Obama in Spin Mode over Pastor's Hate Sermons

The airwaves have been humming for the past three days over lunatic rantings made from the pulpit by Barack Obama's Pastor and Mentor the Reverand Jeremiah Wright. Here is a sample of the Reverand Wright's greatest hits. (Against America and White people)

Warning - Strong Language (The Reverand is merely trying to be provocative)



After waiting two days before responding to a mounting wave of blistering reaction on radio, television and the blogosphere to the Reverand Wright's scurrilous rants before his Trinity United Church of Christ congregation in Chicago's south side, the Illinois Senator issued this statement.

The pastor of my church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who recently preached his last sermon and is in the process of retiring, has touched off a firestorm over the last few days. He’s drawn attention as the result of some inflammatory and appalling remarks he made about our country, our politics, and my political opponents.

Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.

There's no denying that Mr. Obama has an elegant legal mind. He writes, I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy.....I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue. Senator Obama deftly steers away from the specific content of his Pastor's venomous rants while leaving open the possibility that there are other issues with which he finds himself in agreement with his declared Mentor. (Brilliant!)

Citing his own writings the Senator continues, I first joined Trinity United Church of Christ nearly twenty years ago. I knew Rev. Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago.

....Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he’s been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.

In these passages Senator Obama tries to establish his Pastor's credibility by citing his bona-fides as a member of the cloth and one who has served in the military and then cites his personal belief (again) in Jesus and social causes to dispel any lingering questions as to his faith.

The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign.

Obama excuses himself by claiming to have no knowledge of the deranged statements or views of his Pastor and close confidant of 20 years and parses the timeline of his association with Reverand Wright by stating that he was not in attendance when the offensive statements were being made. By making such a claim the Senator leaves himself open that someone will place him in church at a time when his Pastor was engaged in one of his bombastic diatribes.

When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.

Again Obama claims ignorance of his Pastor's rants and maintains that he "strongly condemned" Wright's comments. The Wall Street Journal recalls that, (m)eeting with Jewish leaders in Cleveland on Feb. 24, Mr. Obama described Mr. Wright as being like "an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with." Hardly a stinging rebuke that qualifies as "strongly condemned". The Journal continues, (a)s for Mr. Wright's repeated comments blaming America for the 9/11 attacks because of what Mr. Wright calls its racist and violent policies, Mr. Obama has said it sounds as if the minister was trying to be "provocative." Please Senator, you're being far too harsh on this "respected biblical scholar"!

Senator Obama concludes, (w)ith Rev. Wright’s retirement and the ascension of my new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss, III, Michelle and I look forward to continuing a relationship with a church that has done so much good. And while Rev. Wright’s statements have pained and angered me, I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in; on my values, judgment and experience to be President of the United States.

The Senator explains that Reverand Wright is being ushered off the stage and replaced by a younger more reasonable Pastor who won't embarrass him anymore. And while the Senator thinks his old Pastor's unhinged comments may have hurt and offended the majority of Americans, he hopes all the bad publicity will stop and the public will just forget the whole thing and hurry up and make him President.

Does that sum it up pretty well Senator Obama?

Oh, and about the statement that the Senator was out of town all those times Pastor Wright was engrossed in another one of his delirious bloviations? Well it seems Rich Lowry came across his musings as he sat in church while Pastor Wright was delivering his sermon titled, “The Audacity of Hope” the sermon title that inspired Barack Obama to write his second book.

Lowry came across the passage in Senator Obama's book "Dreams of My Father" as he notes, Barack Obama wrote (an achingly good) memoir. In the book, Obama makes it clear that Wright when he first got to know him was pretty much the same Wright we're getting to know now (the one that Obama is at pains to say is on the verge of retirement). Wright was striking some of the same notes, saying racially venomous things and attacking the bombing of Hiroshima.

In an excerpt from the book written 10 years before he thought of running for President Obama writes; The title of Reverend Wright’s sermon that morning was “The Audacity of Hope.” He began with a passage from the Book of Samuel—the story of Hannah, who, barren and taunted by her rivals, had wept and shaken in prayer before her God.

The sermon starts on an even keel and then decends into the familiar crazed absurdity we have become all-too-familiar-with when the Reverand rails against this fallen world, “It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!”

And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded, though, the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate. The reverend spoke of the hardship that the congregation would face tomorrow, the pain of those far from the mountaintop, worrying about paying the light bill…

The Astute Bloggers call it for what it is and say the Obama bubble has burst.