Like A Rolling Stone - Obama Realizes Wright is Outrageous

MUST READ:  Obama steps to The Huffington Post to address the Wright debacle.  At a quick glance, his defense will be ripped as BS - he seems to be pretending Wright has made a few awful comments, not twenty years worth.  Here we go:

Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.

The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.

If Obama wanted to loose the hounds, this should do the trick - not even the Times will be able to ignore this now, ancient footage and interviews with Wright will surface, and Obama will be pretending that he never heard any of it.  Get Claude Rains to close the church!.

This Rolling Stone article from Feb 2007 titled "The Radical Roots of Barack Obama" looks like a gold mine.  Lots of material on Wright (but nothing on Ayers).  This next passage gives a flavor of what Obama is pretending he did not hear in church [but do note my confusion following the excerpt]:

Wright takes the pulpit here one Sunday and solemnly, sonorously declares that he will recite ten essential facts about the United States. "Fact number one: We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he intones. "Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!" There is thumping applause; Wright has a cadence and power that make Obama sound like John Kerry. Now the reverend begins to preach. "We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS. . . . We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. . . . We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. . . . We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!" The crowd whoops and amens as Wright builds to his climax: "And. And. And! GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS SHIT!"

This is as openly radical a background as any significant American political figure has ever emerged from, as much Malcolm X as Martin Luther King Jr. Wright is not an incidental figure in Obama's life, or his politics. The senator "affirmed" his Christian faith in this church; he uses Wright as a "sounding board" to "make sure I'm not losing myself in the hype and hoopla." Both the title of Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope, and the theme for his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 come from Wright's sermons. "If you want to understand where Barack gets his feeling and rhetoric from," says the Rev. Jim Wallis, a leader of the religious left, "just look at Jeremiah Wright."

Obama wasn't born into Wright's world. His parents were atheists, an African bureaucrat and a white grad student, Jerry Falwell's nightmare vision of secular liberals come to life. Obama could have picked any church — the spare, spiritual places in Hyde Park, the awesome pomp and procession of the cathedrals downtown. He could have picked a mosque, for that matter, or even a synagogue. Obama chose Trinity United. He picked Jeremiah Wright. Obama writes in his autobiography that on the day he chose this church, he felt the spirit of black memory and history moving through Wright, and "felt for the first time how that spirit carried within it, nascent, incomplete, the possibility of moving beyond our narrow dreams."

Ouch.  [But hold on - per this article, the Rolling Stone is reporting on the same speech described by today's WSJ as having been delivered at Howard University; this YouTube video tracks both sets of excerpts.  I suppose he could have delivered it twice.  But word for word?  So what was the Rolling Stone reporter thinking about?  I'll guess - Howard University is in Washington DC, as is Obama's Senate office, and he got muddled.]

Let's cut to the Times for more on Obama's choice of minister:

It was a 1988 sermon called “The Audacity to Hope” that turned Mr. Obama, in his late 20s, from spiritual outsider to enthusiastic churchgoer. Mr. Wright in the sermon jumped from 19th-century art to his own youthful brushes with crime and Islam to illustrate faith’s power to inspire underdogs. Mr. Obama was seeing the same thing in public housing projects where poor residents sustained themselves through sheer belief.

In “Dreams From My Father,” Mr. Obama described his teary-eyed reaction to the minister’s words. “Inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones,” Mr. Obama wrote. “Those stories — of survival, and freedom, and hope — became our story, my story.”

Mr. Obama was baptized that year, and joining Trinity helped him “embrace the African-American community in a way that was whole and profound,” said Ms. Soetoro, his half sister.

Whoa.  It is hardly as if this is the church Obama's parents selected and he inherited.  He sought out Wright, was moved by Wright, and is now pretending he had no idea Wright said these things.  One more, from an earlier Times story describing why Wright was excluded from Obama's announcement of his candidacy:

According to the pastor, Mr. Obama then told him, “You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.”

So in Feb 2007 Obama knew that Wright could get a bit rough, but, per his current statement, that was the first time he realized it.  Please.  As to the HuffPo statement that he "strongly condemned" Wright's declarations when he learned of them at the start of his campaign, huh?  Where?  The denunciation of Farrakhan and non-denunciation of Wright described here was earlier in 2008:

Obama, who has rejected support from Farrakhan, assured voters his Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago does not endorse such messages.

