Was Rev. Wright Obama's Spiritual Mentor or Spiritual Adviser?--
I was struck by Barack Obama’s blaming the press for identifying Reverend Wright as his spiritual mentor or spiritual adviser:
OBAMA: I know that one thing that [Wright] said was true, was that he wasn't — you know, he was never my, quote-unquote, "spiritual adviser."
He was never my "spiritual mentor." He was — he was my pastor. And so to some extent, how, you know, the — the press characterized in the past that relationship, I think, wasn't accurate.
I had always thought that this notion came from Obama himself. A LEXIS search of news articles tends to indicate that it was Barack himself who so identified Wright, at least initially. But then, of course, perhaps the press repeatedly misreported what Obama told various reporters over the last four years.
Here are some of the news stories I found (all except the last are over a year old):
'I HAVE A DEEP FAITH,'
Chicago Sun-Times, April 5, 2004
These days, [Obama] says, he attends the 11 a.m. Sunday service at Trinity in the Brainerd neighborhood every week — or at least as many weeks as he is able. His pastor, Wright, has become a close confidant.
Race Against History,
The New Republic, May 31, 2004
Shortly before leaving Chicago for Harvard, he had a meeting with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the charismatic black pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, one of the most socioeconomically diverse all-black congregations in Chicago. Obama was taken with Wright's worldview, perhaps best encapsulated by a Trinity brochure proclaiming that, "while it is permissible to chase `middleincomeness' with all our might," ambitious African Americans must beware the "psychological entrapment of black `middleclassness' that hypnotizes the successful brother or sister into believing they are better than the rest of US."
Sen. Barack Obama's Pastor Frames Progressive Issues Through Lens of Faith, Religion News Service, March 10, 2005
But when talking about how religious conservatives have pushed issues such as gay rights and stem cell research into the forefront, [Wright’s] voice becomes taut and his rebuke direct.
Those who focus on these issues are building themselves up at the expense of others and, while the Bible has many references to right and wrong, Jesus only spoke against people who judged others, Wright says.
"Are you following Jesus when you are vilifying people?" Wright asks. "The answer to that question is no."
It's no coincidence that Wright's response to these issues is similar to that of Obama, Illinois' newest senator and one of the Democratic Party's leading lights in trying to frame traditional liberal issues as moral and religious imperatives.
Obama met Wright 20 years ago in the process of trying to get Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ involved in some community organizing he was doing. Ever since, Obama has been a devoted member of Wright's church. Obama says that Wright is not only his pastor, but he also is his friend and mentor. And Wright is one of the people to whom he turns [to] help him explain how his liberal positions jibe with his faith.
The fact that Obama chose Trinity is no accident. In a sea of conservative black churches, Trinity stands out in that it has welcomed in gay members, done outreach to people living with AIDS and advocated progressive positions on many social issues. . . .
Today, Wright is quick to call those who voted for President Bush "stupid" and chastise the public for letting issues like housing for the poor "fall off the radar screen." . . .
Obama says one of the things he has learned from Wright is that the Bible is full of references to poor people and how they should be treated. This, Obama says, is one of the points he would like Democrats to point out when Republicans try to take the religious high ground with talk of moral values.
Wright is there to give further guidance.
First, he says Democratic leaders need to understand why so many people feel threatened by gay people.
"Is it that people have linked homosexuals with pedophiles?" Wright asks. "Was it that they were molested as a kid? There are all kinds of emotional stuff that come up. We have to stick with it and hear each other."
Keeping the Faith,
In These Times, February 28, 2005
Wright and Obama developed a close relationship in the intervening years, and Obama counts the Reverend among his spiritual advisers. When a reporter asked Wright what advice he would give Obama upon election to the Senate, Wright said, "My advice to him: Please stay the same as you've been ever since I've known you."
'Personal relationship with Jesus Christ' dates to '88,
Chicago Sun Times, June 29, 2006
When [Obama] is in Chicago, he attends the 11 a.m. Sunday service at Trinity in the working-class Brainerd neighborhood every week — or at least as many weeks as he is able.
Obama's Real Faith,
Investor's Business Daily, January 23, 2007
Obama, meanwhile, has been getting in touch with his African roots. . . .
"I believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change," he recently asserted. He said his faith has also led him to question "the idolatry of the free market." This reflects Trinity church doctrine that no African-American can really rise to the top echelons of a "racist, competitive" white society on merit.
Obama, in turn, calls the dashiki-wearing minister of this militantly black church his "spiritual adviser" and mentor. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said of Obama and his other congregants: "We are an African people, and remain true to our native land, the mother continent." He wants health care for all and more housing for the poor, and calls those who voted for President Bush (and his tax cuts) stupid.
