I normally think of MSNBC's evening lineup as a bunch of cheerleaders for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. So I was pleasantly surprised to see a genuinely fair segment just now by Dan Abrams just now. The subject was Rev. Jeremiah Wright's recent interview with Bill Moyers.
In essence Wright defended himself, with Moyers nodding in sympathetic approval. Wright said that he had been treated unfairly by the media, etc. And when asked about Obama's partial distancing of himself from Wright's inflammatory sermons, Wright said, "he's a politician, he does what he has to do."
In so saying, of course, Wright "threw Obama under the bus," as Abrams put it. But of course, as Abrams further observed, if Wright had wanted to help Obama's presidential prospects, he wouldn't have agreed to the interview at all.
And so it looks like Wright isn't looking to do Obama any good. Right?
You read it here first, Cable Gamers! On April 14, to be exact, I said that Wright had a vested interest in seeing Obama lose, since a defeat for Obama would be a vindication of Wright's worldview--that the white majority in America is racist. On the other hand, as I wrote two weeks ago:
If Obama won, if he were to get elected by all the people of America, it would undercut the whole world view that Wright has built up over his many angry decades here on this earth. By contrast, if Obama does lose, well then, everything that Wright preaches will be vindicated, at least in the minds of Wright and his fan base.
To put it more plainly, If Obama were to win, the Wright was wrong about America. If Obama loses, then Wright is "right" about America.
Abrams was joined by Joe Watkins, a black Republican political operative-turned-preacher, to whom Abrams gave a generous amount of time to, as Watkins denounced Wright and suggested that Wright's reappearance would be damaging to Obama. Also on the panel was Kevin Madden, the former press secretary for Mitt Romney who seems nice enough, and is definitely handsome enough, for a great career in The Cable Game.
Finally, fourth and definitely least, also on air was Lawrence O'Donnell, who is increasingly crazy. O'Donnell has been temperamental for a long time, but now he seems to be just mental. Alone among the four talking heads, he stoutly affirmed that Wright had said nothing negative about Obama, as if calling him "a politician" with a kind of dismissal was not, well, a diss. It was a nutty argument, obviously not true, but O'Donnell clung to it. O'Donnell should stick to fiction,since he's having a harder and harder time with reality.
But meanwhile, it'll be interesting to see what Keith Olbermann, the chief ideologue and propagandist at MSNBC, does in reaction to Abram's apostasy.
UPDATE: I am watching the MSNBC rerun of Olbermann's show tonight, Thursday, which tells me that Abrams might indeed get some grief for his even-handed treatment of the latest Wright eruption. First up on his show which was taped before Abrams', Olbermann had on one of his favorite lackeys, Dana Milbank, who opined that the Wright interview was no big deal. And then he put up a graphic entitled "Clinton's 'Electability' Myth." (Remember, on Olbermann's far-lefty world, Hillary Clinton is a great satan, exceeded only in her satanitude by the entire Republican Party and all conservatives.) Next up, another Olbermann lackey, Rachel Maddow, started pounding away on Fox News. Which, of course, Olbermann loved. So she'll be back tomorrow.
