Great speech, but…

That free media and democracy go together is a given. Whether it is the largest democracy – India – or the world’s richest democracy – the US, both can boast of free press and vibrant democracy. Guaranteed freedom from the establishment, barring a few aberrations, yes! But is the press free from prejudices from within?  If we take a hard look on the press in both the democracies, the chinks are obvious. One expose on Watergate cannot be cited for ever to certify the US media’s pretensions to objectivity, uprightness and courage, as much as one Tehelka cannot symbolize the investigative vigour of  the Indian media. There is not much to differentiate between the Indian and American media so far as sensationalism, motivated reporting and hatchet jobs are concerned. The coverage of the Presidential campaign by the US media has all the trappings of a motivated press. The US Press, as we find in India, is divided into pro-Left and pro-Right with many of them unabashedly taking to biased reporting and prejudiced comment, depending on which side of the political spectrum you are.

 

 The media’s bias was out in the open when the celebrated New York Times with its tagline "All the News that’s fit to print", came out with a botched up investigative story targeting Republican nominee John McCain at the most crucial time when his nomination was about to be clinched. The focus of the NY Times  page one story "For McCain, self-confidence on ethics poses its own risk" was that McCain (71) was having an affair with a lobbyist, Vicky Iseman (40) during the 2000 Presidential campaign. The charge was not backed by any incontrovertible evidence. What all the daily had to support its "fit to print" news was that former McCain’s staffers, who were not named in the story, felt McCain’s relationship with "a much younger female" was questionable because she showed up regularly at fundraising events and that they felt that the relationship had become romantic. The daily, considered to be a left-wing publication, apparently wanted to do a Gary Hart on McCain.

 

Fortunately for McCain, the entire media rubbished the so-called investigation. Chicago Tribune said in its editorial "We don’t see much to this story". All the television panelists, political and media analysts lambasted the Times whose executive editor had to be apologetic when issuing a clarification. What pinched everyone was the timing and therefore, the clarification also centered around it. "On the timing, our policy is, we publish stories when they are ready. ‘Ready’ means the facts have been nailed down to our satisfaction, the subjects have all been given a full and fair chance to respond, and the reporting has been written up with all the proper context and caveats. This story was no exception", said Bill Keller, Times executive editor in a statement. There were no takers for this explanation. Surprisingly, even  those who were critical of McCain throughout the campaign, joined the criticism against the Times. 

 

For some of the dailies and news channels, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, Democratic Party aspirant for Presidential nomination, is the target. Needless to say, they are the right wing media. The first salvo centered on his middle name which Obama never flaunts. His full name is Barack Hussein Obama. Hailing from Kenya, born to a Black father and white mother, Obama had studied in Indonesia allegedly in a Madarassa. His father and grandmother still live in Kenya. The media unearthed a photograph of Obama dressed in African Muslim attire. In a country engaged in "clash of civilizations", you can imagine what Muslim connection to a Presidential candidate would mean!

 

The next charge was that Obama is a plagiarist. He seems to have  borrowed a few catch words for his supporter and Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick. Originally, the charge came from his running mate Hillary Rodham Clinton who ridiculed Obama’s political message for "Change" as "Change you can Xerox". It was enough for the right wing media to take him on and go to the extent of calling him a "speech thief". "the notion that I plagiarized from one of my national co-chairs, who gave me the line and encouraged me to use it, is silly" replied Obama.

 

But all hell broke loose when ABC news, known for its fair and credible reporting, in its edition "Good Morning America" played the tape of Obama’s pastor and spiritual mentor Rev Jeremiah A Wright Jr. It was a stuff as lethal as RDX for Obama’s campaign. Though it was not a classified tape and was available to every channel, everyone was waiting for a credible media to break the story. Once it was in the ABC news, every channel, whether left or right, was playing the tape endlessly. It was certain that any patriotic American citizen who watched it would not vote for Obama. What was so lethal about it? Here are the excerpts:

 

On the day of 9/11, Pastor Wright’s remark was that "America’s chickens are coming home to roost". "America deserves it" and "God damn America".

 

In January 2006, Jeremiah Wright’s sermon in a Washington school ran like this. "We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college. Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse (Jackson) and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body".

 

Pastor continued "America is still the No.1 killer in the world. We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers… We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi. We put Nelson Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there."

 

Obama’s minister also blamed the US for starting the AIDS virus. He was sure that America cared for nothing about human life if the end justified the means.

 

Well, why should the fiery speech of the minister of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ rattle Obama? There is every reason for Obama to be disturbed.

 

By his own admission, Obama’s association with the Trinity Church and its pastor Jeremiah is nearly two decades old. Obama calls him his uncle who brought Jesus to him, married him in his church, baptized his two children and moulded his spiritual life. The racist image of the pastor is bound to rub on Obama.