''I have never heard an anti-Semitic (remark) made inside of our church. I have never heard anything that would suggest anti-Semitism on the part of the pastor,'' Obama said in a transcript of his remarks released later. ''He (Wright) is like an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with. And I suspect there are some of the people in this room who have heard relatives say some things that they don't agree with -- including, on occasion, directed at African-Americans.''

Very hard to believe this.  Geez, a win for Hillary, and just 5 1/2 weeks to Pennsylvania.  Should be time for glaciers to advance and recede again.

NOAM SCHEIBER AT TNR:

Whether or not this explanation does the trick depends on two things, I guess: 1.) Most obviously, whether Obama has really never heard Wright preach this kind of stuff. If Obama is somehow placed at a sermon in which Wright went on one of his rants, it's going to be a disaster. (Then again, it would have been a disaster without or without his HuffPo statement.) 2.) How plausible it is that Obama wouldn't have known about Wright's, er, greatest hits. Obama strongly implies he didn't know his pastor had a habit of giving nutty sermons up until the outset of his presidential campaign. Is that believable? Is there any way to disprove it?

Well, the disinvitation to the announcement was probably a timeline marker the Obama people couldn't avoid.  As to what went on in Obama's church, this bit from "Dreams From My Father" (Ch. 14, p. 293) is merely suggestive - it is the description of Wright's "Audacity of Hope" speech that brought Obama into the flock:

"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folk's greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere... that's the world!  On which hope sits!"

And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. ...Rev. Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House...

I  wonder what the guy who believes the US invented AIDS thinks about Hiroshima - must have been calm and measured! [Hmm, Rich Lowry already had this, which would have spared me some mistyping.]

SALUTING THE CAPTAIN: "Ed Morrissey emails:  "I sat in his church, but I didn't inhale."

Comments

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

In contrast, here's Martin Luther King, Jr. from his I Have a Dream speech:

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

I think you meant, 'stoops' to the Huffington Post. But, he 'under-bused' Wright and is moving on with a new minister--with his fingers crossed.

[Steven W.]

This Rolling Stone article is interesting - and it points to the need to read Obama's books (uggh!) - here's the commenting following your excerpt that caught my eye: "When you read his autobiography, the surprising thing — for such a measured politician — is the depth of radical feeling that seeps through, the amount of Jeremiah Wright that's packed in there."

[MayBee]

Obviously, if you are going to be a political unifer, the Huffington Post is a great place to start.

[Topsecretk9]

Maybee, did you see this...Mysterious Reservations At Luxury Hotels During 'Official Business' Sparks IRS Investigation

CBS 2 HD looked at Spitzer's campaign filings, and while it is not immediately clear whether he met with prostitutes, it is clear that the campaign paid for hotel rooms in various places last year: ...

...*The 'Grand Hyatt' in New York City on Feb. 21 and March 30 of last year.

Prosecutors may find it odd that Spitzer needed rooms at the 'Hyatt' when his residence is in New York City. ...

I knew it had to be more than just hiring them that caused him to resign.

[Enlightened]

Ruh Roh....Obama now admitting he may he received $100K MORE than original stated from his BFF Rezko.......a little bit here, a little bit there...the cracks in this fraud are getting wider and wider.....

[Enlightened]

I have to admit, I find it utterly fascinating that so many "investigative reports" are being filed re: Teh Messiah....it seems like a new one pops up just about every hour recently...

[Sue]

Maybee,

That's what I was thinking. And he refuses to appear on Fox. Great unifer there.

[Enlightened]

Thank you Patrick - I suppose the leftard's will now start to pooh-pooh MLK for being a pseudo Uncle Tom. The difference between a Uniter - MLK - and a Divider - Wright - are staggering.

[Sue]

Hmmm...just as I say that, I notice Hot Air is claiming he may appear on Hannity & Colmes.

[Enlightened]

Well, that's ironic. Wright supposedly is his sounding board, and Wright is completely deranged regarding Hannity, and Teh Mess is considering Hannity's show? Curiouser and Curiouser

[Enlightened]

How do you do - Wright has left Obama's campaign per Ben Smith.

So I guess this nullifies Ferraro and now both parties have a clean slate....

Bwwahahahhahahhhh...nice try.

