Obama has banged out a statement for the Huffington Post, announcing that his controversial pastor, Rev. Wright, is due to retire shortly.
Here’s the money quote: “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.”
Apparently no one in Obama’s campaign wanted to take the risk of the good reverend announcing his own retirement. Reporters and bloggers might have questions and he might feel moved by the spirit to answer.
The one bright side of the controversy is that it ends any speculation that Obama is some kind of crypto-Muslim. (The MSM is so unfamiliar with the cadences of evangelical sermons, black or white, that it failed to see the deeply Christian rythmns in Obama’s oratory. Another diversity failure among the MSM: failing to hire people with different beliefs and experiences, rather than people of different colors and sexes but the same world view, but I digress.)
Indeed, it is a lack of understanding of the black church that contributes to the blogosphere’s and MSM’s mistaking Rev. Wright for a hate-monger. The time has come for some balance.
The video that Fox News Channel and Powerline have been featuring, which shows Rev. Wright sermonizing, doesn’t seem that shocking to me. Rev. Wright is a black Christian minister who sees Jesus a black man persecuted by white Roman society. It sounds like a clever way to get his flock to come to church, not an anti-white hatefest. It seems like a tool to get his followers to identify with Jesus. You are suffering and the Savior has suffered just like you, but he followed the word of God and he triumphed and you can too. I have heard similar sermons in white and black evangelical churches.
This is not the kind of sermon one would hear in WASPy Episcopal parish. But chances are, no one in that upscale church has a brother imprisoned by the state or his own self-destructive habits. Different groups, different sermons.
What about the 9/11 and HIV stuff?
There isn’t any video of Rev. Wright’s sermons on those topics, but I am prepared to believe he said something along those lines. More than a third of politically active blacks believe that the HIV virus is man-made and most likely spread by the CIA, surveys show. That’s obvious nonsense, but it tells us more about the state of the black community that about Rev. Wright. He is simply echoing their paranoia. Should have risen above it and said the problems of AIDS and drug abuse are self-inflicted? Should he have called on his flock to heal itself through self-discipline and encouraged them every step of the way? Yes. But his church is not the only weak institution in this country, the only citadel that refuses impart hard truths and love toughly.
Both of the these lunatic beliefs–the idea that America deserves 9-11 and that the CIA spread AIDS–along with Michele Obama’s offhand remark that she had “never been proud of America,” have a common root.
That root is not racism against white people, although it may sound like it is.
The root of it is a perpetual grudge against America. Where does this grudge come from? From the 1960s Left, who believed it and taught it. The hippies may have seemed happy, but they were also paranoid and given to cartoonish conspiracy theories. And the counter-culture survives in an intact and virulent form in only one place: the black inner-city.
The real scandal is the cynics who promoted these terrible views in the black community and sowed fears which continue to separate us.
So don’t blame Rev. Wright. He is simply the victim of ideological disease, doing the best that he can to help others in his somewhat incapacitated state.
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77 Comments
John More:The real scandal is that the “highly intelligent” Obama was associated with this minister for 20 years, to the point that the guy was part of his campaign.
Furthermore, racism is rampant in the ministers’ statements. You can attribute any cause you want to the racism, but racism it is. Furthermore, the guy is virulently anti-American in his statements.
No, you can’t excuse this stuff. Yes, these ideas are floating around. So are Nazi ideas. But associating with them is foolish.
Obama has done much to show his lack of basic American-ness. His failure to put his hand over his heart during the pledge, his refusal to wear an American flag pin, his long association with this rabid preacher, his talks that make America sound bleaker than anything Charles Dickens could conjur up. When you add it all up, it is clear that this man is too far from the American cultural mainstream - so far that he and his wife don’t even know it - they don’t know what ordinary Americans are like.
I hope this sinks him. Obama is dangerous - leftist, naive, with a dark view of America.
Mar 14, 2008 - 9:50 pm dougf:“I hope this sinks him. Obama is dangerous - leftist, naive, with a dark view of America.”
Yes he Is. But he sure do talk pretty and after all for the cretinous amongst us, it is ALWAYS more important to look(sound) good than to actually feel(be) good.
That this person could be a serious candidate for the Presidency, is a sad commentary on the current state of the State.
Mar 14, 2008 - 10:02 pm Jack Okie:Your apologia is almost as contemptible as Rev. Wright’s comments. So the po’ darkies are too (oppressed? weak? slow?) to rise above this kind of garbage? In the ’50s and ’60s I personally witnessed far too much scary white racism; I know what it sounds like - and Rev. Wright’s polemics shout racism.
