Why Jeremiah Wright will Not Become a Major Issue...at Least Not Yet

[Bullet1987]

I agree that conservatives will try to pin this on Obama in the General Election, but let's be clear about a few things...

1. Jeremiah Wright is not now, nor has he ever been, part of Barack Obama's campaign. This story is essentially guilt by association, along the lines of Rezco...but that was different because he is being criminally charged by the FBI. But even the Rezco story didn't last long, because there's really nothing there. Guilt by Association stories never last long.

2. FOX News has been going after Obama's church for the better part of a year now. Anybody that's been following Obama story-by-story since the beginning knows that this is old news. Right-wingers have had their heads exploding over this for months now. For the simple fact that this entire story began with CNN and MSNBC's arch-nemesis deflates the possibility that this gets much attention outside of the daily viewers of FOX News...which it appears there are quite a few of them on DU.

3. Sour Grapes. Let's be real, the only reason Clinton supporters are pumping this up and trying to make a big deal out of it is because of Ferroros asinine comments about Obama. I guess they consider this payback no matter who the source is.

4. Religious leaders WILL make baseless comments! Jeremiah Wright is one of MANY religious leaders in this country who come off as radical and extreme. Whether they be on the Right or Left, that's just the nature of the enviroment. And that's the main reason I don't see this gaining much traction in the MSM because they don't want to come off as being anti-religion. Even though the guy was ranting about race, at the end of the day...he's still viewed as a Christian preacher. It's the same thing dealing with the Donnie McClurkin story and why I knew that would never gain much traction. Religious leaders, for right or wrong, are given much more of a pass than everyone else because of who they are. There's even this preacher in Harlem who's name escapes me who constantly trashes Obama for various reasons...I'll try to find the video. The guy is truly disgusting. So this goes both ways really.

EDIT: His name is Pastor Manning and I heard people even walked out of his church when he goes on his anti-Obama rants. FOX News has also covered this guy...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6Op5or_vkcc&feature=related ">Obama is a Good House Negro

[Bullet1987]

1. More of his insidious and hate-filled remarks...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=khuu-RhOBDU&feature=related">Obama's Bra 54 DD

http://youtube.com/watch?v=RqA_v1fHsyk&feature=related">Obama is the Great White Hope

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OgtIqeV-6mk&feature=related">Harlem Preacher Says Obama Has a White Mama

The last video especially recieved a lot of heat on a lot of Black radio stations. The point is, religious leaders (not all of them...but enough) will always say off the wall things. It's why by and large, the MSM tends to ignore them. I don't see anybody criticizing John McCain for the nuts that have endorsed him. So this really goes both ways.

[Dr. Strange]

3. Okay, that first video...

:wow: :wow: :wow:

Obama is a mac-daddy?

[Bullet1987]

6. I know right...lol

I don't know whether or laugh my ass off or what.

[NWHarkness]

2. I saw all this hoopla last night

About how Obama's pastor was costing him the election and what a horrible development this was for the campaign, etc. Well, I'd been pretty busy all day, so I figured I must have missed something, so I went to Google News to see what the big scandal was.

Nothing. There was nothing on the front page.

So, I did a search, and I found it. Fox News and a few right wing blowhards trying to make an issue about the man. That was all.

Folks, remember that discussion on DU can become a feedback loop, and we start thinking this story o9r that is a huge deal, while the rest of the public pays no attention to it at all.

Relax a bit, It's a long way to November. You think Obama has had the kitchen sink thrown at him? Friends, the GOP is going to throw the sink, rip out the pipes and toss them as well, and then start tearing up the floorboards under the sink to throw. Don't let yourself get distracted by every petty little issue they try to raise.

[underpants]

4. Great post- I saw this this morning on foxnews.com but nowhere else

this is just material for Republicans to think they GOTCHA at cocktail parties or around the watercooler. Many people will have no idea about it and it gives the impression of information to the deliverer when in fact, of course, it is pure distraction.

Hell "Monster" didn't make it through the weekend and DU almost turned inside out over it.

[Bullet1987]

5. It could become an issue in the General...and likely will

Because as I said, conservatives have been blowing up over this guy for a while now. But it's not something I don't think the campaign can overcome. Guilt by association can go both ways...remember that. I'm waiting for the Evangelical Right to endorse McCain...they've said plenty of extreme things before. McCain already has had to distance himself from a Conservative bigot.

[HeraldSquare212]

7. Ah, the new topic for anti-Obama swarm-posting, eh? Cut-and-paste away! !

[Bullet1987]

8. What?

[GoldieAZ49]

9. Donnie McClurkin story affected a segment of the base, this is going to affect

the majority of Dems, Indies and Repubs


Wrights Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAYe7MT5BxM


your points:
1. Jeremiah Wright is not now, nor has he ever been, part of Barack Obama's campaign.

No he isn't. He has been Obama's spiritual adviser for 20 years, listening to this kind of preaching every week for 20 years.
That is a much deeper connection than anyone working for the campaign.
There is a disconnect between the hope change and unity message of Obama's.

2. FOX News has been going after Obama's church for the better part of a year now.
Then it isn't going away, and as more Americans tune into this the more exposure it is going to get, and more widespread coverage than just FNC.

3. Sour Grapes.
Has nothing to do with Ferraro or Clinton supporters at all. Look at the big picture, think General Election, Main Street USA, 527's.

4. Religious leaders WILL make baseless comments!
These are not baseless comments they are racist comments from an radical preacher that is Obama's spiritual mentor, that brought him to religion, baptized him. It is his only religious affiliation.

Listen to him in this video..."Jesus is a black man" you think that is just another "Christian preacher"? Has anyone told the Jews and Christians this?

