When did Jeremiah Wright join the Obama campaign?

[IrishBloodEngHeart]

I must have missed that? When was he on staff?

Oh, I see. Obama knows somebody who is a little old and a little out of it who runs his church. Guess what, most people who go to church will tell the older pastors get a little weird in their old age and you generally put up with it until they hang it up. Sometimes they get kind of emotional, sometimes they get a little short tempered, its par for the course.

Obama stated his views on Wright's remarks back in January, so this is a total non-issue, other than something to make the Clinton campaign happy, since their only hope is negative campaigning and the old "kitchen sink" strategy they have bragged about. But, the clinton campaign loves Republican framing of issues, and will continue to do McCain's work for him until Obama firms up the nomination.

[Altair]

1. I'm sorry, but I see this as being more damaging than the stuff before ...

because this really calls his judgement into question, and I say that as an Obama supporter. This is a hateful preacher- it's obvious for anyone to see and Obama should have known better than to go to a church like that. You add in the fact that his wife seems angry, and people are going to wonder if he's hiding anger himself if he has an angry wife and an angry preacher. All the Republicans have to do is play video of that sermon in a swiftboat-style ad and we can kiss any chance to win states like Indiana and Missouri goodbye.

And I just don't see any way that, after the Swift-boating cost us the last election, the superdelegates are going to rally behind Obama. I expect they will approach him and ask him to take the VP spot. He's got a very bright future- I just don't see 2008 as being his year.

[scheming daemons]

2. I'm not sure you're an Obama supporter.... your post has several...

"code" words and phrases that sound awful freeperish.


Couple that with your new account and low post count... and my alarms are going off.

[Altair]

7. I understand your suspicions. Why not just debate the content of my post. I assure you

I am a legitimate Obama supporter, as every post I have made prior to this video being released should clearly indicate.

I can be objective AND an Obama supporter, and I don't see the party going with Obama after we lost the last election to swiftboating. This video is extremely incendiary- it is perfect swiftboat material.

[theredpen]

17. What do you see at hateful in the video?

[Window]

33. I just watched the video, and it tickled the hell out of me.

He was calling it like he sees it. It was the truth.

I remember before the *Bush selection, his pastor and others were plugging for *Bush from pulpits.

[theredpen]

35. That was what I saw

There have been a lot of people calling the video "hateful" and "racist" and I've asked about half a dozen times for an example and no one has been able to explain what is racist or hateful about it.

[Window]

38. Just more fake outrage. That's all it is.

[IrishBloodEngHeart]

3. Nonsense

this is total nonsense. Mitt Romney is part of a church that wouldn't allow black people into leadership until 1978 becuase they thought they were cursed by God. And they still think they were right to do that.

Is there anything about Obama that strikes you as Angry? The guy is the least angry candidate I can imagine, especially compared to McCain or Clinton, who both come accross as petty and mean spririted. If either wants to get into a debate about who is more mean, that's a great subject for Obama. As a supporter, how can you be so cowardly and want to give up so easily? Have some courage and commitment to your candidate.

This is total nonsense. It will blow over in three days at the most.

[Altair]

8. I hope you're right. We'll see

[ingac70]

6. Obama supporter?.. yeah right...

Speaking as an atheist on the outside looking in, all churches are full of offensive crackpots. Par for the course.

[MadBadger]

9. He's got an angry black woman for a wife...I see what you're saying.

[Tarheel_Dem]

27. tells you everything you need to know about the poster...huh?

"I'm an Obama supporter, but" (insert lie here)....

[Tarheel_Dem]

21. McCain's got his own problems with religious leaders. You do know

that the Rev. Hagee has endorsed him? The preacher who has the entire Catholic community in an uproar because he referred to Catcholicism as a bastardized cult religion, and equated the Catholic faith to that of a whore?

Please, and it doesn't help Obama that one of his "supporters" (doubtful) uses rightwing talking points; that's not "objectivity", that's assimilation.

[MADem]

4. It's not just WRIGHT. Apparently even the replacement has "stepped over the line."

Ya can't do that.

We go after the wingnuts for doing it, and what's good for the goose. ...

The issue isn't WRIGHT's intemperate remarks anymore--he's retiring in June--it's electioneering from the pulpit. And Obama has done it, himself: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120511457633523621.html?mod=hps_us_pageone

On Christmas morning, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. compared presidential candidate Barack Obama's impoverished childhood to Jesus Christ's. "Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people," he then trumpeted. "Hillary can never know that."

Mr. Wright wasn't at a convention or a campaign stop. He was standing at the pulpit before the mostly African-American congregation of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, where Sen. Obama has worshiped for more than 20 years.
Mr. Wright, who will be ending his 36-year tenure as the church's senior pastor in June, has previously been criticized for comments deriding President George Bush and lauding Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. Now Mr. Wright's and his successor's repeated enthusiastic promotion of their famous parishioner may be running afoul of federal tax law, which says churches can endanger their tax-exempt status by endorsing or opposing candidates for public office.

