US Features
Obama hopes to finally put pastor scandal behind him
May 1, 2008, 13:35 GMT
Illinois Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama speaks during a small question and answer session at Garfield Park in Indianapolis, Indiana. 30 April, 2008. EPA/STEVE C. MITCHELL
Raleigh, North Carolina - In a very personal and emotional appearance in North Carolina this week, Barack Obama for the first time completely disassociated himself from his former pastor, hoping to finally put an end to a controversy that nearly derailed his presidential campaign.
Less than two months ago in a broad speech on race relations in Philadelphia, Obama said that despite Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr's offensive remarks, he was 'like family,' and a man Obama could no more disown than he could the African-American community to which he belongs.
Obama's tone changed drastically this week after Wright relaunched himself into the media spotlight with a series of public appearances, defending some of his most controversial remarks as Obama hopes to wrap up the Democratic presidential nomination over rival Hillary Clinton.
On Monday, Wright defended his past remarks that US policies invited the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and suggesting the government was 'capable' of inventing the AIDS virus to use it against African Americans.
A day later, Obama said he was 'outraged' and 'saddened by the spectacle,' and that he did not believe Wright represented the traditions of black churches in the US as he claimed.
'I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia,' said Obama, adding there was no more reason to do so after the 'ridiculous propositions' the minister had repeated on Monday.
It is not clear just how much of an impact the Wright controversy, which has dominated much of US media coverage since the scandal erupted in early March, will have on Obama's long-term support.
'I think it's overblown,' said Jamie Katz, a 26-year-old state employee in Raleigh, North Carolina. Obama could not be held 'responsible' for Wright's words, she said.
That has been a key message of the past month for Obama, who has based his campaign on being a post-racial candidate who can effect 'change' by bringing together a country divided along racial and ideological lines.
This week Obama bristled at Wright's suggestion that his passed denouncements were politically motivated and not from the heart.
'I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people. That's in my DNA,' said Obama. Wright's words by comparison brought 'comfort to those who prey on hate.'
Everett Ward, a member of the Democratic National Committee in North Carolina and an Obama supporter, called the Wright controversy a 'wedge issue' being used by his opponents.
'When you ask the average person if Dr Jeremiah Wright is the issue versus gas prices, or jobs ... they will tell you that they want to see a person in the office that's going to address the economy,' Ward told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
Obama has credited Wright with bringing him to the Christian faith when he joined the reverend's Trinity United Church of Christ in his home town of Chicago 20 years ago.
Wright - who retired from his post as pastor in January - officiated Obama's wedding, baptized his children and prayed with the family before he announced his candidacy for president some 15 months ago.
'The person I saw yesterday was not the person I met 20 years ago,' said Obama. 'Based on his remarks yesterday, I may not know him as well as I thought.'
Given their history, Obama on Wednesday acknowledged the decision to denounce his former pastor had been a personal one and 'hard to make.'
With the next set of crucial primaries coming up Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana, the Illinois senator clearly hopes the matter has now been laid to rest - a point Clinton appeared to concede on Wednesday.
'He made his views clear, finally, that he disagreed (with Wright) and that's what he had to do,' said Clinton. The former first lady also repeated that she would not have remained in Wright's church had she heard his remarks.
Yet whether Obama will truly be able move on to other issues will depend in part on Wright, who has yet to respond to Obama's denouncement.
'If (Wright) cares one bit about electing an African American to the highest office of the land, he should get off the national stage,' David Gergen, an advisor to three former presidents, told CNN.
© Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
blog comments powered by DisqusLatest Headlines in US
- 1. Mitt Romney Addresses Tea Party Summit Pictures
- 2. Seven injured as US Navy plane crashes into apartments
- 3. At least three injured in US Navy plane crash
- 4. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, others to face death penalty trial
- 5. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, four others to face death penalty trial
Older Talkback
page: 1
We're not tired of this issue either. The libnazi press is, I'm sure but this isn't going away.
responsible for the things Wright says.