I played this for my mom last night, she was shocked to say the least. Asked why I would want Obama as POTUS with this kind of spiritual guideance...I had no answer.

The more I hear and learn about Obama the less I can support him, I don't see how he can survive a GE with this added onto the ever growing heap.

Again, listen to the video, now imagine listening to this every week for 20 years...the Christians and non Christians are going to freak out when they do.
I am disgusted by this guy.

[Bullet1987]

10. Answering point by point...

1. He is NOT PART OF THE CAMPAIGN! Therefore, Obama should not be held responsible for something he says. Others have brought up Rev.Hagee's endorsement of John McCain. Do you think his anti-Catholicism is a problem for McCain in the GE? It goes both ways and like I said...guilt by association stories never last.

2. It's possible, but it also shows their race-baiting initiative as well. We'll deal with it when it comes.

3. It has EVERYTHING to do with sour grapes...that's why damn near every Clinton supporter on this website is trying to make this a big issue. The Clinton campaign looked, as has looked, like they were race-baiting leading up to SC and now recently with Ferreros comments...this is payback to them.

4. There are a lot of Black people who think Jesus was a Man of Color (whether Middle Eastern or whatever). There's nothing racist about that. But again, it goes to what I said earlier about other religious leaders who have made incredibly insensitive remarks. Look up Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, click on those links of the anti-Obama preacher who calls Obama a "mac daddy."

[2rth2pwr]

14. Mccain did not go weekly for spiritual guidance with Hagee. nt

[Bullet1987]

15. Yet Obama gets attacked when Farrakhan endorsed him...

It's still part of the anti-Obama rhetoric coming from people lately. No matter if he went to his church or not...if Wright endorsed Obama, people would take it the wrong way regardless of how far back they go.

[2rth2pwr]

16. ???

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

11. On the other side, this is not a campaign issue

Obama credits Wright with being a big part of his development as a man, and his philosophies as a potential president. This isn't a case of an inconvenient supporter...

[Beacool]

12. He has said that the Rev. has been his spiritual adviser for the last 20 years. n/t

[ampad]

13. As a progressive I don't get my news from Fox News

Fox News is blocked at my home so I would not know what the hell they were saying. I noticed last night after racist Geraldine stepped down all this Hillary supporters started posted about this pastor all at once. I expected to see something on major news but nothing. I think it is a sad day that when any liberal goes to fox news to stir up crap against another. I say it is sour grapes and it is quite funny to watch them squirm around on this site, pissed off because Hillary and Geraldine got called out for their racism. Yes I called them both racist "shocked" wow. Also don't come to be pretending that you are so offended by the pastors words when just a few hours ago you were defending Geraldine and her racist words. This is all fake concern and fake outrage and it is actually quite funny. I actually expect them to start coming on this site denouncing Keith and singing the praises of Hannity and O'Reilly ( or am I too late ) I don't do my research by proxy of Hannity and Fox News. Most of the stuff I see these people post here I take with a grain of salt. There are too many legit sources on the internet for me to be taking Fox News talking points and Fox News stories seriously.

[Scurrilous]

17. K & R

:thumbsup:

[jobycom]

18. It will become the defining issue if Obama gets the nomination.

Take that as a call to vote for Clinton or as a warning that Obama has to prepare an answer, whichever you prefer. Neither is my point.

Just as Kerry was swiftboated, just as Clinton was turned into a racist conservative, just as Gore was portrayed as a liar with delusions of grandeur, the Republicans will only attack Obama with lies and innuendo, and will keep the heat on him so that he can't talk about his hope for change message. He will either have to spend all his time fighting off personal attacks, or he will watch his numbers fall away as the attacks remain unanswered.

The Republicans have been laying the groundwork for their attacks on him for months. Items which seem unconnected and trivial will all be pulled together. The flag lapel pin, the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem. All these emails and photos portraying Obama as less than patriotic will combine with the charges that he used to be Muslim, along with his middle name and his father's supposed religion and all the other stuff. None of those items was an end in itself, since each was easily debunked. Each was part of a whole, to create a big lie.

The final picture will be this: Obama is a questionable American who hates his own country. He's a cleaned-up sixties black radical, almost a Black Panther (wait for it, that allegation will come) or a Black Muslim, angry at America for its treatment of his people and his father's homeland. Through his father and his self-hating white radical mother (doesn't matter that it's not true, Republicans never tell the truth if they can avoid it), he learned a suspicion bordering on a pathological hatred for his own nation. His career path (Harvard law student, lawyer for black causes in Illinois, opposition to our troops in Iraq) will be used against him. Now he wants to become president so he can change (meaning destroy) this nation from the inside, to avenge slavery and segregation and all the evils done to blacks in America, from slavery to the execution of Shaka Sankofa. It's not because he's black, it's not because he's inexperienced, it's because he's a frightening radical hiding behind a message of hope.

Reverend Wright just ties the whole picture together. He's the evil sheik mentor figure, as far as archetypes go. Elijah Muhammad, Louis Farakan, etc. He's really the one pulling Obama's strings, through clever brainwashing, so that Obama doesn't even realize it.

With all those suspicions about Obama, wouldn't it just be better to vote for the kindly old white man's face?

Again, I don't believe any of that, but that will be their tactic. Obama needs to be defending against that right now. He needs to do all the stuff Republicans do--wrap himself in the flag, sing God Bless America, switch churches, and be the first out of his seat with tears of adoration on his cheeks every time the flag is raised or the National Anthem begins, all that corny stuff that Democrats hate but Republicans and other lost souls find so critical. Or else the allegations will stick in enough minds to sit him beside Kerry and Gore in the should-have-been heap.

They will have a tactic for Clinton, too, so this isn't about which candidate would be best. Just about why all these stories are coming out about Obama.