Sen. Obama's campaign issued a statement saying that he has repeatedly stressed that personal attacks "have no place in this campaign or our politics, whether they're offered from a platform at a rally or the pulpit of a church." The statement also said he "does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms. Like a member of his family, there are things he says with which Senator Obama deeply disagrees.'' Mr. Wright declined to comment.

Trinity's national parent, the United Church of Christ, recently disclosed that it's being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service for a speech Sen. Obama gave to 10,000 people at a church conference in June in Hartford, Conn., in which he mentioned his candidacy and parts of his platform, namely health-care reform.

Scholars and attorneys say that a growing number of congregations are delving into issue advocacy and partisan politics, a trend dating back to the 1980s, when the religious right enlisted churches to fight abortion. An increasing number of complaints to the IRS over church politicking have triggered agency probes into both liberal and conservative religious groups. A Baptist church in California has acknowledged it's under IRS scrutiny after a watchdog group complained that the church backed Republican Mike Huckabee in his recently ended bid for the White House.....Some of the sermons mentioned Sen. Clinton or her husband in unflattering ways. During that Christmas morning sermon, Mr. Wright declared that Hillary Clinton "ain't had to work twice as hard just to get accepted by the rich white folk who run everything or to get a passing grade when you know you are smarter than that 'C' student sitting in the White House." On Jan. 13, Mr. Wright told the Trinity congregation that some people say, "'Hillary is married to Bill and Bill been good to us.'" Mr. Wright continued, "No, he ain't!" Sen. Clinton's campaign didn't respond to requests for comment.

Ellen Aprill, an associate dean at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former adviser to the Treasury Department on matters including nonprofit tax law, says she believes those sermons are "clearly a violation. They're naming names.''....In some instances, the church's ministers alluded to Sen. Obama without naming him. During a Trinity sermon observed by a Journal reporter on March 2, the Rev. Otis Moss III, the pastor, preached, "There was a non-Babylonian, a young man who heard the word of God and said, 'I have the audacity to hope!' Now the whole nation says, 'Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!'"

[Mooney]

5. Never, that's when.

Three words:

MANUFACTURED BULLSHIT ISSUE.

[ExtraGriz]

10. this is going to be played over and over in the GE

the rethugs are going to use this big time....

[goldcanyonaz]

11. I was always curious why this had never come up before. Seemed so obvious.

[FrenchieCat]

18. Perhaps because some believe in freedom of speech,

and don't like Gotchas that have nothing to do with what a candidate will do for them when in office.

What you are curious about is why the politics of hate and division isn't working as well as you would like it to.

[cali]

39. It's come up repeatedly

including here. There was a spate of Wright threads a few weeks ago. I wrote one of them myself. And the right has been pushing it for months and months.

[theredpen]

40. It won't stick

That pastor is retiring. Furthermore, Wright isn't racist, just too "uppity" for white people — even liberal ones, I've noticed — to handle. I mean, what ever happened to those nice quiet black activists like Rosa Parks who did her think by sitting on a bus? Why does Wright have to attack "rich white men," so vocally? That's... that's... just uppity, gosh darnit!

Meanwhile, the Republicans, having stamped "Jesus approved" on everything they do, need to be careful when attacking religion.

One of the constants I've noticed in the complaints about Wright (and they're almost identical here and on Free Republic) is that they shout "racist" without giving any support or examples. Over at Free Republic, it's understood that attacking the elite white power structure in this country is an attack on people like Bush and Cheney and must be denounced. Why is needs to be denounced here is an unsettling question.

[jackson_dem]

12. Wright is even worse than a random staffer. Wright is Obama's mentor, "spiritual" leader

Wright goes to the heart of who Obama is. This isn't the same as some random staffer or adviser.

[IrishBloodEngHeart]

15. Yawn.

you are so tiresome in your irrational hatred for Obama.

[ingac70]

16. Billy Graham was "spiritual advisor" to many Presidents...

and he was/is an offensive charlatan.

[jackson_dem]

22. After they won and of both parties so he couldn't have been made a campaign issue

[ingac70]

23. Notice he didn't hang out at the White House much...

after his racism was exposed on the Nixon tapes.

[Metric System]

13. Isn't this the man who coined the phrase "Audacity of Hope"?

[jackson_dem]

14. Yeah, but Obamites think Ferraro has more influence on Hill than Wright has on Obama...

:crazy:

[IrishBloodEngHeart]

19. Hillary made Ferraro part of her campaign

Obama has PREEMPTIVELY clarified his differences with Wright, not waiting until he got pressure to do so.