 

What complicates the issue further is the church’s links with Louis Farrakhan leader of Nation of Islam – a racist and divisive outfit which represents the black Muslims of America and believes in the supremacy of the Black Nation. Farrakhan argues that the US is rotten at its very foundation because it has characterized from the beginning by white supremacy.

 

The Wall Street Journal in its opinion piece "Obama and the Minister" says "Considering this (Obama’s) view of America, it’s not surprising that in December Mr Wright’s church gave an award to Louis Farrakhan for lifetime achievement. The Journal quotes Wright who spoke glowingly of Farrakhan saying "His depth on analysis (sic) when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye-opening".

 

For any American citizen, whether Hispanic, Caucasian, Jewish, African-American, or Indian American, 9/11 is such a sensitive issue, that anyone who applauds or welcomes 9/11, would be deemed anti-national and deserves to be condemned.

 

Obama might have disowned Pastor’s statements and condemned them. But, they were quite flat and unconvincing. The Newsweek could not have summed up the controversy more aptly: "Still, the clips triggered unease among whites, reopened divisions within the black community and provoked politically loaded questions about the nature of Obama’s relationship with Wright…Race and politics is a volatile combination. The Wright and Farrakhan controversies force voters to look at Obama through the lens of their racial or cultural identity".

 

Realising that his statements distancing himself from his Pastor did not cut much ice with his critics as well as supporters, Obama had to resort to a major exercise in damage control. Fortunately for him, it did the trick cutting across political leanings. His campaign speech at the National Constitution Centre in Philadelphia on Tuesday received wide applause from everyone. MSNBC hailed the speech as "one of the greatest in all human history". Political commentators also described it as "the most honest speech on race in America."

 

As an analyst pointed out, Obama tried to end the controversy by delving into broader issues of racism. He tried to duck the issue of his 20-year involvement in a radical Afro-centric church by "broadening the discussion to cover 400 years of race relations in America."

 

In his Philadelphia speech, Obama said "I can no longer disown him (Rev Wright) than I can disown the black community. Race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would  be making the same mistake that Rev Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality."

 

The Los Angeles Times went gaga over this speech. It said "Never before has a candidate for national office spoken so frankly about race in America. Polished orator that he may be, no one could have predicted an address of quite this depth and scope. Obama, like Lincoln, wrote his address himself"

 

According to the New York Times, "In many ways, Obama’s speech on race was momentous and edifying. He addressed a painful, difficult subject straightforwardly with a subtlety and decency rare in American politics" In its editorial  the daily said that Obama had raised the discussion of race and religion to a higher plane.

 

For the Washington Post, the speech was an extraordinary moment of truth-telling. But all of these are the liberal press. Did the Conservatives overcome their bias and applaud?  

 

Some did grudgingly, with caveats, others found it predictable.

 

Said David Greenberg in the New Republic:

 

"Taking nothing away from the speech, which clearly had its merits and its flaws, it was obvious in advance that the commentariat would swoon over it, almost regardless of its content. The reason is that the news media create certain familiar narratives, especially in campaign coverage, in which speeches like this play a key part. It¿s a melodramatic narrative of a hero, a crisis, and a comforting resolution. In these narratives, the hero--who need not be as well-liked among the pundit class as Obama seems to be--is engaged in an admirable pursuit, only to find himself caught in an unforeseen controversy or tested by an unprecedented challenge. The moment demands a new level of statesmanship. Invariably, he rises to the occasion, faces the adversity, hits the right notes, and leaves us all feeling better."

 

And Jonah Goldberg in National Review Online:

"For all the wonderful rhetoric and tantalizing promise of Obama and his speech, there’s not much that is actually new here. This was largely a restatement of Jeremiah Wright’s indictment of America, delivered in University of Chicago parlance instead of South Side Chicago diatribe.

The old baggage has been replaced with shinier suitcases, but the contents are the same as ever. Black America’s problems can be solved by spending more money on the same old Great Society programs. Any talk about black America’s problems that takes the eyes off that prize is a "distraction." And, yet again, white Americans can prove their commitment to racial justice by going along with more big government. My hope for something better proved too audacious in the end."

 

The Investor’s Business Daily sneered: "The front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president delivered an address that used the words "race" or "races" 11 times, "racial" or "racially" 15 times, and "racism" or "racist" six times.

But Obama¿s recent troubles, which this much-hyped speech was supposed to put past him, are not about race relations. They¿re about one churchman who happens to be black, whose views from the pulpit are repugnant and from whom Obama doesn¿t seem to have the guts to distance himself."

 

Evidently, not everyone in the media thought Obama has taken the issue of racism to a higher plane. A few right wingers expressed grudging admiration, but overall media polarity on Obama is alive and well.