Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s appearance at the National Press Club may stand as the pivotal moment in the 2008 presidential elections. The controversial pastor of a church that Barack Obama attended for 20 years unleashed a torrent of preposterous statements in response to questions from the national press that perhaps doomed his congregant’s candidacy.
Before an audience stacked with supporters and about one dozen noted leftist radicals, Wright professed support for the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and reiterated his belief that the U.S. government created the AIDS virus to exterminate blacks. He bashed Vice President Dick Cheney for not having served in the military and sending young men and women to “die for a lie.” Wright criticized Oliver North for aiding the Contras against the pro-Communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua more than two decades ago.
Wright ranted at the press for having the temerity to query him and several times disrespected the “white girl,” NPC Vice President Donna Leinwand who read the questions. Wright’s “audacity of hate” diatribe sent shockwaves across the political landscape.
New York Daily News writer Errol Lewis perceived Wright’s performance so damaging to Obama that he suggested the National Press Club conspired to derail the Illinois senator’s campaign. He posited that Speakers Committee member Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds, a Hillary Clinton supporter hoped to help her choice by giving Wright a platform to spout his divisive “black liberation theology.”
Such an assertion is nonsense and an insult to the National Press Club and its membership. NPC’s core mission is to promote the free press and facilitate access to elected officials, public policy makers and other influential figures. Rev. Wright certainly qualifies as such a person. In the national spotlight given to him, Wright produced an abundance of valuable information for substance-starved political news consumers.
The National Press Club should do more events of this nature, regardless of the outcome. While I bristled when serial liars Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame received a hero’s welcome at the Club, at least the working press had a chance to question them, however uncritically it did so. I strongly believe that every President of the United States should address the Club each year. It would probably provide a fairer forum than that the ideologically homogenous White House Press Corps.
The venerable National Press Club, now celebrating its centennial has clearly demonstrated why it endures. Even in a rapidly changing media universe, the basic journalism equation remains the same: asking questions and getting answers.
With Rev. Wright, “mission accomplished!”
2 responses so far ↓
1 Steve O'Hearn // May 28, 2008 at 7:37 pm
> Before an audience stacked with supporters and about one dozen noted leftist radicals
I was there and you’re correct, there were lots of supporters for Wright present. I’m curious who was there within the category of “noted leftist radicals” - like who? I’m not saying they weren’t there, just wanting to know.
2 Jeff Gannon // May 28, 2008 at 7:46 pm
I spotted Cornell West, sitting at a table near you. Later on I would read from Dana Milbank’s reporting in The Washington Post that Wright’s guests included Marion Barry, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad. Nominally Catholic and totally renegade Father Mike Flager also attended.
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