Barack Obama, Candidate for President, is 'UCC,'
PR Newswire US, February 9, 2007
In November 2004, during his acceptance speech following his election to the Senate, Obama expressed appreciation for the support of Trinity UCC's members. The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor of Trinity UCC, is one of Obama's close spiritual advisors and is credited with giving inspiration to the title of Obama's bestselling book, "The Audacity of Hope." Obama says he first heard Wright use the phrase in one of his stirring sermons.
"Trinity UCC has been a true community to me — a place in which the mind, heart and soul come together to celebrate God's goodness," Obama told United Church News in 2004.
Black power sermons test Democrats' faith in presidential hopeful,
The Sunday Telegraph (LONDON), February 11, 2007
The senator, 45, who describes the Rev Mr Wright as a mentor and spiritual adviser, acknowledged that he too was struck by the call to disavow "middleclassness'' when he first visited the church 20 years ago as a community activist who had just moved to Chicago.
"As I read it at least, it was a very simple argument taken directly from the Scripture: 'To whom much is given, much is required','' he told the Chicago Tribune. More generally, he argued, the document "espouses profoundly conservative values of self-reliance and self-help'' for black advancement.
Disinvitation By Obama Is Criticized,
The New York Times, March 6, 2007
The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., senior pastor of the popular Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and spiritual mentor to Senator Barack Obama, thought he knew what he would be doing on Feb. 10, the day of Senator Obama's presidential announcement.
After all, back in January, Mr. Obama had asked Mr. Wright if he would begin the event by delivering a public invocation.
But Mr. Wright said Mr. Obama called him the night before the Feb. 10 announcement and rescinded the invitation to give the invocation. . . .
Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said the campaign disinvited Mr. Wright because it did not want the church to face negative attention. Mr. Wright did however, attend the announcement and prayed with Mr. Obama beforehand.
''Senator Obama is proud of his pastor and his church, but because of the type of attention it was receiving on blogs and conservative talk shows, he decided to avoid having statements and beliefs being used out of context and forcing the entire church to defend itself,'' Mr. Burton said.
Instead, Mr. Obama asked Mr. Wright's successor as pastor at Trinity, the Rev. Otis Moss III, to speak. Mr. Moss declined. . . .
In Monday's interview, Mr. Wright expressed disappointment but no surprise that Mr. Obama might try to play down their connection.
''When his enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli'' to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, Mr. Wright recalled, ''with Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.'' Mr. Wright added that his trip implied no endorsement of either Louis Farrakhan's views or Qaddafi's.
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.''
IS OBAMA BLACK ENOUGH? Why do you ask?,
Chicago Tribune, March 11, 2007
Obama had come under fire for being a member of Trinity United Church of Christ, whose tenets are based on what it calls the Black Value System. Conservatives said the church was separatist, anti-middle-class and too Afrocentric for a candidate who speaks eloquently of constructing bridges along race and class lines. Obama has defended his church, saying it promotes self-reliance and self-help and should be a conservative's dream. . . .
For some, the idea of Obama distancing himself from the man he has called his mentor and spiritual adviser is anathema and is looked on as the candidate selling out.
Ethnic identity isn't black and white,
Chicago Sun Times, March 25, 2007
[A]t the last minute, Obama disinvited Wright to speak last month when he officially announced his presidential candidacy. Wright says that Obama now realizes that his political handlers gave him bad advice and that all is well between him and the senator.
New York Times (transcript),
March 18, 2008
OBAMA: And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me.
BOO!!!!!
Horrible thought of the day: perhaps, among black churches, Wright's *is* moderate. This Andrew Sullivan post is a firsthand account of just how common Wright's brand of unpatriotic, America-hating 'Christianity' is among black 'Christians'.
Or, you know, a Muslim one.
One and a half black men, actually. It's a new sitcom.
First, he tries to ignore/downplay his 20 year close association with the racist, America-hating Reverend Jeremiah Bullfrog Wright and Wright’s First Church of the Gooey Death and Discount House of Worship (an Imus line). Then in Voltaire-ish fashion, Obama defends to the death Wright’s right to spew his venom, even though he disagrees–later, vehemently disagrees–and now he tries to extricate himself from the black hole that he dug for himself. He’s shocked! shocked I tell you! Wright’s views and words have now become “outrageous!”
What bugs me most about this man, this fraud (and I mean the man Obama now; the other fraud, Wright, has long been outed as such)is that he has the unmitigated gall to believe he can fool all of the people all of the time.
Such elitist gall! (Hillary’s adjective).
May God help us all if Barack HUSSEIN Obama ever becomes our president!
I guess McCain and Hilary did better at disguising the fact that they're also Muslims since they chose different Christian churches to attend.
This is it? This is what you got? Never thought I'd write this, but I'm really starting to miss Reagan.
