Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Obama says he's outraged by Rev Wright's comments

I've heard this described variously as Sen. Obama throwing Rev. Wright under the bus, under a train, and off the planet. Regardless, I fear that it may be too little too late. The Clinton machine knows how to twist arms, and if anyone can get the super-delegates to overturn Obama's apparent candidacy, it is them.
Obama says he's outraged by former pastor's comments - Yahoo! News:
"WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Barack Obama angrily denounced his former pastor for 'divisive and destructive' remarks on race, seeking to divorce himself from the incendiary speaker and a fury that threatens to engulf his front-running Democratic presidential campaign.

Obama is trying to tamp down the uproar over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright at a tough time in his campaign.
. . .
"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday," Obama told reporters at a news conference Tuesday.

His strong words come just six weeks after Obama delivered a sweeping speech on race in which he sharply condemned Wright's remarks but did not leave the church or repudiate the minister himself, who he said was like a family member. After weeks of staying out of the public eye while critics lambasted his sermons, the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago made three public appearances in four days to defend himself.

On Monday, Wright criticized the U.S. government as imperialist and stood by his suggestion that the United States invented the HIV virus as a means of genocide against minorities. "Based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything," he said.

And perhaps even worse for Obama, Wright suggested that the church congregant secretly concurs.

"If Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected," Wright said. "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls."

Obama stated flatly that he doesn't share the views of the man who officiated at his wedding, baptized his two daughters and been his pastor for 20 years. The title of Obama's second book, "The Audacity of Hope," came from a Wright sermon.

"What became clear to me is that he was presenting a world view that contradicts who I am and what I stand for," Obama said. "And what I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing. Anybody who knows me and anybody who knows what I'm about knows that I am about trying to bridge gaps and I see the commonality in all people."

Although Obama leads in pledged delegates, no Democrat can win the nomination without the support of the superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders who can vote their preference. The Wright furor forces those Democrats to wonder about Obama's electability in November."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My issue with this aspect of Obama's religious history is simple.

If John McCain had spent 20 years going to a church led by a Klu Klux Klan member, we would NEVER let him off the hook for it. His campaign would be dead and gone.

But it's okay, somehow, for Obama to be attending an anti-white church for TWENTY YEARS and we're to believe a) it's okay and b) he didn't buy into it?

2 months, even 2 years, I could buy. At 2 decades, you've made a commitment.

Jeanne