Well who the hell said they shouldn’t? I’ve judged him. Obama’s judged him. We find those particular words offensive.
We do not, however, judge the man based solely on those particular words.
He has 30 years of ministering to his parishioners and serving the community.
Thirty years, not 5 minutes of soundbites edited out of a couple of recent sermons.
You cannot possibly know the full measure of a man by a few sentences.
If you want to know who the real Barack Obama is: Go to Asia times Online, February 26 and read Spengler’s article on OBAMA AND THE WOMEN IN HIS LIFE…
IT WILL GIVE YOU CHILLS!
I have to admit I haven’t read every post here so forgive me if this has already been linked to, but here is an interview with Wright in der Spiegel. If you can find any religious right minister who sounds so reasonable in any interview on political issues, please, please let me know.
The one time where a little bitterness shows through is his answer to this last question:
I have to say that after reading some of the reactions about this whole thing over the last couple of days, I am beginning to become almost as jaded as he is. But, I still have hope. It’s funny because I haven’t considered myself a huge Obama supporter…I was originally planning to vote for Edwards and only changed to Obama after Edwards dropped out before our Super Tuesday primary and then, not so much because I strongly preferred him to Clinton, but mainly because I thought he was more electable. But, the more that I see how Obama has reacted to this issue by rising above it, and the more I see many people getting mired in it (fortunately, it seems to be a minority on this board but seems somewhat more prevalent elsewhere), the more stronger my feeling becomes that we really need this man at this point in our country’s history.
You do know the difference between an opinion column and a factual article, right?
I have no doubt that the Right will “play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election” and indeed try to make the election about whether or not Obama secretly shares those beliefs. And the political handicapping is always fun. But let’s spend a moment focusing on the content of Obama’s speech. The bigger battle with the Right is foreshadowed in it as well.
The crux of it is no intellectual zenith: there are Blacks who say and believe divisive things and Whites who do and both groups have some real things that they are upset about. But, if I may paraphrase some, the way to address these concerns to is address societal injustices in general. Improve education overall for all, allow for decent healthcare for all, and these disparities become addressed. That indeed, universal healthcare is a civil rights issue as much as it is an issue for everyone. That preparing all of our children with quality educations to compete in the global marketplace is both as well. As he put it -
That message will find sympathetic ears among the supers and among many media pundits. Will it resonate with the mainstream? The Right will see it as the unabashedly liberal credo that I proudly believe it is. That social justice requires us all looking out for each other and that such benefits us all in the longer run. And that, more than Wright’s flamboyantly divisive rhetoric, will be what they’ll glom onto in the longer run even more.
Is America ready to vote for someone who is indeed a liberal (albeit not the most liberal :)) and willing to espouse liberal beliefs proudly and eloquently? I think so. I really do. I think the pedulum is swinging back and as I have said before, an individual with a vision and an ability to articulate it well can go far at that point when the pendulum is swinging back.
It will be an interesting seven and a half months.
We’re supposed to ignore all of his shortcomings, lack of experience, lack of legislative accomplishments, waffling on NAFTA, waffling on Iraq, changing his story about the details of Rezko about a half dozen times, his 20 year chosen association with Wright, his cocaine use, etc., etc., etc. because he makes nice speeches. Oh yeah, also because voting for him “makes us feel good” because he’s black, as Charlie Rangel put it. Embarrassing.
His entire **candidacy **is an attempt to capitalize on a speech (at the convention).
This reminds me of Giuliani’s attempt to capitalize on one bright moment at 9/11.
And when the going got rough, what did he do to deal with it? Deeds, such as not going to that church anymore? Disowning him? Nope, no deeds. Just a speech (this time invoking Abraham Lincoln LOL). The man is all talk. All he can do is write and deliver great speeches and engender the benefits of doing so.
Here’s hoping Obama goes the way of New Coke.
I wouldn’t dignify that trash by calling it an opinion column. It is the most egregious attempt at character assassination against Obama that I have witnessed so far in this campaign.
“Barack Obama delivered a high-profile speech on race Tuesday, denouncing incendiary sermons by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but attributing them to bitterness in the black community over the nation’s history of slavery and discrimination.” - Chicago Tribune
"Obama pulled out all the stops with a sweeping address, said John Dickerson in Slate. “The speech was deeply personal,” starting with “the contradiction in the Constitution that celebrated freedom but allowed slavery,” and moving on to “his own complex heritage.” The questions is, “can Obama’s speech of so many words blot out the YouTube videos” of “Wright saying ‘God damn America’? It probably can’t as a blunt political matter.”
This was indeed “one of the finest political performances under pressure since John F. Kennedy” addressed prejudices against his Catholic faith in 1960, said Michael Gerson in The Washington Post (free registration). But Obama “fell short in significant ways.” Wright, you see, “is not a symbol of the strengths and weaknesses of African Americans. He is a political extremist, holding views that are shocking to many Americans who wonder how any presidential candidate could be so closely associated with an adviser who refers to the ‘U.S. of KKK-A’ and urges God to ‘damn’ our country.”
And the important thing to remember, said Linda Chavez in National Review Online, is that he chose to belong to an Afrocentric church, where Rev. Wright’s “extremist rhetoric” provoked not condemnations but amens. “Obama claims to want to cross America’s racial divide and bring Americans, black and white, together,” but it’s hard to take him seriously, or let him “disown Rev. Wright’s disturbing words,” when he continues to belong to a church that openly promotes “a racist ideology.”
Bolding is mine.
