Tuesday, April 29

Can Obama Shake Wright

After several days of Rev. Jeremiah Wright appearing at numerous functions defending and expanding on the firestorm that has followed him for inflammatory remarks he made in several sermons, Obama denounced the Reverend and his remarks today.

“I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday,” Obama said in a last-minute press conference today. The candidate said that after watching Wright’s appearance from Monday, “what became clear to me was that he was presenting a world view that contradicts what I am and what I stand for," said Obama today in a news conference.
According to CBSNews.com,

"The turning point was Wright’s combative appearance in Washington yesterday at the national press club, where he stood by the comments he has claimed were taken out of context in press accounts over the past months. Wright maintained that the U.S. government was capable of acts of horror such as spreading AIDS through the lack community, accused the government of committing terrorism abroad and called criticisms of such remarks an attack on the “black church.”
All I can say is it's about time. You can't have that much history with a man and not know his stance on those issues. You also can't tell me that the comments taken from his sermons were taken out of context, because yesterday Rev. Wright set the record straight himself and it was pretty much as we thought.

Here are a few more articles and perspectives:

Jeremiah Wright's Bombshell, The Progressive
Obama Says He's Outrages by Ex-Pastor's Comments, NYT
Wright, Jefferson and the Wrath of God, The Nation
Obama Discovers Wright's Unsavory (It Only Took 20 Years!), The Weekly Standard

3 comments:

Hands-Free Heart said...

I challenge readers to look at two additional articles.

This first one reminds me a little of my own first experiences with black churches:
Putting Rev. Wright's Preaching in Perspective (by Diana Butler Bass)

The second one reminds me that indeed my own "white" church set up several prayer meetings in the Fall of 2001 to repent for the sins of America.
How Wrong Was Rev. Wright? (by Troy Jackson)

The Gang's Momma! said...

I saw the Press Club speech and was truly shocked at how arrogant and haughty Wright appeared. I could NOT stomach most of what he had to say, and was so surprised that he just kept affirming what all the "out of context" "sound bites" were all about. One of the commentators later speculated that he basically created new stories with almost every answer during the combative and nasty Q&A - it was UNREAL!

MsPicketToYou said...

Maybe, like most people, Barack wasn't paying much attention in church.

 

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