He is responsible for knowing Wright's views and staying with him and listening to him for 20 years.
The first thing I would with views, that ingrained, being screamed at me is walk out and never ever go back. There is no excuse for Obama.
Have it your way,but much more relevant is the special prosecutor in Guantanamo Bay saying the White House ordered the special courts never to admit the existence of innocent detainees in Gitmo .Anything yo say about that dear neocons,it seems imensely more important to me .A deafening silence from the republicans is greeting that statement .Guess why they rather concentrate on this irrelevant issue .
Do those neocons realy think that they can fool anyone into thinking the damage done to ethics by the words of a silly preacher than the deeds of your very president raping the basic principles of democracy and the separation of powers .Which one is more important ?
Tonny,
This is how the neocon/jewish media machine works. You see, you can get impeached for getting a harmless BJ from under your desk, however, if you lie, cheat, and murder millions of innocent people, it's okay.
Fascism Sucks
Jesse Jackson already spilled the beans on the whole thing - he said this morning that it's too soon for them to reconcile. It's political staging. They will be back together when it's more convenient.
Obama knew all along exactly who Wright was and what he was about. They do not like most Americans.
Obama is in the hole he dug for himself. And now we get to watch which superdelegates jump into the hole with him.
a great slight of mouth. Danger, beware!
I must take exception to Bob's comment above concerning the 'neocon/jewish media machine'. This should be identified as 'neocon/Zionist'. There is a huge difference between most Jewish people and the Zionist Jewish, just as there is a huge difference between the Mormons and many of the Christian sects. Granted that some of the most influential ideas of the policy makers behind the ill-fated blunders in Iraq came from Zionist oriented Jewish persons intimatly associated with the neocons driving the Bush admin foreign policy. Those fanatics certainly tend to falsely equate what they perceive as the foreign policy interests of some of the Zionists in Israel as the exact same foreign policy interests of the United States. But, those kind do not broadly represent Jewish interests, let alone the interests of most Jewish people living in the United States. To think otherwise, and lump them all together, is erroneous, and false. This is similar to saying that the evangelical Christians with their peculiar Armageddon beliefs and their creationist agenda are identical to, lets suggest, the Christians of the United Church of Christ and its affiliate Trinity Church in Chicago.
However, my concerns are more inline with Tonny, since I perceive that the current leaders are squandering our resources, including our precious troops, driving up prices world-wide, and bankrupting our economy, and our future economy, in the vain-glorious, and doomed to failure, quest to win a war to impose democracy in Iraq. What did happen to our pursuit of the gang behind the 9/11 terrorism, osama bin laden, and the country/countries that harbor them?
If you go to pollster.com and check out Hillary vs McCain and then Obama vs McCain you can see that it has effected him greatly.
Hillary is way ahead of Obama and showing again she is the one to beat McCain.
That is why his campaign is desparate and sent Joe Andrew out for another round of 'beat up Hillary', 'it's all her fault', we want this over now, blah blah blah.
And the DNC what are they going to say? Yes we know that Hillary won Texas and that the delegates were awarded to Obama anyway?
And that it is not democracy for a state to give all their delegates to Obama for no reason?
It's not much of a change and I certainly am not feeling any hope. Obama is so full of B.S.
This has been abridged to conserve space:
The 'Race' Speech Revisited
By Charles Krauthammer
'I can no more disown him [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown my white grandmother.'-- Barack Obama [..]
Guess it's time to disown Granny, if Obama's famous Philadelphia 'race' speech is to be believed. Of course, the speech was not just believed. It was hailed, celebrated, canonized as the greatest pronouncement on race in America since Lincoln at Cooper Union. A New York Times columnist said it 'should be required reading in classrooms across the country.' College seniors and first-graders, suggested the excitable Chris Matthews.
Apparently there's been a curriculum change. On Tuesday, the good senator begged to extend and revise his previous remarks on race. Moral equivalence between Grandma and Wright is now, as the Nixon administration used to say, inoperative. Poor Geraldine Ferraro, thrice lashed by Obama in Philadelphia as the white equivalent of Wright's raving racism, is off the hook.