It has not, and thank you very much for posting it here.
Wow.
Now there’s an intolerant guy. Not.
Boy, I sure am sorry Barack Obama picked this guy to be his mentor of 20 years. :rolleyes:
Oh yeah, this guy would be a terrible influence in one’s life. Please.
And today we finally have Hillary Clinton’s calendar records from her time as First Lady released, and proof positive that she lied about her role and support of NAFTA during her husband’s administration.
A big, fat, honkin’ lie. About an important policy issue, not “did you hear some guy make offensive remarks in your presence, and if so, why didn’t you abandon him to the wolves?”
This is retarded! There’s important shit going on in this country and we’re bogged down in pettiness.
Seeing as how we’re switching to attacking Hillary instead of dealing with Obama’s current scandal (standard MO for his campaign), is there a cite for where she said that she never said anything in support of NAFTA?
My understanding is that NAFTA was good for some aspects of the economy and the country and bad for others, much of it wasn’t enforced, and it needs to be renegotiated. Which is what she has said she will do. Why wouldn’t she?
Obama, on the other hand, has pounced on NAFTA as unequivocally a bad thing. And then his folks tell Canada that he doesn’t really mean that and it’s really just political posturing. I’d call that a big fat honkin’ like. Right during his campaign.
You need to check your communications channels with the Clinton campaign. You’re using debunked talking points.
Shayna, I may be supporting Obama, but it grieves me when you report negatively on Hillary on the NAFTA issue.
Your cite with regard to the meeting in which David Gergen was present correctly pointed out that Hillary was supportive of NAFTA. How could she not be. She was supporting her husband, the President.
I have listened to David Gergen, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t trust him, he was on the inside, and he’ll tell you that on the contrary, Hillary was against NAFTA and made her views known within the white house quite often.
Sorry, that’s not a debunking.
“There was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA,” the embassy statement said. “We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect.”
I have no doubt there wasn’t any “intention” to convey that he’s doublespeaking. How would that make an embassy look as if they’re “intending” to do that?
But it slipped out nonetheless.
OK, I’ve seen the video the church posted, and I’ve seen the Reverend preach. What’s your point? Which sound bite am I suppose to ignore because there are quite a few of them.
How can you possibly justify the behavior of Wright? I would never accept such behavior from a spiritual leader. NEVER.
I’m sorry to disappoint you, Dutchman, but it is not I doing the reporting, but the truth that is finally speaking after years of Hillary fighting to keep her papers hidden from public scrutiny.
Now we know why.
And she doesn’t get to have it both ways. If she was against it, she shouldn’t have been speaking in support of it at meetings with cabinet members. If that’s how she conducted herself as First Lady, I cannot trust her not to conduct herself that way as President. I don’t want – and this country can’t afford – a President who says one thing to their cabinet and something entirely different behind their backs.
If that’s what happened. At this point, I don’t believe her.
And this is a way more important issue than a few incendiary remarks by someone’s pastor fer cryin’ out loud!
To follow up on my previous post, check this video
“Unenthusiastic”, even “extremely” so is hardly the same thing as “against.”
And again I ask, if she was so “extremely unenthusiastic” about NAFTA, what was she doing making up invitation lists and speaking to a room full of women involved in international trade, asking for their support on it?
Not to mention the rebuttal my cite has to your quoted denial.
ETA: Oh, and the idea that Hillary had to keep her mouth shut because her husband was the President is laughable, given that she didn’t keep her mouth shut, she spoke to people and asked for their support for something she claims to have been against.
The New Black Panthers have endorsed Obama.
“Maybe Mr. Obama has not heard the ‘New Black Panthers’ say anything untoward,” wrote Steve Gilbert of Sweetness-Light.com, playing on earlier claims by Obama about his pastor. “Or perhaps he thinks we need to understand where they are coming from.”
"The NBPP lists on its Web site a 10-point plan for full employment for black Americans as well as housing, education, free health care and an end to the death penalty.
In addition, it demands slavery reparations, the release of all black prisoners from American jails, trials of blacks only by all-black juries, an end to all black cooperation with police departments, exemption for blacks from the all-volunteer U.S. military and a separate country for African-Americans."
But Vietor said Obama has done plenty to try to get past race, including giving a “thoughtful speech” on race relations.
“The fact that you guys decided to highlight one of million user-generated (pages) the day after (Senator) Obama gave a thoughtful speech … speaks more about the controversy you’re trying to create than the campaign,” he said before the campaign’s decision to remove the page."
If I may, I’d like to call everyone’s attention back to that quote by Huckabee noted earlier.
First off, points to Huck for actually thinking about this situation instead of just shouting “Yay! This ought to rile up the rubes!” I think some on the right have no problems with Obama’s relationship with Wright. They just think others might, and are willing to repeat this to help their guy. Glad to see Huckabee is more intellectually honest than that.
But more to the point, I think that if the right seriously hammers on the Wright thing, it may damage their standing with evangelicals. I think part of the reason why Huckabee gets it is because he himself is a minister, and some of his rhetoric is probably not a hundred miles from Wright’s. I think pastors will resent the implication that they have to be PC with their sermons. That their congregations will be held responsible if they don’t abandon them after they condemn a sinful society just a little too strongly. These things are poison to any preacher, no matter where they fall on the political spectrum.
I’m not saying that this will cause evangelicals to vote for Obama, but maybe it could cause their leaders to beat the drums just a little more softly. Depress turnout just a crucial little bit more.
And you post this with a straight face.