There are basically two black communities here in Tulsa - one is spread out over town in integrated neighborhoods like mine (in fact I don’t know of a neighborhood that isn’t integrated, no matter how upscale, although I suppose there could be one) and the other is the black section in the near north where the old resentments are kept alive.
Jesus calls us to show mercy, to go the extra mile, to get the plank out of our own eye before worrying about the mote in our brother’s. These are not just platitudes, they ARE what it means to follow Him. And Rev. Wright is preaching “G_d damn the United States”?
At the EAA convention this past July the Tuskegee Airmen had a booth, and several of the survivors were there. I promise you there was nothing like Rev. Wright’s attitude among that group.
How often in the history of this country have the very ones who are sinned against (like the Tuskegee Airmen, or Martin Luther King) had to be the ones to step up and lead the way. It’s not fair, but they did it regardless, and we are all the better for it. Giving blacks like Rev. Wright a pass is just another form of bigotry.
Mar 14, 2008 - 10:20 pm Phillep:Oh, man, this is hilarious.
If a White preacher talked like that in church, there’d be literal hell to pay. You give Wright a pass, though, because you believe he is, and his congregation are, unable to come up to the standards of White behavior.
“The soft bigotry of low expectations.”
Mar 14, 2008 - 10:36 pm BD:You’re very generous. Too generous.
Christ taught that those who chose Him would be persecuted for His name’s sake, not because they were the wrong color. He taught of the oppression of sin, not the oppression of race - while I’m just working from memory, I don’t recall an instance where Christ condemned the Romans … he even marveled at the faith of one.
Reverend Wright’s statements betray not hatred of sin, but hatred of his fellow man.
I believe it was Pat Robertson who said something along the lines of “9/11 was punishment from God” soon thereafter. He was widely, without much in the way of reservation, condemned for it.
Wright - and his ilk - deserves no better fate.
Mar 14, 2008 - 10:47 pm kathie:I agree..and it doesn’t matter what a white preacher would say. Growing up Black in this country is not like growing up white. What you need as a black person is not the same as a white person. White people have an opportunity to experience that now. Listen and stop talking.
Mar 14, 2008 - 10:49 pm Howard:What gets me is that he took his little girls to listen to this hateful cretin every sunday. He and his wife might be old and wise enough to seperate the uplifting wheat from the hate and paranoia chaff in the sermons, but does he really think his 6 year old can? What kind of person allows his children to be poisoned like that if they don’t believe it themselves?
Mar 14, 2008 - 10:58 pm Shoebox:Kathie, with your logic it would then be appropriate for Barack to be President of the black Americans but not the white Americans. After all, we white people have a unique experience that he wouldn’t understand! The apologists for this guy are becoming pretzels trying to twist the logic work.
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:00 pm Ben White:“Don’t blame Rev. Wright” for the things he said?
People are responsible for what they say. Rev. Wright is as responsible as anyone. Maybe he didn’t know any better. Maybe he’ll learn the US didn’t invent HIV to kill black folks in the next few days and apologize and repent. If so, he’s forgiven.
If not, then I DO blame him and will blame him. And so should everyone else.
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:02 pm Chris:So your defense of him is that he is simply crazy, like a lot of people in his demographic, not hateful?
Horse pucks.
Richard: “It sounds like a clever way to get his flock to come to church, not an anti-white hatefest.”
You are half right; it is both. If my clergyman used an appeal to race hatred to lure his flock into church, he’d find an empty church. (I hope.)
Richard: “That root is not racism against white people, although it may sound like it is. The root of it is a perpetual grudge against America.”
Again, you are half right. It is both racism and a perpetual grudge. The two are inseparable.
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:07 pm Assistant Village Idiot:I’m an evangelical and I know the cadences and stylistic devices of black preaching, but I don’t get this. As the Anchoress noted, it’s not the racism, it’s the victimology-driven narcissism that is a problem here.
I agree that there is some 60’s-leftie blame to include here, but it’s not the dominant source of the self-pity.
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:08 pm M. Simon:Rev. Wright is correct.
The reason there are poor in America is that rich white people are hogging everything.
And there is nothing racist (or economically stupid) in what he says.
sarc/ off.
You believe that Minter?
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:12 pm kathie:Shoebox…..how many blacks think that white Presidents don’t represent blacks.