Somebody remind me where Bob Jones, Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker, John Hagee, Billy James Hargis, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Jimmy Swaggart fall/fell on the lefty-right spectrum.
I think a little context is necessary here. Lexis reveals that Obama was often asked about the title of his book "The Audacity of Hope," which he says was inspired by a line in a Wright sermon. Every single time he was asked that question, he referred to Wright as his pastor. Never once did he claim any greater relationship.
On Oprah, Obama answering a question about the inspiration for the title of the book said, "You know, because, first of all, my pastor, Jeremiah Wright, down at Trinity United Church of Christ, had a wonderful sermon way back when I was still a community organizer. And I still remember this sermon because the title of it was "The Audacity of Hope." And he was talking about how sometimes in life, everything seems to be going wrong, the world is in turmoil, war, disease and famine."
On Tim Russerts show he said, "You know, I have publicly confessed that I filched it from my pastor. Yeah. Jeremiah Wright, he's a pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ. And about 18 years ago, close to 20 now, I'd gotten out of college and had decided I wanted to be a community organizer..."
On CNBC, Obama said, "I attend Trinity United Church of Christ, and my pastor, Jeremiah Wright (probably 15 years ago) . . . gave this wonderful sermon called "The Audacity of Hope." He himself had borrowed the sermon from someone else, so it is one of those sermons that gets passed through the black church..."
These are but a few examples but the pattern is consistent. He mentions that Wright was the inspiration for the line, his pastor, but Obama says nothing more about their relationship. All of the excerpts you cite are not direct quotations, and many do not even claim to be paraphrases. It is quite possible that a reporter described the relationship as one of mentor-mentee or spiritual adviser-spiritual advisee, and other reporters read that (on Lexis) began to use it.
Notice too that in the only quotation of Obama's you cite, Obama refers to Wright as his "friend."
That was way back in the election of aught-four. Things were different then; many people argued that lack of active-duty military service should practically disqualify a candidate, if you can believe such a thing, and Geraldine Ferraro, Joe Lieberman, and Bill Clinton were all widely respected within the Democratic party.
We've come a long way since then. The idea that a candidate should be grilled for views of other people in his church hasn't been commonplace in the Democratic party for tens of thousands of minutes, since Mitt Romney suspended his campaign.
Honestly, if someone told me a year ago that a Democratic nominee for the presidency would be hounded by accusations that he was too close to his pastor, I would not have believed them for a minute. Of course, if you told me in 2003 that John Kerry would be hounded for his service in Vietnam (and not his antiwar activities afterwards), I would also have been incredulous. Shows how much I know.
Why so ... defensive? Where in Jim Lindgren's post is there any criticism at all of Reverend Wright?
Could it be that, your guy having been caught in an easily refuted lie, you're trying desperately to ... change the subject?
Naaaaahhhh ...
My challenge stands. Please point out to me where Obama is quoted as saying that Wright was his mentor or spiritual adviser. Obama has said that he believes the media overstated the relationship. Where is the quotation that disproves this? I am not saying it is not there. It may well be. But I cannot find it on Lexis and neither can Jim. Maybe it is somewhere else.
... he said, in effect:
Why change the subject?
As to Wright himself, well, I have my own thoughts. First and foremost, I guess I am no longer the delicate fainting flower that most other bloggers and media commenters are these days. I spent several years in the early days of this blog being all sorts of outraged about petty bullshit. I spent days calling Ted Rall an asshole (he still is, I think), days opining about what an asshole Michael Moore is, and so on. I got my panties all in a bunch about Ward Churchhill (also a dick), and stupid things Bill Maher may or may not have said, and so on.
And you know what? They may be assholes, or jerks, or whatever term you want to use, but they sure as hell didn’t run this economy into the ground. They aren’t responsible for turning a huge surplus into a several hundred billion dollar deficit. I have yet to read any memos from Barbra Streisand detailing how we should spy on American citizens.
And so it is with Jeremiah Wright. Is he a jerk? I don’t think there is any argument to be made that lately he hasn’t in fact been one big, giant, puckered asshole. His ego tour the past few days was all about him, but so what? I blame the media as much as I blame him. Is it an offensive notion that the government created aids? Absolutely, but I refuse to get all bent out of shape about it, because the government that tortures people and ran the Tuskegee experiment and wiretapped MLK for years opens itself up to crazy accusations like that.
So Jeremiah Wright has acted like a jackass the past few days, and he may have acted supremely selfishly by hurting Obama’s electoral chances. Regardless, he may be a flawed man, but that does not undo all the good he has done over the years. I don’t know of any bloggers with thirty years of service to the poor and the indigent. Get back to me when Chris Matthews feeds hungry people for three decades. And even with all his flaws, Jeremiah Wright did give us this quality bit of entertainment, and I have to admit to enjoying someone treat the media with the respect they deserve (which is to be mocked, have eyes rolled at them, and taunted as Wright did yesterday at the Press Club).