[Enlightened]

Ok, this is probably completely against blog etiquette - so I will post this comment from Hot Air en toto: If you go to the Hot Air thread that says Wright is out - scroll down to the post to get the links to Lowry -

All I can say is - There seems to be a disturbance in the force and someone is on Obama's ass! Wowee - this might be pretty damning and I hope Reliapundit posted it to Hannity before the gig tonight-

LOWRY OVER AT NRO FOUND PROOF THAT OBAMA IS LYING; THAT HE HEARD AND APPROVED WRIGHT’S RACIST PREACHING.

LINK TO LOWRY.

LINK TO MY POST.

EXCERPT FROM OBAMA’S AUTOBIO (DREAMS OF MY FATHER):

“It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!”
And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House.

OBAMA INCLUDED THIS TO ILLUSTRATE WHAT HE FOUND SO MOVING AND INSPIRATIONAL ABOUT WRIGHT.

IT IS CLEARLY RACIST AND WRONG ON US HISTORY AND WORLD ECONOMICS.

IT IS SOCIALIST GARBAGE.

AND OBAMA INCLUDED IT IN HIS AUTOBIO.

OBAMA ENDORSES THIS CRAP.

AND IT PROVES THAT WHEN HE SAID - TODAY - THAT HE HAD NEVER HEARD ANY RACIST SERMON FROM WRIGHT, HE WAS LYING.

reliapundit on March 14, 2008 at 7:45 P

[Jane]

Sue,

He's gonna be on Hannity & Colmes and Greta - well major Garrett's interview is.

[clarice]

Steve Gilbert says the Rolling stone article was stolen from him and shows from stuff in another NYT article that Obama did know the kind of carp Wright had been peddling and told him that was why he couldn't have him at the announcement of his run for the presidency.
"Mr. Wright said that in the phone conversation in which Mr. Obama disinvited him from a role in the announcement, Mr. Obama cited an article in Rolling Stone, “The Radical Roots of Barack Obama.”

According to the pastor, Mr. Obama then told him, “You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.”

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/flashback-nyt-on-obamas-wright-disinvite>Did, too, know

[Sue]

I wonder if Major will ask him the tough questions?

[MayBee]

Tops- ruh roh.
I would be shocked if he did this just a few times, and it would be so easy for him to slip up.

If you think about it, though, he had to get a lot of cash for the Mayflower, and he said he was afraid the ATM wouldn't give him that much. It wouldn't be outrageous to imagine he had to take some out of different accounts. Who's booking all these rooms for him? Who spent the time fiddling around on the door of the extra room at the Mayflower door to leave it unlached for Kristen?

[MayBee]

carp

that cracks me up every time

[Enlightened]

Clarice - The NYT piece totally PO'd Rev. Wright - he fired off a rebuttal letter....

http://skepticalbrotha.wordpress.com/2007/03/21/obamas-pastor-speaks-out/

[Sue]

The super delegates have to be clawing their hair out. Piss off your major constiuents or lose an election. What to do?

[kim]

They will sell the blacks down the river, as usual, and Hillary's negatives will rise just enough to let her win, oops I mean lose. Oops, I mean the media will trash McCain and Hillary will be the most despised woman ever elected President.
============================

[Pofarmer]

“You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.”

Nothing like keeping the crazy preacher, who you happen to agree with, locked in the closet.

Sunlight really is a pretty good disenfectant.

[Pofarmer]

Geez Kim

Thanks for keepin it positive.

[stirner]

This piece in the Seattle altweekly The Stranger, adds a whole other dimension to the links between Wright and Obama.

It would seem that Obama has in large part derived much of his rhetorical style from Wright, but instead of hitting the high notes with a resounding reference to Jesus, he uses Hope and Change instead.

Read it, and it will blow your mind the next time you see an Obama speech:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=479778

[Rick Ballard]

"Piss off your major constituents or lose an election."

That ain't real life on the plantation. Don't forget that BHO couldn't even unseat Bobby Rush. The overseer's job is better than tenure at a university. Ask Conyers - his constituents have foot voted by the tens of thousands rather than face another day in that Blue Prog Hell, yet he retains his seat with ease.

[JMH]

It's more than a little despressing how fawning the comments are over at the HuffPo. Obama's supporters will swallow anything, it seems.

Personally, seeing Rev. Wright in action, I find his statements are not merely "inflammatory and appalling" as Obama calls them, but are hate-filled, vile, and indicative of a warped mind. Wright is a nutbar, driven off the deep end by a soul full of hate. Probably has been one for decades. Probably was an anti-American lunatic when Obama was first drawn to him.

