Hiaasen: If Wright were white, he'd have no blight
McClatchy Newspapers
If the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright were white, he'd probably have his own church show on television. Maybe even his own network.
He could promise fantastic miracles that never come true and predict terrible disasters that never happen, and he could fleece millions of dollars from poor, gullible viewers.
He'd be living in a mansion and flying around in his own jet, and having daily conversations -- or at least text messages -- with God.
And Wright would be such a media big shot that he wouldn't have to lose any sleep about kneecapping the presidential aspirations of Sen. Barack Obama, a friend whose marriage rites he performed and whose children he baptized.
If he were white, Wright could stand up before the cameras and make his nuttiest statements -- that the U.S. government deliberately spread AIDS in the inner cities, for example -- and most white Americans wouldn't be so shocked.
That's because white folks have a long history of gasbags in the pulpit. We fully expect some of them to be outrageous and narrow-minded and even a little paranoid.
Often our loudest, most hypocritical preachers become political gurus, instructing their wide-eyed followers whom to support. To a candidate trolling for fundamentalist votes, it's the next best thing to a personal endorsement from Jesus.
White politicians aren't shy about sucking up to TV preachers. Earlier this year, Rudy Giuliani snuggled openly with faith healer Pat Robertson, one of many dumb moves in a doomed campaign.
Sen. John McCain had his own famous lovefest with the late Jerry Falwell, the founder of Moral Majority and a geyser of hateful nonsense.
Two days after the 9-11 attacks, Falwell appeared on The 700 Club and shared these deep thoughts: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"
Later, after prying his foot out of his gullet, Falwell phoned CNN and apologized. Yet for this toxic slur, he suffered no serious diminishment of stature among his followers, no stain on his holy barbecue bib.
The last person one would have expected to cozy up to Falwell was McCain, who in 2000 had denounced the televangelist and other right-wing preachers as "agents of intolerance." No truer words were ever spoken, or more opportunistically discarded.
In September 2005, while laying the groundwork for his current presidential campaign, McCain quietly reached out to Falwell. The Arizona senator was trying to shore up his shaky standing among the Christian right, traditionally a core segment of the Republican base.
Whatever moral qualms McCain harbored about Falwell fell victim to his political ambitions. He made peace with the agent of intolerance, even agreeing to deliver the commencement speech at Falwell's Liberty University in May 2006.
That appearance in Lynchburg, Va., was by all accounts cordial and low-key. Afterward, Falwell told an interviewer that McCain had spoken "out of emotions" years before when using the term "agents of intolerance," and that he now considered himself and the senator to be friends.
There's nothing more Christian than heartfelt reconciliation, and if that's what really happened between McCain and Falwell, good for them. We can all appreciate a Hallmark moment.
Still, McCain's bonding with Falwell remains harder to comprehend than Obama's relationship with Wright, which began before Obama's political career. Wright was Obama's hometown pastor in Chicago, not a national TV personality whose endorsement might help get him elected someday.
To his credit, McCain has repeatedly stated that it's unfair to vilify Obama based on Wright's remarks. McCain also intervened to stop the Republican Party in North Carolina from running a commercial that branded the Illinois senator "too extreme" because of his association with the bombastic minister.
This is a wise and pre-emptive position by McCain. He knows he could find himself haunted by a similar ghost once the presidential race heats up.
And though he's not white, Wright might yet end up sermonizing on his own syndicated TV show, where he could be courted by future politicians who see the light and then live to regret it.
