Wright thinking

[Updated 5:08pm] A few thoughts on the continuing bruhaha over Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's former pastor and ever-popular subject of the mainstream news media echo chamber:

• Firstly, who cares? This "news" has been bouncing around the media water cooler for over a month now, even though there's nothing new to warrant this attention. Unless Rev. Wright is running for President (and he isn't), this is just fark that the networks are throwing out to waste time. If it wasn't for his association with a leading Presidential candidate, Wright would be unknown and/or ignored by most folks. But it's certainly easier to do another article on Barack Obama's Kooky Pastor™ than to report on real news.
  

  The only thing these Rev. Wright "news" articles are good for is serving as textbook examples of how the right-wing media manufactures Controversies of The Week™.




• And speaking of examples, you can use just about any clip of a conservative pundit denouncing Rev. Wright's comments as a textbook example of hypocrisy. I mean, when you've got Class-A examples of Stupid Speaking like Rush Limbaugh urging people to start riots, Ann Coulter calling women who vote Democratic "stupid," and Bill O'Reilly saying that a "lynching party" against Michelle Obama is justified if she proves insufficiently patriotic, these idiots are the least qualified to condemn anything Rev. Wright might say, past or future.




• Finally, isn't the continuing (artificial) controversy over Jeremiah Wright a clear example of racism at work? After all, Barack Obama isn't the only presidential candidate cavorting with a minister who says outrageous things. Of course, the difference here is that McCain actively sought Hagee's endorsement, while Barack Obama was simply sitting in the pews while Wright made his remarks... yet McCain hasn't gotten half the attention Obama has.

  Why, if I didn't know any better, I might suggest that this is because mainstream America might be more willing to dismiss remarks from an Angry White Man, but freaks out when an Angry Black Man does something similar. Or maybe it's not so much racism as much as simply the conservative corporate media playing partisan favoritism once again.

  Or -- and this is the most likely explanation -- it's all of the above. It's hard to tell when racism ends and hypocrisy begins, actually...

[Updated 5:08pm] Somewhat related, and worth reading for additional thoughts into this non-news topic: Obama Kicks Wright In the Junk