I don't think there are enough words in all the languages of humanity put together for Obama to convince me he doesn't share Wrights' hate for my country.

[Dave Schuler]

There's another aspect of the first quote in which Sen. Obama says that Rev. Wright is his pastor rather than his political advisor that you haven't touched on, Tom: in the Afro-centric liberation theology that's stated very clearly in Trinity's mission statement the two are intrinsically intertwined. This is a pastor with a political agenda that's an intrinsic part of his message.

[Jane]

I don't think there are enough words in all the languages of humanity put together for Obama to convince me he doesn't share Wrights' hate for my country.

I completely agree and you see shades of Wright every single time Obama opens his mouth. Wright's words explain all the spaces in Obama's credentials.

[Jane]

Suddenly BO is just a prettier Jesse Jackson.

Too bad, really.

[Jeffersonian]

Is it me, or does a straight line pass through the Marxie mom, the America-hating preacher, the Pentagon-bombing launch duo and the Pledge demurral?

[centralcal]

Hi Jane. On one of these threads you said that Obama was done. I agree with you, but not completely. The Libs are desperate to win this time around, they're worried about RW's electability and Obamamessaih was a godsend, they thought.

He IS done - insofar as the General election goes. Between his Pastor, Rezco, and Ayers, and who knows who else, he is no longer "electable." However, do NOT underestimate the MSM media wagons which will circle and fire to do whatever they have to, to save their candidate.

Obama is unfit to be President of the United States - and all of its people of many colors, religions, and beliefs.

[Enlightened]

"However, do NOT underestimate the MSM media wagons which will circle and fire to do whatever they have to, to save their candidate."

They are already on ultra-damagecontrol. Anderson Cooper has already suggested this is basically "nothing", time to move on and discuss the REAL issues. Wagons, circling.

[Micajah]

If Obama believed half the things he says about unifying America, he would have walked out of that church long ago and never looked back. No man who believes as Obama says he does would attend that church for two decades, listening to hate-filled rants with which he adamantly disagreed. In short, Obama has not been telling the truth about himself during this campaign.

[Ann]

Watching Hannity and I have to post a silly comment. Does Barack have blue eye shadow on to match his tie?

Not going very well by the way. Lots of stuttering.

[Jane]

He IS done - insofar as the General election goes. Between his Pastor, Rezco, and Ayers, and who knows who else, he is no longer "electable." However, do NOT underestimate the MSM media wagons which will circle and fire to do whatever they have to, to save their candidate.

Centralcal,

I completely and utterly agree. He will go all the way to the nomination. I predict he won't get it now, and that's when he will be done.

And if he does pull it out, so much the better. Eventually everyone will see these tapes. And he's done.

The Hillary camp must be rejoicing.

[Micajah]

Watch the congregation in the videos of the preacher's rants. Does anyone seem surprised at his hate-filled ranting? Yet, I just listened to Obama say in the interview on Fox that he was there regularly and never heard any such thing -- not even once. Why is everyone else familiar with the ranting, but Obama isn't? He's not telling the truth.

[centralcal]

Yes! The RW has the monkey patrol (or were they bats) flying high in the sky, circling their prey! Ah, shades of OZ!

Well, Major Garrett done good. Questions brief. To the point. Very direct. Obama is in deep doo doo.

[RichatUF]

I'll keep watch over at Drudge to see if any clips show up of Obama attending one of the more anti-semitic sermons.

Watching the interview-BHO says, "...it wasn't as problematic at the time..."

[centralcal]

oops! I hit post to darned soon.

You know how serious this has to be, if he deigns to grant a one-on-one interview with anyone from Fox! Guys. This is serious!

[Ann]

Yeah, I get a kick out of that, too, Cent. They wouldn't debate on Fox but when they want to reach the biggest audience when their in trouble... they go to FOX.

[Paul]

I don't know how many of you read the Spengler piece on Obama's Momma,

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JB26Aa01.html

but this passage explains his chameleon like ability to hide his hatred of America:

"Obama profiles Americans the way anthropologists interact with primitive peoples. He holds his own view in reserve and emphatically draws out the feelings of others; that is how friends and colleagues describe his modus operandi since his days at the Harvard Law Review, through his years as a community activist in Chicago, and in national politics. Anthropologists, though, proceed from resentment against the devouring culture of America and sympathy with the endangered cultures of the primitive world. Obama inverts the anthropological model: he applies the tools of cultural manipulation out of resentment against America. The probable next president of the United States is a mother's revenge against the America she despised."

