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McCarthy's shadow spreads over the land

McCarthy's shadow spreads over the land

March 26th, 2008

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in the Chicago SunTimes' Daily Southtown
By Andrew Greeley

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 The ghost of the late Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy is abroad in the land. "Tail gunner Joe" was a master of the art of guilt by association.

Sen. Barack Obama ought not to have had to defend his outspoken pastor. The Rev. Wright is not running for the presidency. There is no evidence at all that the senator identifies with his clergyman, and overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Yet the senator must repudiate him or lose the primary battle to Sen. Hillary Clinton. Even a repudiation would not do. The senator's brilliant speech did not help him; his polling rates have collapsed in Pennsylvania.

The United States will reveal itself to the world as a country in which a candidate can be destroyed by a single explosion on YouTube -- at least if he's black.

The media will celebrate that they have dragged down another celebrity like Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

Some of my friends tell me that Obama might still carry it off. I hope they're right.

  I can imagine high school rhetoric classes studying his speech 50 years from now. Students will ask how long did he serve as president. (Then as now high school students will be clueless about American history.) The teacher will assure them that he was not elected, despite his brilliant oratory. The young people will wonder why not. The teacher will have to tell them that there were enough closet racists in the United States (especially in Pennsylvania) in those days who seized on the outburst of his cleric as an excuse to destroy Obama. It's not fair, they will cry out. Whoever said fair? The teacher will reply, quoting John F. Kennedy.

Was that why the war continued? The kids might remember about the war, but I kind of doubt it. Let's say for the sake of an argument that one, a young woman probably, vaguely recalled it.

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Yes the teacher will respond. Clinton came from behind to win the primary and then lost to Sen. John McCain in the election; she was the candidate that Republicans thought correctly would be the easiest to beat.

Did she plant the clip on YouTube?

Well, she and her staff did everything they could to keep the race issue alive during the campaign. They attacked Obama on every possible occasion, just as if they were Republicans. She even hinted by lack of strong support that Obama might not be a Christian.

Before the primary in Pennsylvania, her campaign was in deep trouble. She never denounced the dirty trick. Many people suspected her. She was the only one to gain by it. Of course, it proved that Wright was correct in his judgments about the American people. Many of them hated blacks so much they would do anything to keep one of them out of the White House. At least they didn't shoot him.

He didn't do anything wrong, cried one of the kids, a boy with clenched fists. It wasn't fair!

Like I told you, life isn't supposed to be fair. He almost won the primary anyway. If he had, they probably would have shot him.

To return from the future, many of the gloating members of the commentariat have appointed themselves to be the jury to determine whether Obama was guilty or not guilty of a major "gaffe" that cost him the election.

The majority seems to have found him guilty. In fact, the only thing of which he is guilty is that he is black. Worse still, he is a pushy black. My teacher in the future used the wrong word. Obama was lynched.

And Clinton was ultimately responsible for playing the race card.

She set loose the whirlwind. 

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