationship with Farrakhan as many of the commentators have suggested that Barack Obama should do, again and again? Are John McCain and Hillary Clinton guilty by their associations, as all the media and the candidates themselves want to do with Barack Obama?
Freedom of Speech and Religion is written into the Constitution of the United States of America’s First Amendment. Discrimination is also written into the Constitution of the United States of America, Article 1 Section 2, where people of color were designated as three-fifth of a person; therefore, inferior to the rest of Americans. This view of African-Americans unfortunately has not changed to full equality since this great country’s inception. There has been a significant improvement but not full equality. One does not have to look any farther than the treatment of Barack Obama and Reverend Wright over what some feel is a controversial statement and the controversial statements of endorsers and surrogates of the other candidates in the presidential race.
If the Reverend Wright’s detraction was a main issue in this campaign, there is no way that Obama could have closed the lead Hillary Clinton had in Pennsylvania Poll. If anything; if it was a real issue that was a campaign changer, as some commentators had predicated and are now predicting, it should have increased her twenty plus percent lead that she enjoyed in Pennsylvania prior to this distraction. At one time in the Quinnipiac poll Clinton led Obama by 33 points, 10-31-2007 to 11-5-2007 and when the news broke 26 points in the PPP poll, 3-15-16-2008. The final margin of victory for Clinton in Pennsylvania was 9.2 points. It is clear that this distraction was not and is not a game changer and the media and Obama should not let it fester and get back to the issues that really affect the American people. Put it another way, if Barack Obama’s speech on race relations, A More Perfect Union, in America did not put this distraction to bed, if the Jeremiah Wright interview with Bill Moyer did not put this distraction to bed; than nothing will.
Let’s move on America, this election is more important than sound bites, Reverend Wright or the media’s obsession with this distraction.
Now that is my two cents worth, Leonard.
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