Hillary didn't take any initiative on Ferraro's stupid comments until she was pressured into it.

[jackson_dem]

20. Right. Obama made Wright a part of his life for two decades despite knowing he is a bigot

Ferraro was just one of many cogs in a large national campaign. Wright is Obama's mentor, spiritual leader, and the guy who got him to become a Christian. They are hardly the same.

[IrishBloodEngHeart]

24. can you give me these "racist" statements that have you so worked up

And please don't give me one quote and say one quote is supposed to define a 20 year relationship.

[jackson_dem]

31. Saying "white America" deserved 9/11 and saying whites "control" the US is racist

Wait until they hit the msm, sometime in October if Obama is the nominee...Wright's problem isn't limited to just racism. He also visited Qadaffi with none other than Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan ties into the other problem Obama has: Wright's statements on Israel. He is already doing poorly among Jewish voters and that is before the msm has run with Wright.

[IrishBloodEngHeart]

36. you don't think rich white people control the US?

what country are you living in? Who does control it then?

Those aren't quotes by the way, those are your interpretations of his remarks.

[Tarheel_Dem]

25. so did Hillary, how long do you think she's known Ferraro and

Rendell? How long has she known that they're racist assholes? Two decades at least, right? I know you guys would love to have Sen. Obama on defense for everything ever uttered by every black person he's ever known, but unlike Ferraro & Rendell, Rev. Wright is not a part of Obama's campaign. But good luck with that.......

[jackson_dem]

30. They aren't the same. She knew one well for years--the non-racist one

Rendell isn't a racist; Ferraro is. They all have a lot of politicians supporting them. Is Obama best buds with DLC rising star Kathleen Seblieus? I doubt it. Now Rendell, a former DNC chair, has closer ties to the Clintons. Now what makes you think he is a racist?

Yes, Wright goes to the heart of who the real Barack Obama is. It is funny that Obama supporters think his position is less important than that of one cog in a national campaign. On the contrary...

[Frank Booth]

26. As an Obama supporter, I agree that this is a big issue.

I've been waiting for it to blow up, and it looks like it finally is.

It does not show that Obama is unfit to be President. It does not show that Obama is racist. All it shows is that he goes to a church with a wacko preacher. But don't think that this won't matter in many parts of this country. It certainly will. This preacher is just too foreign, weird and confrontational for many Americans.

On the bright side, this could not have come out at a better time for Obama. This came out after all the major primaries and well prior to the general election. Obama almost has the nomination sewn up, and this video isn't going to stop him from getting it. Plus, I'm sure McCain and the right-wing media would have loved for this to first make waves in September instead of now. Frankly, I'm surprised that Fox is playing the tapes now instead of holding on to them until the fall. I guess they didn't want to get preempted by the Clinton campaign (or, maybe Fox and her campaign are just in it together).

[Tarheel_Dem]

28. dig up some video clips of the Rev. John Hagee who has

endorsed McCain. Talk about wacko. So if the GOP wants to play dueling preachers, no one wins.

[IrishBloodEngHeart]

29. If it doesn't matter, how is it a big issue?

Anyone who actually goes to church, will tell you that they very often disagree with what their pastor/priest/ whatever says. All Obama has to do is say is:

"these are small selected bits of 20 years of sermons. I, like most people, do not agree with everything my former pastor has said. He isn't part of my campaign, isn't affiliated with my campaign, and if you want to know my view on any of these issues, feel free to ask me. Rev. Wrights views are not my views nor the views of my campaign.

That's it. Its not a big deal at all.

[Frank Booth]

32. Sorry. I used a double negative.

My point was that it does matter.

Seriously, Jeremiah Wright is not just some run of the mill preacher. How do you think this will play in middle America? And the media will love this story.

Fortunately, like I said, I think Fox/Hillary/whoever is playing their hand at the worst possible time. Obama was going to lose Pennsylvania anyway, and this should die down enough by the time Pennsylvania votes that he won't get blown out there.

[usrbs]

34. I don't know why I bother

Fox / Hillary, one and the same. Yeah, right.

If it was Hillary she'd have released it a lot earlier. In fact, she should have as it's a legitimate issue. It was one of the factors in my decision. I'm an atheist, but when I did belong to synagogues I chose according to how the Rabbi and congregation reflected my values.

[sniffa]

37. The day after Larry Sinclair, I think

[uponit7771]

41. What did Wright say that in that sermon that wasn't true!?!?!?!?

[DemGa]

42. I doubt the "old crazy uncle" bit will hold up

I also can't imagine the right-wing not nailing Obama with this day and night -- and thereby revving up the opposition in droves.

Ya know, that kinda "uniting the opposition" effect??