Wasn't the "Manchurian Candidate" brainwashed and being run by...his mother?

[Ann]

I want to hear from Michelle!!! Where is she?

[clarice]

Micaqjah--You can bet someone will prove he was there during one of these and that will be the end of Pbamamessiah and the beginning of inexperienced Chicago pol Obama.
His entire campaign is based on being different--on being transcendent on the things which divide us--and his self-designated spiritual mentor is a partisan (extreme leftist) demagogue and race baiter of the first order.

[Sara]

We don't need tape of Obama listening, we have his quotes from his own autobiography via Rich Lowery and he tells us.

Link

[Rick Ballard]

"The Hillary camp must be rejoicing."

Dunno about that. Payback by the progs might get a little wicked. RW is the candidate because the media closed their eyes and put their fingers in their ears in '91. The progs might get a little back by exposing just how greasy she and Bubba have been for the past forty years.

The media don't like RW, if they did they wouldn't have backed St BHO in the first place and Team Red Witch wouldn't have had to spoon feed the Times of London in order to get BHO dirt in the news.

It's just a shame this is happening so early. I hope BHO has the stamina to slug this out for a few more months.

[Topsecretk9]

red no link tease at drudge

DEAN DNC NIGHTMARE: THREATS FROM DONORS AS DELEGATE DISPUTE GROWS... Developing...

[RichatUF]

Watching the talking heads-Combs working a rear guard action by bring up some controversial pastor's statements who happens to support McCain.

Beckel seems like he has had a really bad day-maybe he can go stop off at the bar. "So no one in that church is qualified...blah blah blah..." No idiot, BHO has claimed that Rev. Wright is a spiritual mentor and obviously important in his life if he officiated his wedding and baptised his children.

If this is a sampling of BHO's spiritual DNA, doesn't this say something (and not very good) about BHO's judgement and character. I never really thought that the RW would actually go in this direction. I thought she would chicken out because she wasn't quite as cold-blooded and ambitious as Bubba.

[Enlightened]

Whooo Boy. Mrs. Obama is probably spitting 60 penny nails right about now....I'll bet you dollars to donuts she's not at church praying for her man to have strength.......

[Jane]

It's just a shame this is happening so early.

My thoughts exactly. However, the denial will be in full force thru PA and until the convention. He's not dropping out now. i look forward to the drip drip drip that is starting tonite.

[Sara]

Oh I don't know, Enlightened, Michelle seems to be quite the disciple of Rev. Wright.

[Tom]

Going beyond this particular scandal, there's a deeper issue here.

I want to know something: How common are preachers like Wright? Is this rare, or are race relations in this country more screwed than I thought?

[Enlightened]

"I want to know something: How common are preachers like Wright? Is this rare, or are race relations in this country more screwed than I thought?"

I bet we would all be pretty darn shocked at the vitriol spewed by other Nation of Islam chruchgoers and pasters.

[Sara]

My Western PA fiery Scots-Irish relatives are on the war path over this. I've had more emails from cousins back there today than I've ever had before. And they've put me on their round-robin email list, so I'm reading comments from lots of PA voters who, to put it mildly, are pissed off.

[Ranger]

On WLS, the Chicago talk radio power station, they were saying this afternoon that the church actually sells "best of" videos of Rev. Wright with this kind of stuff on it. If that is true, then Obama really is toast. Kind of hard to claim you didn't know about this stuff when the church itself is activly marketing it.

[clarice]

Don Surber says Oprah belongs to Wright's church, too.............

[Ranger]

I want to know something: How common are preachers like Wright? Is this rare, or are race relations in this country more screwed than I thought?

Posted by: Tom | March 14, 2008 at 09:58 PM

That is what makes this so damaging to the Dems. I think this is pretty common stuff in a lot of inner city congregations. And those are who the Dems count on to get the vote out in these neighborhoods. If this sinks Obama, then my guess is they sit out the election.

[Jim in Chicago]

The scary thing is that the only reason this BHO stuff is seeing the light of day is that Team Hillary is pushing it.

If BHO had beaten her and gotten to the general election, not a peep would be heard, instead it would all hands to the MSM deck to flog some false story about McCain.

And it would be left to some Republican group to use the innernets to get the word out -- and lo the cry would go up throughout the lefty/MSM land -- the Messiah is being "Swiftboated" and it's all lies, just like the ones they told about St. John of Kerry. Peace be upon him.