These equivalences having been revealed as the cheap rhetorical tricks they always were, Obama has now decided that the man he simply could not banish because he had become part of Obama himself is, mirabile dictu, surgically excised.
At a news conference in North Carolina, Obama explained why he finally decided to do the deed. Apparently, Wright's latest comments -- Obama cited three in particular -- were so shockingly 'divisive and destructive' that he had to renounce the man, not just the words.
What were Obama's three citations? Wright's claim that AIDS was invented by the U.S. government to commit genocide. His praise of Louis Farrakhan as a great man. And his blaming Sept. 11 on American 'terrorism.'
But these comments are not new. These were precisely the outrages that prompted the initial furor when the Wright tapes emerged seven weeks ago. Obama decided to cut off Wright not because Wright's words or character or views had suddenly changed. The only thing that changed was the venue in which Wright chose to display them -- live on national TV at the National Press Club. That unfortunate choice destroyed Obama's Philadelphia pretense that this 'endless loop' of sermon excerpts being shown on 'television sets and YouTube' had been taken out of context.
Obama's Philadelphia oration was an exercise in contextualization. In one particularly egregious play on white guilt, Obama had the audacity to suggest that whites should be ashamed that they were ever surprised by Wright's remarks: 'The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour of American life occurs on Sunday morning.'
That was then. On Tuesday, Obama declared that he himself was surprised at Wright's outrages. But hadn't Obama told us that surprise about Wright is a result of white ignorance of black churches brought on by America's history of segregated services? How then to explain Obama's own presumed ignorance? Surely he too was not sitting in those segregated white churches on those fateful Sundays when he conveniently missed all of Wright's racist rants.
Obama's turning surprise about Wright into something to be counted against whites-- one of the more clever devices in that shameful, brilliantly executed, 5,000-word intellectual fraud in Philadelphia -- now stands discredited by Obama's own admission of surprise. But Obama's liberal acolytes are not daunted. They were taken in by the first great statement on race: the Annunciation, the Chosen One comes to heal us in Philly. They now are taken in by the second: the Renunciation.
Obama's newest attempt to save himself after Wright's latest poisonous performance is now declared the new final word on the subject. Therefore, any future ads linking Obama and Wright are preemptively declared out of bounds, illegitimate, indeed 'race-baiting'[...].
On what grounds? This 20-year association with Wright calls into question everything about Obama: his truthfulness in his serially adjusted stories of what he knew and when he knew it; his judgment in choosing as his mentor, pastor and great friend a man he just now realizes is a purveyor of racial hatred; and the central premise of his campaign, that he is the bringer of a 'new politics,' rising above the old Washington ways of expediency. It's hard to think of an act more blatantly expedient than renouncing Wright when his show, once done from the press club instead of the pulpit, could no longer be 'contextualized' as something whites could not understand and only Obama could explain in all its complexity.
Turns out the Wright show was not that complex after all. Everyone understands it now....
1) it really has nothing to do with this article. Obama has dialed in on a set of beliefs that makes the United States his enemy, unless he is living a lie with respect to his beliefs, a disinct possibility.
2) Guantanamo detainees are not, technically, in the USA so our laws are not actually supposed to apply to them. They are, technically, POW's.
3) The prosecutor is not empowered to determine innocence or guilt.
That being the case, I guess it's just another case of you being just-a-little-more-than full of crap.
Stupid is what stupid says SP4.Is it too much for you to understand what is realy happening in your own country ?Of course prosecutors are not determining who is guilt and who is innocent ...so ?id you at least try to understand what is realy going on ?Fact is that once more Bush and the neocons in power are meddling with justice to prevent innocent people from being released .Is it not enough torture is used and condoned by the powers in place ,that if no culpability can be extracted that way,o evidence is to be found of any crime ,these people still must be convicted trialed and jailed with the justification that otherwise your country would look bad in public opinion .Then tell me how you think your country would appear if not only it holds people in custody without any charges or evidence but then tells judges to convict them anyway.where is justice and democracy in that .Isn't that colliding with your deepest convictions ?
