The Blog @ Spolitics

Let’s Analyze Obama’s Outrage Like We Did Clinton’s Tears

When Hillary Clinton teared up before the New Hampshire primary, the Obama camp — via Jesse Jackson, Jr. — issued a call to analyze her tears in light of the things for which she never cried.  Jackson pointed out that Clinton was crying in self-pity; the woman who didn’t shed any tears for Katrina was only crying for herself. 

So let’s be fair and apply that same standard to Barack Obama’s outrage.  He wasn’t outraged when he first heard about Reverend Wright’s incendiary sermons.  In fact, the lack of vigor with which he denounced Wright’s comments was noted by Clinton in the MSNBC debate and turned into a banal parsing of words and equivocating.  In his Philadelphia speech he said Wright’s comments were par for the course in black churches and similar to comments made by his own grandmother.  So why is he outraged now?  By his own admission, what “particularly angered” him was Wright’s insinuation that his denunciation of those comments was “somehow political posturing.”  Obama wasn’t outraged at the racist, conspiratorial anti-Americanism.  He  only became angered when Wright attacked his integrity — not America’s.  If we needed to analyze Hillary’s tears, certainly we should take a look at what didn’t outrage Senator Obama and compare it to what did; his outrage was about him.