[MayBee]

That will help Obama, if Oprah is a member. Nobody is going to think Oprah hates this country or white people.

[Ranger]

MayBee,

I am not so sure. Those tapes are hard to ignore.

[Sue]

Hot Air has the H&C clip of new video of the right Rev. Wright.

[Jane]

I had dinner with a friend a couple of weeks ago who said: "no one hates America as much as Oprah." I don't watch her, but she does.

[Tom Maguire]

They are already on ultra-damagecontrol. Anderson Cooper has already suggested this is basically "nothing", time to move on and discuss the REAL issues. Wagons, circling.

Gee, you don't think the MSM will go after a black minister hammer and tong? Maybe not; look at the kid gloves Al Sharpton was handled with. And we know that anyone that criticizes a black minister to Obama is racist.

The Chi Trib has also noted that Oprah is in that church - interesting to see if she ducks this, but I assume she will close ranks.

Oh, Wright was on Hannity a year ago, so this is not crazy for Obama to be on Fox tonight. Sort of marginalizes the discussion and reassures Dems that they can ignore it, for the primaries anyway.

[Elliott]

You can bet someone will prove he was there during one of these and that will be the end of Pbamamessiah and the beginning of inexperienced Chicago pol Obama.

On those occasions, Obama was present not as physical being but as phantasm, wholly a ghost.

[clarice]

TM,It was easier to marginalize the Swifties than it will be to marginalize this--this time it's in the middle of a fiercely (to the death, really) contested primary..

[Enlightened]

"And we know that anyone that criticizes a black minister to Obama is racist"

C'mon Tom - we were told by none other than Joshua Micah Marshall that if we critize Obama in any form - we are racist. So by associaition we are racists for pointing out the racism of the very Rev. Wright.

Now I could be mistaken, but I do believe Ms. Oprah only goes to the Church of Oprah.

[centralcal]

I agree, Clarice - this can't be marginalized. Talk about playing a "race" card! Pastor Wright isn't playing a single card, he's thrown the whole deck on the table and dared anyone to object!

But, we should ALL object. Black or White and every shade in between - this is backwards not forwards, in all relationships.

I am sorry, but this will have resonance - quickly for some, gradually for some others. The Presidency is to represent all Americans, not a few.

[Ann]

Hit has a poignant post today:

Hits It Out Of The Park

[TMF]

I live across the street from a black church- every Sunday I hear the minister ranting and raving... could never make out exactly what he was saying..

Now I know

[Anon]

Tom-

I want to know something; how common are preachers like Wright?

Well here's Obama's answer-

I am member of the Unity Church of Christ, Trinity United Church of Christ, been there for 20 years. And although this is an improvement because you don't think I am Muslim, which is the other... [laughter] You know, so, slowly we are progressing here. It is a very conventional African American church. If you go to, if you were there at the church, you would be hearing gospel music and people preaching about Jesus. It is very conventional in that sense.

Washington Post

So on Feb. 26th he knew enough about the goings -on of the church and pastor to reassure folks that it is aconventional.

[ben]

Obama basically challenged the world to prove he was not present and did not know about the "pastor's" rants....many will call his bluff, so he better have the cards.

[Anon]

Ugh typoed the meaning right out of that.

should read-that it is conventional.

[Jane]

Oh dear, the pastor's words were reiterated in the Bulletin.

I'm sure when Obama missed services, like "after the birth of his first daughter" who was born long before 2007, he didn't read the bulletin. That was Michelle's job. And we know how she turned out. (Link under my name)

[Anon]

Hell make that very conventional according to Obama.

[Anon]

Did anyone see where he was impersonating Clinton doing to Monica what he did to black folks-

Riding Dirty-in the pulpit?

Looked more like he was trying out to be on P.Diddy's dancing dirty crew.

[mishu]

"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folk's greed runs a world in need

This is laughable as I just got off a cruise ship to the Bahamas and the ship's passenger list was about 50/50 black people to white people. Barack either needs to get out more or he's not being honest with his readers.

[Enlightened]

But.but.Jane, the bulletin is a political rant? I'm sure the IRS has a copy....

[clarice]

I went to Hit's site and read that--He has a link to Obama's statement at the convention and it occurred to me all this emphasis on candidate's narratives of their lives is just like all those fake autobiographies that publishers are printing to be flogged on Oprah..Same doo doo.

