Tweet
by Jay @ 3:25 pm on March 14, 2008.
Obama finally addresses the topic of his racist preacher’s hate filled remarks.
Ed Morrissey:
Obama finally addresses the topic of his racist preacher’s hate filled remarks.
Q: I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s all over the wire today (from an ABC News story), a statement that your pastor (the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s South Side) made in a sermon in 2003 that instead of singing “God Bless America,” black people should sing a song essentially saying “God Damn America.”
A: I haven’t seen the line. This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements.
Q: What about this particular statement?
A: Obviously, I disagree with that. Here is what happens when you just cherry-pick statements from a guy who had a 40-year career as a pastor. There are times when people say things that are just wrong. But I think it’s important to judge me on what I’ve said in the past and what I believe.
Sorry! Not enough. Did he quit his church over the remarks? Not hardly. He’ll be taking his kids back soon enough. Oh well, distancing himself only brings the question of why he didn’t distance himself earlier. If he doesn’t think this is going to effect things, he should think again. Mark my words. If he continues with his weak responses, this will be the nail that does him in. A: I haven’t seen the line. This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements.
Q: What about this particular statement?
A: Obviously, I disagree with that. Here is what happens when you just cherry-pick statements from a guy who had a 40-year career as a pastor. There are times when people say things that are just wrong. But I think it’s important to judge me on what I’ve said in the past and what I believe.
Ed Morrissey:
Cherry-pick? Perhaps Senator Obama can explain the context that would justify “God damn America” and the accusation that America created HIV. That dog won’t hunt.
Paul Mirengoff:Several points come to mind. First, the “things [Obama] believes” (and should be “judged” on) include the following: Pastor Wright should be his spiritual leader; Pastor Wright’s church should receive a substantial amount of money from Obama; Obama’s children should, at an impressionable age, be exposed to Pastor Wright’s sermons, as opposed to less hateful religion instruction they could receive elsewhere.
Second, Obama is still defending Wright, and very lamely (Wright’s “on the brink of retirement;” he’s made “some controversial statements” in the past; his statements are being “cherry picked”). Wright wasn’t near retirement in 2001 when he blamed 9/11 on the U.S; nor was he near retirement in 2003 when he said God should “damn America.” And the statements at issue aren’t merely “controversial” or “just wrong”; they are deplorable.
MacRanger:Second, Obama is still defending Wright, and very lamely (Wright’s “on the brink of retirement;” he’s made “some controversial statements” in the past; his statements are being “cherry picked”). Wright wasn’t near retirement in 2001 when he blamed 9/11 on the U.S; nor was he near retirement in 2003 when he said God should “damn America.” And the statements at issue aren’t merely “controversial” or “just wrong”; they are deplorable.
No one - unless they are a brain-dead moron - would sit five minutes under Wright’s racist and anti-american rantings without walking out. Barak has sat there for twenty years. That’s not distancing oneself, it’s complicity.
KT Cat:Were his children going to Sunday School here? If so, he can no longer distance himself from Rev. Wright’s lunacy. How can you distance yourself from the church that you rely on to give your children moral teaching? It just doesn’t make any sense at all to claim that Barack disagreed with some of the sermons, but kept going anyway. Rev. Wright is clearly a toxic nut. You wouldn’t put your children anywhere near him unless you didn’t mind what he was saying.
Even Andrew Sullivan is on the same page:Nonetheless, Obama needs to be much more forceful and candid in explaining his relationship with Wright. I’m a little leery of getting in between a man and his minister - it’s not unlike the lawyer-client relationship in some ways. And, goodness knows, I have had many a priest with whom I have disagreed or even found offensive. But like many people, I wouldn’t sit through one of these sermons, let alone come back for more. And it would be helpful, to say the very least, if Obama told us more candidly why he did and does.
Comment