Maybe it is because I am totally and unrepentantly in the tank for Obama, but I just can’t get worked up over what his pastor said. Maybe it is because I am not religious, and I am used to religious people saying things that sound crazy. Or maybe I just refuse to spend any more time and energy getting worked up over and denouncing, distancing, and rejecting the wrong people- people who really don’t matter in the big scheme of things. If you have a memo from Jeremiah Wright to John Yoo showing how we should become a rogue nation, let me know. If you have pictures of Jeremiah Wright voting against the GI Bill, send it to me. If you have evidence of Jeremiah Wright training junior soldiers on the finer aspects of stacking and torturing naked Iraqi captives, pass them on.
Until then, I just can’t seem to get all worked up about the crazy scary black preacher that Obama has to “throw under the bus.”
perfect..
I notice that you don't come to any conclusion after posting all of these quotes. At most, they are inconclusive. Obama is never quoted as saying that Wright was his spiritual mentor, though press accounts say Obama describes Wright that way. Using VolokhLogic(tm)*, Obama's statements yesterday are entirely supported by the record. If Obama had been saying "spiritual advisor" to all of these reporters, you would think at least one of them would have quoted him on it.
______
* The special logic of Volokh conspirators that allows one to marshall all evidence in favor of one's conclusion and ignore equally plausible alternative conclusions from that same evidence.
Here we go on the non-mentor:
So Wright led Obama to Christianity, baptized him (hmm, source for that? "Inspired him to be baptized" seems inarguable), and Obama listened to his tapes for spiritual and/or oratorical cues. Mentor?
This is from the Chi Trib link offered above:
Also from the Chi Trib:
Now Obama couldn't pick Wright out of a lineup if the only other guy in it was Bill Ayers. Whatever.
The Clintons have this down to a science. They shamelessly repeat the same lie over and over until it can no longer pass the laugh test, then they try to kill the messengers who called them on the lie by claiming they are engaged in the politics of personal destruction. This approach has the virtue of allowing the Clintons to appear consistent.
On the other hand, Obama leaves a videotape trail of multiple positions which can be montaged on television and radio to devastating effect. Conservative talk radio and Fox News had such montages of Obama's contradictory statements and lies up within a couple hours after Obama's latest damage control speech, making him look like a complete hypocrite.
Was the coverage similar on the network news programs?
The montage I am waiting for starts with Obama reading the section of his own book on tape "Audacity of Hope" describing his inspiration at one of Wright's ranting speeches followed by Obama's press conference whopper yesterday that the current Wright is nothing like the one he knew back in the church.
Obama is toast and the Dems will not dare save themselves and take the nomination from him.
There can be a treatment or cure for "primary syphilis," or "secondary syphilis," or "tertiary (or latent) syphilis." Or, more specifically, any particular treatment is effective against the Treponema pallidum bacterium only if administered during the appropriate phase. A treatment appropriate for primary syphilis would be totally useless for a patient suffering from tertiary syphilis.
Ranting about the evils of government simply because a patient with tertiary syphilis was not treated for primary syphilis is a dead giveaway that someone is suffering from Kneejerk Outrage Syndrome.
I mean historically POTUS candidates have always put people on their campaign staff who are diametrically opposed to their own beliefs, it just makes sense. Why, Hillary Clinton even offered a job to Karl Rove.
I wonder where young lawyers pick up bad habits like that? ;-)
The sign that the whole Wright business is just gotcha politics is that Obama is rarely quoted, either old words or new.
If you'd ever been a large church, you'd realize that you could
1. Be led to Christianity,
2. Be inspired to be baptized
3. Listen to the preacher's tapes for spiritual and/or oratorical cues
4. Respond to an altar calls to declare a personal relationship with Jesus Christ
without ANY personal relationship with the minister. In fact, thousands can claim all four via TV preachers whom they watch.
My minister inspires me in lots of ways, but we disagree on pacifism, the government's role in addressing social ills, the death penalty and so on. Should I start disavowing him before I run for prothonotary?
Amnesty and US citizenship for thirty million felons who should not be in the country to begin with can be described in a lot of ways, but I'm quite sure that "reasonable immigration policy" is not one of them. And "campaign finance reform" is Orwellian doublespeak for government control of political speech.
You are not trying to listen to black America; you are demonizing it? If 99% of what Wright was true; predictably, you will focus on the 1% that is untrue. Is this balanced? Is this fair?
BOO!!!!!"