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:16 pm J. Pulley:Richard, the issue isn’t Rev. Wright per se. I think most people recognize that he’s just one minor symptom of a sick subculture. Actually, I haven’t heard any rhetorical attacks directly against the good Reverend himself, but it’s something of a public duty to shine a strong light on a candidate for President when he has a long connection to an unreasoning and dysfunctional influence.
Worse, I’ve seldom seen a more disheartening example of the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” Choosing to defend an irrational hate monger is bad enough. Defending him by saying, in effect, “We can’t expect better from those people” is inexcusable. You should apologize.
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:21 pm M. Simon:Rev. Wright says (according to Minter):
I’m a victim of stupidity, but in my defense I’m trying to teach it to every one else.
Minter - where did you lean rhetoric? Certainly not from Joshua Chamberlain.
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:23 pm Shoebox:Kathie:
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:24 pm mishu:No doubt there are some just like there are some white supremicist kooks who still think black Americans shouldn’t have equal rights. In neither case is it acceptable to use rascist and hate statements as ways to argue your point.
You’re right Kathy. I’ve never lived my life like Barack Obama. I’ve never attended the most expensive prep school in Hawaii. I don’t have a wife who was handed a $300,000/year patronage job and I’ve never got to sponsor projects(bills) where others worked hard on for months whereas I’ve only known about the projects (bills) for a few weeks.
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:30 pm JorgXMcKie:Kathie, I don’t think a good argument includes the idea that it’s okay for some people to be racists and use racist speech to advance their cause.
Unless, that is, you subscribe to the belief that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:30 pm Mark Simon:Richard,
There is an M Simon on here. Not me.. Hope you make it through HKG again.
I think your pop on with this being lefty stuff and not racist. Your right, not enough folks understand the black church. — mark simon
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:35 pm kathie:I don’t like Wrights speech, it sounds really stupid to me. But I say to myself, why do those sitting in that church like it? Because it gets back at whity, because it makes whity look bad, because whity deserves what he got. It will take generations for blacks to not feel those feelings deep in their hearts. But it is not all that blacks feel, it’s not the whole psyche, but it is there. I don’t know if a black guy can be President of all the people…I think it will be hard, and maybe nobody is ready to try it, but a black guy who is white or a black guy who is only black can’t get elected. Obama had to get his creds from somewhere, he got them from the black church, that doesn’t mean he can’t be everyones President.
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:44 pm Dsinope:The problem isn’t Wright, what he thinks or what he says. The problem is Obama’s poor judgement. He SHOULD have known years ago how bad it would look for him to be associated with Wright, Rezko, and Ayers and Dohrn. He either didn’t understand it, or did and decided to keep those relationships anyway.
The fact that he didn’t distance himself from Wright until now doesn’t prove he’s a bad person - it just proves he’s not very bright.
Listen to Obama once he gets off script and you come to the same conculsion - he’s almost as inarticulate as Bush.
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:53 pm KYJurisDoctor:Not everyone can say they support any (political) thing their Pastor says so why would ANYONE hold Obama to a different standard WRIGHT or wrong?
http://OsiSpeaks.com
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:57 pm kathie:Inarticulate=stupid, I don’t buy it. Slick speech=brilliant. I don’t buy it either. Cautious speech is what a leader needs.
Mar 14, 2008 - 11:59 pm SukieTawdry:I guess we’ll just have to lower our standards and adjust our expectations when it comes to some folks, eh, Mr. Miniter? “Incapacitated” indeed.
Mar 15, 2008 - 12:00 am HitNRun:I buy your counterculture argument, Minter, or most of it anyway. But this was a real spew line:
“More than a third of politically active blacks believe that the HIV virus is man-made and most likely spread by the CIA, surveys show. That’s obvious nonsense, but it tells us more about the state of the black community that about Rev. Wright. He is simply echoing their paranoia.”
So, what? Pointing out the mental illness that causes someone to say something doesn’t remove the dark cloud from around Obama. We’re picking our next leader. That is to say, we’re discussing a person here, not policy points. Root causes and even fairness are beside the point. Once he’s in office, his fingers are on all the buttons, including the Big Red One. Electing a President isn’t about deference or understanding on the part of voters, although, distressingly, it sometimes seems that way.
Furthermore, if John McCain’s white pastor said something even approaching that level of acidity to his congregation, or even something with politically conservative or reactionary tones, hippies would launch a music festival on the stairs of his church.
