Free Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media by Ishmael Reed Page B

reduced to an inflammatory sound bite. So effective was this campaign that Obama had to make a speech denouncing Rev. Wright. Largely ignored by the media were the ties of John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Mrs. Clinton herself to ministers who were authors of controversial comments .)
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    N othing is more uplifting than watching MSNBC’s Morning Joe , where wealthy Anglicized Irish Americans like Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews, Tim “Little Russ” Russert and Pat Buchanan hold forth on the topic of race. During the week beginning March 17, 2008, the talk was all about whether Barack Obama should distance himself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Presumably in the same manner that they distanced themselves from Don Imus.
    Buchanan has been awarded more time to discuss race and the bigotry of Rev. Wright than the scores of black intellectuals and scholars, who could provide some insight. According to U.S. News & World Report (January 16, 1992), Pat Buchanan said in 1977 that Hitler was “a political organizer of the first rank,” a man of “extraordinary gifts,” “great courage” and elements of “genius.” Yet there was his sister, Bay Buchanan, debating Roland Martin, one of a handful of token black commentators with any kind of bite. This was on CNN, March 21. She was in a tizzy about the Rev.’s anti-Americanism, yet Hitler, her brother’s hero, was responsible for the deaths of one hundred and twenty thousand Americans.
    Why doesn’t Dan Abrams at MSNBC just go ahead and offer Minister Louis Farrakhan a commentary? Why aren’t the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress, so quick to pounce upon blacks who say silly anti-Semitic things, all over MSNBC for Buchanan’s position as Dan Abram’s resident authority on race.
    Tim Russert, his colleague, was employed by the late Daniel Moynihan. Moynihan’s report on the black family has guided public policy and been cited in hundreds of Op-Eds and editorials. Black intellectuals who opposed Moynihan’s report have cited the fact that the majority of women on welfare at the time of the report were white women. In fact it was a Nazi, Tom Metzger, who told Larry King that the average welfare recipient was a white woman whose husband has left her, while neo-cons and black tough-lovers ignore this possibility. Isn’t it ironic that one can gain a more accurate picture of welfare in this country from a Nazi than a neo-con? Most of those white welfare recipients were probably Celtic, members of Moynihan’s tribe.
    It was Daniel Moynihan who accused black women of “speciation,” of reproducing mutants, the kind of thing that the Nazis used to say about their victims. Did Russert disown the senator after this remark? Some of those in the media who are now criticizing senator Obama’s pastor are Irish Catholics. They dominate the panels on Morning Joe . (His token black guests are passive participants, grateful-to-be-on camera types.)
    Have these panelists, who are so critical of Rev. Wright, disassociated themselves from a church that had to pay two billion dollars to people who’ve been sexually abused by priests? Both the last pope and the current one attempted to cover up the scandal. Would they fly to Rome to scold the pope, which is what they demanded of Obama who wasn’t even present when Rev. Wright preached about 9/11? Have they had a one-on-one with their priests during which they criticized the church’s cover-up of the epidemic of pedophilia infecting the church?
    The classic indicator for racism has been the double standard applied to blacks and whites. This still exists for blacks in everyday life. In the criminal justice system, the mortgage lending industry, and the treatment of blacks by the medical industry, etc. Why is Rev. Wright crazy for citing racism in the criminal justice system? The infamous three strikes law where poor people might