This is what secularists and identity Christians just don't get. To those of us who take our faith seriously, it's not about BLACK. It's about Christ. Wright's statements are problematic not so much because they are racist, but because they are hate-filled and demonstrate the perversion of Christianity inherent in Identity Christianity. They are "scary" when an Aryan Indentity Christian spouts off, too.
The problem comes from the fact that Obama was happy to adopt Identity Christianity. The fact that he now tries to cover it with the standard patina of false moderation is no different than what David Duke did when he ran.
Obama will keep his fans -- those who agree with Identity Christianity, and those who are secular and view it as a distraction. But most orthodox Christianity divorced itself from this kind of hate long ago, and properly reject both it and those who preach and practice it.
It's not the BLACK, any more than Kingdom Identity Ministry is about WHITE. It's about hate.
Ooof.
I'd like to think that this was biting satire, but I've seen too many lefties whose minds actually work this way.
Tuskegee was bad. Okay? Is that technical enough for you? Or are you really trying to argue that Tuskegee was good?
There are so many reasons that Barack Obama shouldn’t be elected; I guess I’d rather see intellectually honest policy debates then guilt-by-association politics on either side. Maybe Barack Obama’s relationship with Rev. Wright does tell us something about Barack Obama, but if you are looking for reasons not to vote for him, I think the center-right/libertarian crowd here can come up with some much better ones than Jeremiah Wright.
Yes it is shocking. People deal with bad situations everyday, including various forms of what might be called "terror", yet they don't automatically start searching under the bed for government operatives.
You accidently placed a question mark instead of an exclamation point after the word "crazy".
On a completely separate note (honest!) I notice that there is nothing in the comments policy of this site which permits comments to be removed on the grounds of insanity. That's an oversight you might want to remedy.
Wow, insults for arguments. Brilliant!
GG,
So you say. That, and a dollar will buy me a cup of coffee.
Actions
Shopped for and picked a church. Choose this divisive anti American Church as the perfect culture to raise his children in. Thus assuring the next generation of black sepratist anti America, culture of victimhood blame placers.
All the while preaching unity and change.
His ACTIONS say same old refrain. I'm a victim.
Obama called the AIDS theory "ridiculous" in his news conference. But, from a recent Kaiser survey: "researchers surveyed by telephone 500 African Americans ages 15 to 44, asking their opinion on a series of questions about HIV/AIDS "myths," according to a RAND release (RAND release, 1/25). Nearly half of respondents said they believe that HIV is manmade"
It would be a good thing to have a president though who could call this (among other things) ridiculous and be believed.
I suppose you should start by showing some evidence that this evil alien exists. Can you do that?
But hey, you just keeping searching through the dusty cellar and cobwebby attic for those black-suited CIA types who are infecting your water and implanting chips in your skull; you just might find them one day.
The only problem you have is that no one else will be able to see them.
SIG357:
Were you intentionally trying to prove my point?
Bluebear, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is not a victim. Rather, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is an opportunist and a lunatic race-baiter in the same league as the Grand Wizards of the KKK.
I am really persuaded by your attacks on me. Also, I am astonished that you know what I intended. Why not write my comments for me? I know the mental effort of coming up with ad hominem attacks must be very taxing on your brilliant mind. Just tell me what I am saying. One-sided discussion by Sig.
I was pointing out the facts of the matter. Doing so is not "hate". And you made no point. You made a silly and compeletely unsupported assertion.
Lastly, I'm a libertarian, not a conservative.
Tony -- Can't tell you anything about most of the TV preachers you mention (other than they seem to be doing well financially). Jimmy Swaggart I do know something about, because, inter alia, I had some friends you worked for him. Where does he "fall/fell on the lefty-right spectrum" is likely an irrelevant question. He's first cousin to both Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley, and may play the piano better than The Killer. He also is (or was) an Assemblies of God minister (which is the largest Pentecostal denomination). Maybe that's why he never seemed to have any problems hanging around Edwin W. Edwards (who is - or was -- also a Pentecostal). Since Edwin originally planned to be in preacher, he and Jimmy seem to have a number of things in common.
RE: Sen. Obama's latest statements or explanations or whatever they are: Will the real Barak Obama please stand up?
RE: Rev. Wright: Rev. Wright has gone beyond his 15 minutes of fame, and looks like he's angling for a TV show. Do you think he should replace Bill Maher on HBO (unlike Maher, Wright can be witty), or would he do better replacing Obermann on MSNBC (unlike Obermann, Wright is at least interesting to watch), or, do you think CNN should pair him with Tony Snow as a a Hannity/Colmes knock-off (salt and pepper plus liberal and conserative)?
Did I say all that? What I really meant is that I never really liked Mr. Wright and actually I barely know him. Just ignore all of this and vote for Hopey Change©.