Obama will probably lose a few voters because of this just like the other two candidates lose voters over things associated with them - it's back and forth, just as the wind blows. With the approval ratings of Bush just about totally in the cra**er, McCain had better keep distancing himself bigtime on issues that Bush even has a fingerprint on.
Once again:
1) they are not, technically, criminals. Tonny, if you are going to refer to US law, try to at least learn a thing, or two, about it.
2) They are not, technically, in the USA, so there is another point of law that applies.
3)That, still, does not change the fact that prosecutors do not determine innocence or guilt, (and by the way neither do you)so again, try to at least acknoweledge that law is in play here.
4) it still has, absolutely, zero to do with Obmama's Culture of Grievence, loudmouthed, we-hate-america, pander-to-the-blacks, preacher.
Yes, tonny, we'd all love to live in the gossamer world that you think you live in, all the while, european intel is backing american intel in button-holing terrorists in eastern european nations, with the political escape hatch of blaming it on the americans.
I like our way better, but heck we appreciate all the help we can get!
Obama for President. In the WHITE HOUSE !
By Kyle-Anne Shiver
Abridged to save space:
I picked up a copy of Time magazine yesterday, in which a columnist declared that issues of 'character' were a 'distraction' in the Presidential race. Obama actually said the same thing in his North Carolina press conference, that the Reverend Wright affair has been a 'distraction.'
Isn't this what liberals usually say when their own characters come under public scrutiny?
What a heap of pure poppycock!
Character is the primary issue in every Presidential election.
Period.
And we, the voters, have an inalienable right to know the specifics, as much as can be discerned, of a candidate's character.
But don't take my word for that. Take John Adams' words on the matter:
The people 'have a right, an indisputable, inalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge -- I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers.'
Obama has blown his claim to integrity.
We, the people, now have indisputable evidence that Barack Obama lacks the integrity of character to be President.
To some, that might seem a bit extreme. However, writing as the mother of grown children, I have seen some pretty sorry excuses for incorrigible behavior, but I haven't witnessed many as morally repugnant as those offered by Barack Obama concerning his decades-long, close association with Jeremiah Wright.
The words, 'morally repugnant,' are strong and I use them carefully.
With Obama's Philadelphia-speech, hedging and squirming around specifics, and now with his final, 'unequivocal,' outright disowning of Jeremiah Wright this week, I have more evidence than I need to conclude that Barack Obama is either one of two things:
Behind Door #1: He is a reprehensible liar, who privately still believes, and has always believed, in the philosophy espoused by his long-time pastor, spiritual mentor and 'uncle' figure, Jeremiah Wright, but for opportunistic motives, now publicly disavows his own true beliefs; or
Behind Door #2: He is a man of no integrity whatsoever, who has partaken of another man's friendship and political help for nearly 20 years, who has now publicly dumped and disgraced this benefactor for personal gain. Jeremiah Wright is not some flunky that Obama hired last week out of a far-left think tank or fresh from the halls of Harvard. The two men were close, like family, by the candidate's own pronouncements.
Whether the real Obama is behind Door #1 or Door #2, only Barack Obama now knows for certain. But either way, he has disgraced himself in the eyes of many Americans, and if he offered his hand, some of us older-timers would decline to shake it.
If he truly believes the philosophy of his chosen church, and now denies it because he sees that it is a small-minority view, he defines himself as a wimpy scoundrel, unworthy of being Commander in Chief.
Having the courage of one's convictions is something I would hope my twelve year old would have, and if he didn't, I would be deeply ashamed and know myself to have been a very bad parent. Barack Obama was nearly 30 years old when he first met and befriended Jeremiah Wright, and upon their very first meeting, the Reverend Wright informed Obama that his 'fellow clergy' considered him 'too radical.' He was warned by Wright himself. Obama was no innocent waif, as he now contends.