Mar 15, 2008 - 12:05 am william:I understand that black people have sufficient cause to dislike and distrust white society, but my question is this: Is there a line at which the distrust and dislike is too much? I have rarely heard a black politican criticize another black for being too anti-white. Some of the invective that was directed at Judge Thomas would be welcomed against this pastor. Spinoza somewhere cautions against loving our hatred. This pastor goes him one better: he literally worships his hatred. Castro has great support in the black community because he fought against the South Africans. Castro was also instrumental in installing a Communist dictator in Ethiopia. This dictator murdered hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians. Can the pastor explain why apartheid is a greater sin than genocide?
Mar 15, 2008 - 12:10 am tortillapete:Thank you white man, for continuing to expect so little of our stunted minds…
Mar 15, 2008 - 12:17 am JMH:Indeed, it is a lack of understanding of the black church that contributes to the blogosphere’s and MSM’s mistaking Rev. Wright for a hate-monger.
What-the-what!!! Mistaking him for a hate-monger? No, he is a hate-monger. Nother but. He’s a hate-filled, hate-selling, race-baiting cancer.
More than a third of politically active blacks believe that the HIV virus is man-made and most likely spread by the CIA, surveys show. That’s obvious nonsense, but it tells us more about the state of the black community that about Rev. Wright. He is simply echoing their paranoia
No. NO! He is not “echoing” their paranoia, he is fueling it, creating it. Where do you think that nonsense comes from, Minter? What is wrong with you that you can’t see the damange hate-mongers like Wright are doing to the black people of this country by filling their souls with poison.
Michelle Obama says we have holes in our souls? If she has a hole in her sould, it’s because of the corrosive effect of listening to Wright’s lunatic rants. He excavates holes in the souls of his flock, so he can fill those holes up with bile.
There is no excuse for the man. He is a cancer in our society. He is the cause of the ills, not their echo, not their reflection, not the window that lets us see. He is the root of the evil.
Mar 15, 2008 - 1:13 am Hillary All the Way!!!:Obama’s buddies Louis Farrakhan and Reverend Wright make Hillary’s very worst supporters look SAINTLY. Just words Barack? it’s not just words when they are Reverend King’s words, but when it’s just silly “old Uncle Rev Wright” now that’s a different story right? those are just some words. I think this should put a pretty permanent dent in any credibility Obama had left. Between Rezko, Farrakhan, Rev Wright and that other hater of America Michelle Obama, I think it’s becoming very clear Obama has made some very poor decisions in his life. So much for making the right choices on day one huh Obama?
Hillary is the One, always was and always will be, it’s not too late America.
Mar 15, 2008 - 1:26 am Dan:Really? It was hippies in the 1960s who “taught” blacks to have a grudge against America (if that is what they have)?
So it wasn’t slavery? It wasn’t Jim Crow? It wasn’t 100 years of legal segregation after the end of the Civil War? It wasn’t busing riots in South Boston and dogs and hoses in the South? It wasn’t the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.?
Hippies… COME ON! Who are you, Eric Cartman?
Mar 15, 2008 - 1:40 am Substance:Howard, you are right on and that every Americans should see the way you are, seeing one of the many darksides of Obama. Children are our hopes and by subjecting them to the hatred sermons is irresponsible to the extreme. So much about HOPE and JUDGMENT. Richard, you are too right on - “I think it’s becoming very clear Obama has made some very poor decisions in his life. So much for making the right choices on day one huh Obama?”
Mar 15, 2008 - 1:49 am Miles Jackman:As an African-American I find your statements and assumptions contemptibly racist. I would wager you have spent about ten minutes in a black church.
Mar 15, 2008 - 1:53 am baldilocks:There is no “black church,” Mr. Miniter. There is only the Church.
Mar 15, 2008 - 2:25 am Charlie (Colorado):Oh, Richard, subtlety can be so difficult.
Mar 15, 2008 - 3:05 am MKred:What made you decide this man needed defending? How could you not think he is a hate-monger, when you admit he uses hateful race-baiting to sell his message and attract congregants? Did it not occur to you that you would be insulting the black church-going community by implying that this man is just a typical representative of them?
Wright’s words remind me of the anti-American hatred that is being preached by Imams in some radical mosques. That sort of hate speech leads to more Mr. Attas. We should not be defending it, but denouncing it.
