After Jeremiah Wright’s recent speeches to the NAACP and the National Press Club, Obama took the advice of bloggers and denounced his former pastor once and for all:
Bloggers are skeptical that Obama never heard the true Wright. Michelle Malkin says, “Anyone with eyes…saw that Wright’s was a finely-honed, time-tested act.” At the Corner, Byron York explains that “watching Rev. Wright for the last few days, watching the fluidity with which he moved from educational theories to musical theories to racial theories, it’s hard to believe that that material hasn’t been in the sermons Obama has heard Wright preach over the last 20 years, so I’m skeptical about Obama’s new outrage over Wright’s words.” As for Obama, Rich Lowry says, “What’s been most disturbing about this entire episode is how dishonest Obama has been, from his pretense that he didn’t know about Wright’s radicalism to his excuse now that Wright has somehow become a different person.” It simply “strains credulity,” says Tom Bevan at the Real Clear Politics blog. At Contentions, Jennifer Rubin asks, “How low did the poll numbers go? How many superdelegates had to warn him? What finally changed his mind? Because, as anyone following the story knows, Wright has been remarkably consistent.” Goldfarb has the answer: “Obama sat in the pews for 20 years, indifferent to the hatred Wright spewed towards all quarters of American life. It was only when Wright turned on Obama that he repudiated him.” At Pajamas Media, Rick Moran agrees that “he has only addressed his pastor’s hateful remarks when they have become a political problem for him.” But it seems that Obama might have even more problems now. Hugh Hewitt says, “Either way it creates a huge issue for voters. Is Obama a dupe, or just duplicitous? Do you want him in charge of the nation’s security, making judgments about our enemies?” Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey adds, “It doesn’t address questions of judgment at all to finally act after being backed into a corner.” And NRO’s Jim Geraghty says that it makes Obama’s race speech “look ridiculous now”–to which Mary Katharine Ham adds, “If you’d Sister Souljah-ed [Wright] instead of your grandma, maybe you wouldn’t be here now.”