Can't you read? I wrote that Malcolm X's conspiracy theory was crazy. Hello? Anyone home? I said that there was possibly a truth about such insane theories in the American black experience that overshadow the incredible narrative. Incredible = unbelievable.
I'll come up with a counterargument for you. The notion that culture shapes individual views is preposterous liberal nonsense. That so many black Americans entertain such crazy conspiracies is just a really weird coincidence.
As I see it, if you spend all your time talking about some guy a candidate knows rather than the candidate himself, that's your roundabout way of admitting you've got nothing on the candidate himself.
Small "r" republicanism-styled conservatives are perfectly conversant with, are consonant with the idea that culture, in notable part, helps to shape individual views.
You say that blacks ascribe to admittedly bat-ass crazy conspiracies because of a "truth" inherent to their experience, then you say its justified because they really HAVE been targeted by government conspiracies.
Ok then.
Yup, and it kind of craps on the whole "I'm different, I'm going to change things, just you wait and see" Obama narrative, doesn't it?
Hell, we haven't even gotten to Ayers yet; the RNC commercials are practically writing themselves.
Clinton on Tuskegee:
"To the survivors, to the wives and family members, the children and the grandchildren, I say what you know: No power on Earth can give you back the lives lost, the pain suffered, the years of internal torment and anguish.
"What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say, on behalf of the American people: what the United States government did was shameful.
"And I am sorry."
Discussion's of the candidates friends ARE about the candidate himself. And it's pretty sneaky to downgrade Wright to just "somebody Obama knows", as if he's some guy Obama says hi to in the office. Hell, I remember the Dems pushing pictures of Abromovitch at the WH with Bush, and that was a non-existent connection compared to this one.
Reagan was called a racist simply for giving a speech in Mississipi. Imagine that he'd had a close relationship over a span of twenty years with a Grand Wizard of the Klan. I doubt you'd have written the above sentences in his defense.
Obama gives a speech highly steeped in Christian evangelical rhetoric and, presto magico, he is a quiet man of faith.
Odd too that we don't hear any more of the "We need a veteran to lead the nation in time of war" boilerplate emanating from the left, ala 2004. Wonder why that is?
The cock is refusing to crow.
Tuskegee experiment = G-men in the closet? Holocaust = invasion of the body snatchers?
Because they've made him pretty rich and powerful.
Obama supporters appear to be upset tht Jeremiah Wright was attacked. And at least some were wanting to vent moral outrage because John McCain received the endorsement from John Hagee and had the temerity to meet him (as far as I know) exactly 1 time. I did a quick Google search and there were 678,000 hits for "John McCain Hagee"
McCain was attacked long after he denounced Hagee's bigoted statements. I expect to see similar attacks any time anyone who is in the least bit controversial endorses him.
But Jeremiah Wright is off limits, though Obama has been a member of his church for 20 years. Williams Ayers is off limits, though Obama's campaign described the relationship as "friendly" and Ayers hosted Obama's very first campaign meeting.
The hypocrisy of the left ("it's OK to attack your guy because all Republicans are racist scum") but not be attacked is absolutely astounding.
Previously you stated that it shouldn't be shocking that Wright would have such beliefs about government conspiracies because he belongs to a group that actually HAS been the victim of government conspiracy.
That wouldn't make him irrational, that would make him truthful because the conspiracy he rants about actually does exist. You can't have it both ways.
How dare you disgrace the Tuskegee victim's families with such lying innuendo. Your racist lies have no place in a civil conversation.
Yes, finally, the logical fallacy of tu quoque fallacy makes it appearance. A retort accusing an accuser of a similar offense or similar behavior. Here is the sign that constructive dialogue has long since ceased.
"Christian Stormtroopers" have in fact been rampaging through the policies of the US Gov't for the last eight years, mostly with negative effects.
How'z he gonna react if Hamas and Hezbollah announce that they have tactical nukes, and the systems to deliver them? Buh bye Barry...thanks for playing.
I've come to learn that the end of "constructive dialogue" with an hysteric such as yourself is usually preceded by their claim that in effect says, "I'm smart and you're an idiot" conjoined to an increasingly disjointed argument.
You fit the mold perfectly, congrats. Now go untwist your panties.
Yeah, the proof is everywhere: people whipped into church, mosques shuttered, temples razed, prominently displayed photos of the Pope made requisite.
Or are you referring to the little Cross pin that Dubya sometimes wears?
It no longer matters what Obama did or did not say. The notion that Wright is his mentor and advisor is so implanted in the popular lore that nothing will change it. That notion was reinforced with Obama's first Wright speech when he said he couldn't reject him because they had such a close relationship.
His defenders can demand citations forever, but it still won't make any difference. This isn't a court of law; it's an election.
