Joseph Wilson, an unabashed supporter of (and surrogate for) Senator Hillary Clinton, posted an article today on Huffington Post in which he calls Senator Barack Obama's national security credentials into question. In doing so, he brings in Willie Horton Rev. Jeremiah Wright to attack Sen. Obama's "judgment".
I find the use of Rev. Wright as a cudgel against Sen. Obama to be absolutely shameless. Sen. Clinton should be taking a strong stand, not just against the exploitation of this controversy, but against the fact that there is even a controversy at all. She's playing into the same smear campaign that went after her and her husband for eight years, and that went after John Kerry four years ago. It needs to stop.
Ambassador Wilson, in his lengthy piece, explains that experience is important when it comes to foreign policy and that Sen. Obama has little of it. (He somehow fails to mention that Pres. Clinton had less "foreign policy experience" than Sen. Obama does, all the while extolling his ex-boss as a successful foreign policy president! He also fails to mention that Sen. Clinton had zero "foreign policy experience" when she became First Lady, but claims that she was an instrumental part of her husband's foreign policy team!) He criticizes Sen. Obama for not being in Washington during the run up to the war, which is kind of a weird non sequitur, but never mind.
He goes on to question Sen. Obama's judgment by raising the specter of two figures:
Claims of superior intuitive judgment by his campaign and by him are self-evidently disingenuous, especially in light of disclosures about his long associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko.
Now, I get the Rezko thing. Sen. Obama has said himself that at least part of his connection with Rezko was a lapse of judgment. It's hard to argue otherwise, in retrospect.
But it's wrong -- terribly wrong -- to go after his association with Rev. Wright. This is more than just saying"Rev. Wright makes him unelectable in the general election." This is saying that the smear campaign against Sen. Obama is somehow justified. This feeds into the long-standing pattern of right-wing hit jobs that have gone after Sen. Clinton in the past and will continue to go after her in the future.
I could go on for hours about why legitimizing this smear campaign is bad for the Democrats, but Obama said it far better than I did earlier this week. Instead, I'll use this diary to call on Sen. Clinton not only to disavow the use by her surrogates of the Jeremiah Wright controversy, I challenge her to stand up for Sen. Obama, and Rev. Wright, and denounce this charade. To say something like:
I join Barack Obama in denouncing this smear campaign. They came after me following the suicide of my dear friend, Vince Foster, and my fellow Americans stood together and rejected that. Rev. Wright is an extremely well-respected, challenging, and at times, yes, incendiary preacher. I join Barack Obama in absolutely rejecting some of the statements by Rev. Wright that have been edited together and played in endless loops, out of context, but still too often short-sighted and misguided. But I care about and trust too many people who know Rev. Wright as a friend, mentor, and leader, to reject him out of hand, and I will not stand idly by while he, his congregation, and his friend Barack Obama get dragged through the mud.
This has been an often contentious primary, and both Senator Obama and I are committed to winning. Sometimes things get said that, in retrospect, we wish hadn't been. But he is my colleague and friend, and I have a great deal of respect for him. I repeat: I will not stand by while he is slimed like this. If you will not vote for Senator Obama because of his membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ, then I ask you not to vote for me, either.
Barack Obama is his own man. Judge him by his actions and words, not by his pastor's.
This election is about issues. George Bush has dug America into a deep hole and it's time to start building a ladder. I believe I am the best candidate to do that. I hope you do as well.
She won't do it, of course. But she should.
There are two other things I'd like to mention, that I haven't seen before, regarding this endless controversy:
- In cynically calling Sen. Obama's judgment into question based on his association with Rev. Wright, Sen. Clinton is suggesting that NO long-standing member of the Trinity United Church of Christ could be president of the United States. Now, it's unlikely that another TUCC congregant would be a presidential candidate in the near future (Oprah notwithstanding). But still, think about that. Doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with some or all of what the head pastor says - YOU CAN'T BE A TUCC MEMBER AND BE PRESIDENT! Does she have the guts to make that obvious leap - to say that out loud? I doubt it. But she's fine with that being the logical conclusion of her surrogate's article.
- This video is featured now on the TUCC website. It's pretty great.