The gang rape committed by the embedded mass media on Jeremiah Wright will never be acknowledged, but history will record it as a sample of 21st Century racism. Wright is the hapless victim of neobigots, paid promoters of a popular racism that proceeds not from the presumed superiority of the white race but from its presumed inferiority. Blacks hate whites, according to contemporary theory, and this puts whites, who are disadvantaged by unfair laws and inherent good nature, in mortal danger.
The modern racist believes that black hatred is expressed in talk about slavery and discrimination and disproportionate rates of poverty, incarceration, illiteracy, and unemployment. African-Americans who are preoccupied with conditions that reflect poorly on our country shouldn't be surprised when the white folk question their patriotism. Wright has delivered some sermons on these topics over the years, and the neoracist minority, in the person of the commercial media, rose up indignant, as if a single word Wright uttered were anything but true.
The public repudiation of Jeremiah Wright was altogether a fabrication of the media. Although the Clintons introduced Wright's politics as "an issue" (because he was her opponent's pastor), guilt by association is never a legitimate issue, and the reporters knew that. But Wright was outspoken, and he's very similar in skin color to Barack Obama, and innocent whites could get hurt, so the networks and newspapers made a special exception and made Obama's association with an immoderate orator a political issue.
Enter the redeemer of journalism, Bill Moyers, with an interview that exposes Wright as a keen analyst and an altogether guileless and charitable human being. This gifted leader inspired a discouraged community to rediscover dignity and hope and he's a credit to the Obamas and their fellow congregants. He deserves a nod of approval from all of us. Instead, the keenest of analysts in the commercial media put a stick in his eye.
I don't know if Moyers hopes to rehabilitate his profession with this interview, but it's pretty clear that the reporters in the quarter-million-a-year bracket are beyond redemption. The best paid people in the news industry are gossip-mongers, and they willingly cash out credibility for fame and fortune. The Moyers interview won't go down in history as amends, but it does set the record straight.
I wait and wait for Obama to confront the toads who follow him around, but he seems to be afraid of them. I keep expecting this outburst: "That's the stupidest question I ever heard Charlie. All this mess, and you're asking about that?" If Obama ever stood up to these babbling idiots, I'd consider voting for him. He could start by excluding from his entourage each and every news organization that attacked Jeremiah Wright. Clinton should make the same rule for the reporters that feed at her buffet.
