By Quin Hillyer on 5.21.12 @ 4:51PM
Kathleen Parker today at times seems almost ready to acknowledge that raising issues related to the infamous Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a perfectly legitimate exerise, but then, as is her wont, she veers off into near nothingness with an equivocal "above it all" dodge about how this is all just silly-season politics.
Here's what she and almost everybody else is missing: The story now is not about Obama's 20-year relationship with Wright -- which is indeed now "old news," even though it never got adequately aired or criticized four years ago -- but instead about new and credible allegations that an emissary for Obama offered to buy Wright's silence. The story told by Wright himself seems to suggest that violations of several laws might at least have been approached (although the technicalities of the various laws at play can be tricky), and certainly that something highly unseemly and unethical occurred (from Obama's end, or at least from his alleged intermediary). This is decidely not old news. This is even more decidely not "racist." This is a legitimate issue, one that, if the shoe were on the conservative foot, the establishment media would be leading all their front pages and their newscasts with for many days on end.
If Rev. Wright makes these claims, why isn't 60 Minutes interviewing him? Why isn't the Washington Post editorial board weighing in, in stentorian tones (if the written word can be stentorian), about the need to adequately examine disturbing allegations that might at least cast light on a president's character even if not on his legality? (Any day now, however, I do expect a WaPost piece about how Romney back in the Sixth Grade paid a classmate $20 to cover his tracks while he played hookie in order to pig out at the ice cream parlor.)
After all, it wasn't Republicans who said the Rev. Wright was important and admirable; it was Barack Obama himself, repeatedly... until Wright embarrassed him. Well, if the morally exemplary Rev. Wright, who may be outspoken but hasn't yet been called a liar, says he was offered hush money, then the media should be banging down his door wanting more details. Wright may be a racist demagogue, but those asking for more attention to this matter should be able to do so without a single racial implication being raised.
More on Wright
By Quin Hillyer on 5.21.12 @ 5:40PM
I missed it, but on Thursday night our friend Scott McKay at the Hayride (Louisiana) had a far better post on the Rev. Wright controversy than I just did a little while ago. Mixing McKay's excerpts from a Jeffrey Kuhner column with mcKay's own comments, here are some essentials:
Dr. Eric Whitaker, a close Obama friend, sent an email proposing $150,000 to muzzle the pastor; Mr. Wright says he refused. (The Obama administration recently awarded a $6 million grant to the University of Chicago Medical Center’s Urban Health Initiative. Who runs the initiative? You guessed it: Dr. Whitaker.) .... Not to mention that Eric Whitaker, who is Obama’s buddy, might have to explain under oath how, as a bigwig atop the food chain at the University of Chicago Medical Center, the hospital ended up paying Michelle Obama some $316,000 a year for a job that they did away with after she left. Yes, you read that right. He might also talk about how that was around the time the hospital was looking for congressional earmark money for a new pavilion (Michelle’s husband was a U.S. Senator at the time), and didn’t get it – which was around when her salary started getting cut. She said, of course, that she was cutting her hours after Obama started his run for president, but again, she wasn’t replaced.
Ahh, Chicago Democratic politics! Gotta love them! Tony Rezko, anybody? Remember how poor widdle Barry Obama just wasn't paying close enough attention to how Rezko was helping them? And now Barry is a $10 million man, even though he claims he was still struggling to pay off student loans until eight years ago. Right.... Or should I say, Wright?
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