Dave, I'd say it's exasperating. I stopped being astounded by it a long time ago. I suppose around the time that the people who hounded Packwood out of office leapt to the defense of behavior which made Packwood look like an innocent choirboy.
Perhaps we have more respect for the rationality, intelligence, wisdom, and common sense of the black community, and consider Wright to be an individual nutcase who speaks for nobody but himself?
Are you talking about Bosnia? Because if some group in America has been victimized by racist terror, I haven't heard about it.
Thats a serious distortion of what happened in Tuskeegee. ALL effective treatments, which were readily available for all stages of syphilis after 1950, were withheld from the participants for the last two decades of the study in order to observe the course of the disease. This took place with the full knowledge of the "health care" providers and no understanding by the study subjects. The patients only began receiving treatment because someone blew the whistle on the "study" in 1972.
Have you ever heard of Malcolm X?
Yes.
He believed that white people were created by an evil alien. Crazy?
If he really believed it, absolutely stark-raving loonie-tunes. I don't think he did believe it, however. So that's a trick question.
He was also a revered black leader. Why?
People were angry and frustrated. And I bet they didn't believe the 'Yakub' stuff any more than Malcom did. Black people aren't dumb. (Scientoligists, on the other hand, seem to believe in these sorts of things. So they probably are dumb. Comapre and constrast.)
"White demons" reflected a truth about the American black experience that overshadowed the incredible basis of the narrative.
Truth only in the sense that ideologies collective guilt are always founded upon some harm done to the group that perpetuates that ideology. That does not necessarily mean anything substantive about the demonized--in this case literally--group. If the phenomenological truth of the origin of white people was in fact "overshadowed" in the thinking of large numbers of black people by this ideology . . . well, that's a problem. Not an excuse.
Now, I think we can agree that Wright is a black leader. Yes?
He leads a church. He's black. Sound reasoning.
So, is it at least possible that something about AIDs and 9/11 conspiracy theories express a truth about the American black experience that overshadow the incredible basis of the narrative.
No. Either actual people murdered the 9/11 victims to promote a government conspiracy, or actual people did not do so at the behest of Bush and Co. Either scientists working at NIH invented a disease to kill balck people, or they did not. If Wright has evidence, let him show it. If he is "expressing an experiential truth of a race," he is bearing false witness. I think I remember hearing that Christian ministers are not supposed to do that.
Or do we draw the conclusion that the black community (or a significant thereof) is crazy or stupid?
Answered that above. I don't think they really believ this stuff. The Yakub-made-whitey fiction is mean spirited, but I suspect Yakub doesn't care, since he's not real. Like Santa. Or Spiderman. Or Unitarians.
But when one makes claims about specific murders of real people, then there must be an accounting. WHO did this? HOW do you know? To act otherwise reflects a fundamental lack of moral seriousness. Inventing a virus to kill innocent black children is not less evil than enslaving them at the moment of their birth. We insist that our children learn about how the institution of slavery came about in this country, and and how it functioned. Srious scholars--white and black--spend their entire lives investigating the details and trying to analyze the meaning of those details.
Why leave the HIV "issue" as just a vague myth? (HINT: Because it's BS, and everyone really knows this.) Does propagating such myths help or hurt the effort to make Americans aware of the actual moral wrongs and historical legacy of slavery?
I'd really like to hear a convincing answer.
I aim to please.
And that is a difference of kind, not quantity.
The cock is refusing to crow."
But then he'll have to repent and embrace Wright even more strongly...
Man, I HATE it when [Note to self: Remember to insert suggestive joke about V-i-agra here before posting] up to "crow" at dawn. And so does my wife!
We have 1) a government with view that untutored belief is more reliable than science, 2) that opposes life-saving public health initiatives because someone, somewhere, believes (without evidence) that they might lessen the stigma of pre-marital sex, and 3) causes huge ineffectiveness in AIDS programs in Africa with rules about abortion information.
Yes, aren't Conservatives petty? 'Course the problem for libs is that many of them sound just like wright. They defend wright, which just makes their cause much worse.
Plus this is a wonderful payback for all the self-righteous indignant libs like wright and obama who cynically smear innocent folks as "racist" for political advantage and profit.
It wasn't long ago that LA was burned down in riots, sparked by the kind of race hatred cultivated continuously by jeremiah the pariah.
It's time to expose this disgusting America-hatred for exactly what it is and ridicule it into oblivion.
You may not be old enough to remember it, but it's impossible to believe you haven't heard about it.
No kidding.
And not everyone who takes a baseball bat to the head suffers irremediable brain damage. What moral truth is that supposed to reveal about those who do?
I suspect Obama is smart enough that certain ideas, e.g., the government invented AIDs, are not believable to him. But if he is an adherent of Black Liberation Theology, his world-view would, by necessity, be much closer to Wright's than most commentators are willing to believe.
