What Makes for "Hate-Filled" Rhetoric

The past Sunday guests on the Sunday morning talk shows were still talking about the controversial excerpts from Reverend Wright's sermons that I'm told have been playing on TV a lot recently.

A Clinton supporter, Philadelphia Mayor Mike Nutter, said American's reject "that kind of hate filled rhetoric" and the he would have left the church if the pastor gave a sermon like that.

Obama wasn't even present when these sermons were given. Do we really expect him to be responsible for everything the pastor says? If I worked in politics, would I have to get a copy of the sermons from Sundays when I slept in to make sure the pastor didn't say anything offensive? Would I have to be in 100% agreement with everything the minister said. I don't know how it works at other churches, but if Unitarians were required to agree with everything the minister said, the place would be empty.

An Obama supporter said that the publicizing of these excerpts "was big", yet it didn't affect is popularity. This shows, he said, that Obama can weather a scandal.

It doesn't show that at all, IMHO. The biggest scandal Obama has faced involves comments someone else made years ago while Obama was not present. That means Obama has not faced a scandal.

The comments themselves were not even very scandalous:
1. The Sept 11 attacks were blowback from US foreign policy mistakes in the past. People hope that good foreign policy will prevent future attacks, so it seems reasonable to ask whether bad foreign policy might have had a role in the Sept 11 attacks. I'm not saying the claim of blowback was right. I'm just saying it's a valid question, not hate-filled.
2. The US government mistreated indigenous peoples and African Americans.
Is there even any debate whether this is true?
3. The "drug war" has hurt African Americans disproportionably.
There is room for debate about whether a war-based approach is the best way to deal with drugs, but either way it seems reasonable that the war-based approach that started around 1970 affected African Americans more than other races.

I suppose the hate filled part is when he says, "God damn America" for its role in these problems. It wouldn't be appropriate for someone running for president of the United States to say this, but it seems very appropriate for a religious leader to criticize the US gov't vehemently. Part of the job of the president is to listen to critics of the US government, including vehement critics, and to try to improve it.

The motivation behind this story is probably that there is no other scandalous video available that you can play on TV and have its meaning understood in seconds. That's unfortunate because there's a racial element to the appeal of the Wright videos. Wright's style is not familiar to members of churches that are not predominately African American. Maybe the comments give some people a visceral reaction of: There's someone who doesn't look like me or talk like me condemning the US government. Maybe he would condemn me? If Obama is tied to him, maybe Obama would condemn me or at least not understand my interests.

If that visceral reaction is why this is still being mentioned on the Sunday morning political shows, it's shows the vestiges of racism are still alive and well.