(Also like the carp essays for college where kids are encouraged to make up hardships they's overcome.)

[clarice]

Meanshile in Port-au-Prince relief supplies are rotting and can't be off loaded because of corruption and incompetence.

[clarice]

**MeanWhile****

[ben]

"Goddamm America"...

Yep.... very conventional....

Actually Obama is looking more conventional every day....he blends in very well with Democratic Chicago politics (is there any other kind?), and while not yet up to Clinton's standards, he is trying hard to show he can lie, obfuscate, stonewall, and quibble with rest of the Democrats.

[centralcal]

Heh, Ben! Obama is still just a rank amateur! Doesn't yet have the years of seasoning like RW and Bubba the Hut.

[ben]

"Heh, Ben! Obama is still just a rank amateur! Doesn't yet have the years of seasoning like RW and Bubba the Hut."

True, but maybe he is a fast learner...he has got to be if he wants to play in the big leagues of the truth challenged with the likes of Dean, Reid, Gore, Clinton, Clinton, Kerry and Murtha, to name a few outstanding players.

[Enlightened]

Bubba the SLHut...fixed that for ya..:o)

[Sara]

O'Reilly opined tonight that you don't hear anything from Wright that you don't hear from any hard leftie, academic, tenured professor, or in parts of the MSM. Two black women saw nothing wrong in Wright's remarks. Says you can go to any black church on any given Sunday and hear the same thing. They then went into how we whiteys are all slave traders, oppressors, etc. There list of grievances is long, but not much on it past the late 1950s until you get to the aids stuff.

[Anon]

I'm beginning to think he's sold the Democrats a bridge to no where.

[Sara]

Who wrote the great piece the other day about how Barack and Hillary got together to plan the Campaign about Nothing. It was a brilliant piece.

[clarice]

Miniter said that best, Sara, at PM (link at insty)

[Sara]

Ah, I think it was Extreme Mortman, I'll look for the link.

[Sara]

Thanks Clarice, I'll look.

[clarice]

Here:
http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/richardminiter/2008/03/14/in_defense_of_obamas_pastor.php>Miniter

[Tom Maguire]

Well, videos of past sermons are available for web viewing at the Trinity United Church website (until the Right Wing Noise Machine crashes it).

I sat through "Where was God when I was catching hell", which was an extended analogy between the Hebrews suffering in Egypt under the Pharaoh and blacks in America from 1619.

The most incendiary bit was this comparison of the Pharaohs oppression to modern America:

The rulers created a subtle plan of genocide... May have been the criminal justice system; may have been the miseducation system; may have been the inadequate health care system; may have been the 3 strikes and you're out system designed to end the lives of young boys while preserving the young girls for pleasure."

Genocide? Still, as O'Reilly noted, that is roughly what any lefty blogger could get behind.

There is also a video archive but I don't know how far back it goes.

[Buck Smith]

I am curious to know what Obama thinks about Hiroshima.

[PaulL]

Obama is going down and taking Oprah with him.

[Enlightened]

Well Sara, per the O'Reilly guests, if we can go to any black church on any given Sunday and hear this vitriol - then Obama is a damned liar saying he never heard it in his 20 years of attending TUCC....

[clarice]

TM sounds like a mirror version of the white racists' fantasy of black men living to ravish young white women.

[Enlightened]

So basically the people that are saying this kind of - reverse racism - stuff is nothing, it goes on all the time - have just Swiftboated Mr. Obama who says it NEVER goes on.

Once again, the leftards use pretzel logic to defend the offenders.....

[ben]

"O'Reilly opined tonight that you don't hear anything from Wright that you don't hear from any hard leftie, academic, tenured professor, or in parts of the MSM. "

That's true, where's Ward Churchill?

However, the point is not that this stuff exists, it's that a supposedly "mainstream" and front-runner candidate is on the same wavelength.

[clarice]

Dean's tzuris grows:
"influential fund-raisers for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton have stepped up their behind-the-scenes pressure on national party leaders to resolve the matter, with some even threatening to withhold their donations to the Democratic

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/us/politics/15donate.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin>Hillary contributors threaten to cut off $$ to DNC

[Enlightened]

Actually, my husabnd and I watched Oprah recently and found her pushing a book that was very strange - about this New Earth or something? Awakening to our Life's Purpose????

Uh - kinda weird Oprabama...

[clarice]

Oops==here's the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/us/politics/15donate.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin>Hillary donors threaten DNC