On the other hand, if Barack Obama vehemently disagrees with the tenets of Wright's philosophy and worldview, but stayed with the man, respected him enough to have him perform a wedding and baptisms, and gave thousands of dollars of his own money to support the black liberation cause, and garnered prestige and political clout from his association with Wright, then Obama demonstrates that he is a man without a well-formed conscience. An unabashed user of another for personal gain.
Some may argue (and have) that Obama could have stayed in this church, in spite of Wright's perverted slant on Christianity, because of the wealth of friends in his church community. This might be true if the contentious beliefs were of fringe importance or would not do harm to one's children, but this was not the case with Trinity and Jeremiah Wright. No man, and certainly no father, would expose his impressionable children to beliefs with which that man so fundamentally disagreed. At least no man with a well-formed conscience and integrity.
Would I take my children to a church where someone like David Duke was passing himself off as a minister of Christianity? Would you?
www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/its_obamas_character_stupid.html
Dat ole black magic as yoo in it`s spell, dat ole black magic dat da vote will tell.
Ah as ma BIG paintin of dat black croosader fo freedom - Micheal X redy ta ang behind ma chair in da Oval Offis, aside of a full size dummy uv Al Jolson wen ah gets de Big Boss tiket.
Get rid uv dat ole faggot Linkon an make way fo 5 yeers uv Black rool.
Ah`ll show yoo wite honky`s a thing or too.
let this topic/issue ends... only you racist will continue harping on as piehole like Wright..Obama has put it behind him and move why not you do the same.
'let this topic/issue ends... '
Nope.
Obama is on record as a leading member in that church. The rev. Wright said some pretty unsettling things, and he has not addressed them adequately.
Any reasonable person who is voting needs to know where Obama's allegiences are.
So, no, we are not 'moving on'. He insulted the United States and he's going to be scrutinized for it, just like we have done with the KKK, and other radicals.
and white america is pounding it into the ground keeping hatred running, no wonder Wright has so much to say about the thing he is being accused of saying because look what you are doing now. Giving him par for the course!!!
you all continue to insult and rage race hatred words against a whole race of people, Blacks! Do you know what they think? Are you that intimate to know how they feel? Have you ever tried or walk in their footsteps/shoes? 'People in glass houses should not throw stones', you all cannot relate to blacks simply because you can't.... so the next best thing is to bombard a biracial man who wants change in America for all, because you people do not like what you heard from a black speech, all this hatred because of Hillary Clinton releasing those sound bites. Why was it not picked up months before the primary began? No one cared but now its a black man running everyone has an opinion. Your colors are showing...
'Your colors are showing...'
I feel like a rainbow, let's do right for all ethnicities that make up this great country of sometimes not so great dialog.
WHITE america is pounding this to keep the hatred alive?????????????
Reverend Wright is caught, red-handed, pimping the Culture-of-Grievence that the so-called BLACK leadership has pimped to the public for the last 35 years, and someone has the gall to put it on WHITE America???
The guy said what he said, there are no ambiguities in what he said, and Obama has publicly stated that this church is his church. Now, he wants to be President of the Unted States, while attanding a church that asks God to Damn America?????
Yeah, we have a problem with that....
do you have a ptoblem with it! Check out all those disgraced Evangelicas, who hid behind their religions but they still disgraced themselves with all manner of evil, and what do you'll say, oh! he made a mistake then it covered up, the only people who keep the spotlight on the scandal are the comics, so yes white america is just plain white america alway downtroding and trying to trample on the innocent.
page: 1
lanceMay 1st, 2008 - 16:06:31
I'm not tired of this issue at all and it is very relevant. It shows how he would select an advisor and then ride with it until that advisor does something so stupid that no one can ignore it. It is just like Bush's advisors. They gave bad advice over and over again until Bush just had to get rid of them and replace them with new advisors that gave bad advice over and over again. They don't get replace until they really screw up, like take over a muslim nation for ill-stated reasons and then start killing people all over the place. Surely there must be a better standard for advisors. Obama's selection does not instill too much confidence.
Report this comment