On the other hand, if Obama does not subscribe to the official religious doctrine of the church he attended for 20 years... isn't that a little odd? How many Southern Baptists were brought to Christ by a Catholic? It is of course possible, most obviously if Obama was driven purely by political motives and didn't believe a word Wright said.
Maybe he really wasn't listening to the sermons, and instead was mentally rehearsing his inauguration speech every Sunday for 20 years...
"I was not present when these statements were made."
"Was I present in the pew when some of those statements that many would consider controversial were made? Yes."
"I was not present during those statements, Larry."
"I am outraged. I am saddened by the spectacle we saw yesterday."
(I am quoting these words by Barack Obama by memory, not from text. They may or may not be word for word, but I am confident that there is no distortion or taking out of context.)
Today, in the wake of Jeremiah Wright's appearances before the NAACP in Detroit and the National Press Club in Washington, Barack Obama has spoken out strongly against Wright. In reality, Obama had to do this in order to keep his viability as a candidate. No longer could he (or Wright) claim that the pastor's statements were taken out of context-or in sound bites. Both appearances have been shown in their entirety. Wright has confirmed the content of the sermons that we had previously witnessed in "sound bites". At this point, with Wright seemingly going on a speaking tour and a book coming out in October, Obama had to speak out.
Today, Obama stated that he is saddened, outraged, and that his relationship with Wright has now changed. Wright is not the person he met 20 years ago, according to Obama. He stated that he had only seen Wright on TV last night. (I assume that means I saw the Detroit performance before he did.)
I have to say in Obama's defense that he is obviously caught in the middle of two constituencies, just as he has lived his life between two worlds-white and black. Yet, Obama cannot have it both ways as he has tried to do. He has carefully measured his responses to Wright.
Having said that, Obama, in my view, is not credible. Say what you will about Jeremiah Wright, he is consistent. For Obama to maintain that, over the course of 20 years, he had no idea that Wright held these views is disingenuous, to say the least.
At this point, Obama is literally tying himself in knots trying to maneuver his way through this morass. He had to know that his pastor had gone to Libya in 1984 with Louis Farrakhan to meet Moamar Khadafi. He knew the tenets of his churches' "Black Value System". Originally, he claimed that he had never been present when the controversial statements were made. Then he admitted in his Philadelphia speech that we was, indeed, present during some of those comments. Within days, he was on Larry King's show again denying he had been present. Contradiction? Absolutely.
In his Philadelphia speech, he tried to walk the tightrope. He disavowed the comments, but stated that he could "no more disown Rev. Wright and the church than he could disown his white grandmother"-whom he then described to America as a prejudiced person (later referred to as a "typical white person"). Now he is disowning Wright, again trying to convince the public that he had no idea what this man was really like.
Of course he knew. Twenty years ago, when he was a "community organizer" in the south side of Chicago, he joined this church because it represented a base from which he could build his career. Fair enough. But when Obama went on to become a state senator, a US Senator and now, a presidential candidate, membership in this church and association with Wright became no longer appropriate.
If Obama has only recently come to see what Wright represents, why did he dis-invite him to speak at the event by which he declared for the presidency? Wright's views had recently been featured in a Rolling Stone article. Obama knew.
Obama has always known.
He has known of the damning statements made against America, the race-baiting, the links with Louis Farrakhan, the trip to Libya and on and on and on. When he was a "community organizer" (whatever that means), the church and Wright suited him just fine. But now, he needs to appeal to the entire country-not just blacks, but whites, Hispanics, Jews, and Asians. He should have seen this situation coming years ago. Yet, he didn't see it until it hit him in the face. That speaks volumes about his judgement.
As for Wright, he has added a couple of new adjectives to his personal description. Man of God? Perhaps, but he is also a self-centered, self-promoting demogogue who clearly cares little for what he is doing to his parishioner's presidential campaign. Obama can be excused for being angry. Privately, he must be boiling.
By the way, who were those menacing-looking guys flanking Rev. Wright at the National Press Club yesterday? Is it true, in fact, that Wright is being guarded by the Fruit of Islam? What does Mr Obama think about that?
And by the way, what say you, Mrs Obama-in light of your recent comments about the country? How come the mainstream news media is not asking her for comments on Wright?
And by the way, now that Obama has "disowned" Wright, I wonder if the good pastor will strike back at Obama and clarify whether Obama was, indeed present, during his fiery sermons.
From Jeremiah Wright to William Ayres to Tony Rezko, there are so many suspect associations that Obama needs to explain. He is not doing a very good job of doing that, but then again, the mainstream news media is not doing a very good job of digging into it. Why is that? They would rather not-that's why.
posted by Gary Fouse @ 6:04 PM
fousesquawk