Obama's Pastor Plays the Race Card

The Clinton's have been getting a pasting in the media for allegedly playing the race card. The evidence? Hillary apparenly denigrated Martin Luther King (by pointing out that it was Lyndon Johnson who pushed the Civil Rights Act through Congress) and Bill pointed out that Jesse Jackson won primaries in the south in the 1980's. Pretty tame stuff, really. The ringing phone ad was apparently racist also, although I can't see it. Well, here is the race card played for real by Obama's pastor (Obama has attended his church for 20 years yet says he never heard Pastor Wright say anything like this before). It isn't that there isn't some truth in what the Pastor says (about poor black folk and rich white folk). It is, rather, the whole tone and manner of it. Hillary Clinton may be many things but she doesn't really deserve this. One of the pleasing things about this video is that, if you look closely, the audience seems divided and some appear to be trying to remonstrate with Pastor Wright, although we can't hear what they say because he has the microphone. Not everyone is applauding. There were some - black people - even in the Church, who appear to think he was, as they say, "out of order". It is, of course, damaging Obama (this morning's Guardian reports white votes ebbing away) and, should he win the Democratic nomination, this - and Pastor Wright's "God damn America" together with Michelle's embarassing gaffe - will be used relentlessly by the Republicans. They are both already all over YouTube and the blogosphere.