Mar 15, 2008 - 3:47 am Steve in Seattle:I am totally mystified by your logic, if one could call it that. I understand that African Americans have a different view of history and I can understand why they would, but that view should ALSO take in the almost 50-year history of progress in civil rights and economic opportunity for all minorities in this country, exemplified by Barack Obama himself, an Afrcan American man who is a US Senator and a serious contender for the Presidency, lives in a million-dollar home, and whose wife earns $375,000 a year. There are also the historical facts of black-on-black slavery and complicity in the slave trade, and vicious ethnic oppression and murder among Africans (Kenya and Rwanda come to mind). Sorry, but black people sold black people into slavery. Sorry, but the US, with all it faults, still beats the heck out of Rwanda as a place to live live in.
If this reverend had a balanced historical perspective that would be one thing, but to stand there and spew racial hatred, blame the white man for everything, and say “god damn America” and “the chickens are coming home to roost” after 9/11 is disgusting. For Barack Obama, who claims to transcend race, to be an active member of this church for 20 years is inexcusable. And his pathetic story that he had no idea the reverend had ever said such nasty things calls his honesty into serious question.
I think McCain should distance himself from the wacko ministers he’s been courting, but that’s a far cry from calling them “uncles who sometimes say things you don’t agree with” and sitting there in the pulpit week after week for 20 years, then claiming to know nothing about what was said.
Add it all up: Michelle Obama has never been proud of her country until now, only because we might elect her husband President (God forbid). She thinks America is a “really mean country.” Obama wouldn’t wear an American flag pin. His supporters got caught with Che Guevara posters in his campaign office; the reverend criticizes America for “trying to turn public opinion against Castro,” as if Castro were a good guy instead of the murderous pig he is. Obama is “friendly” with a former terrorist bomber and Weather Underground member who recently said he wishes he could have planted more bombs. Where do you think the Obamas got all this, if not the Good Reverend Wrong? And do you think it’s OK for a President of the United States to feel this way because he’s black??
Mar 15, 2008 - 5:31 am Chuck Pelto:TO: Richard Miniter, et al.
RE: Another Coincidence, Anyone?
I find it interesting that my morning meditation readings from Psalms and Proverbs included this tidbit of information…..
14 Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord.
15 Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.
Seems pretty accurate reflection of what has happened to this ‘minister’ who shouts anger instead of love.
And they say he was Obama’s mentor for how many decades?
Interesting….
Oh…yeah…about Obama….the two preceeding verses read as follows:
12 A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth.
13 He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers;
I wonder how closely they apply.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Mar 15, 2008 - 5:38 am urthshu:[Coincidence, n., When God works a miracle and doesn’t get the credit.]
not buying this. oh, i don’t doubt that its common enough, but all that says to me is that black racism is common.
offense is in the ear of the hearer. that definitely applies to blacks who complain about off-hand remarks by whites, and it applies now with whites who are offended by this racist jerk.
Mar 15, 2008 - 5:47 am Mark in Texas:Obama really has only one way out of this problem with the racist political craziness preached by Jeremiah Wright.
He can talk about how Rev.Wright brought Obama to Jesus. Obama can talk about how Jesus “changed his heart” as another presidential candidate said back in 2000. That is the only thing that will work to justify putting up with the moronic conspiracy rants.
Only problem is that if Barack Obama admits that he really takes this Jesus stuff seriously, he will permanently turn off the rabid atheist half of the Democratic Party.
Mar 15, 2008 - 6:06 am Broadsword:Just now, after twenty years, Mr. Sterling tongue, the Half Klingon (Barak…?) has heard utterances he vehemently opposes and appall his reasoning sensibilities? It took this writer twenty seconds. This man was a spiritual advisor…Expunge the name Jeremiah Wright and insert ‘Abu al has Zubrick’; remove “RICH!WHITE! PEOPLE!” and for it substitute “GREAT SATAN AMERICA!”, and answer this. To whom would his advice been given, and what would such advice be?
Mar 15, 2008 - 6:34 am Pashley:You can indeed engage in and spread rank paranoia, its a mostly free country, look at the global warming hysteria. But if you want to get out of your ghetto, whether its the black community, leftist scientists, or the bunker in Idaho, others are very free to verbally beat you down. Instead of saying “the minister was wrong”, Obama should clearly and repeatedly state his own beliefs, repeatedly, often, again and again. Its called leadership.
Mar 15, 2008 - 7:41 am paul a'barge:Indeed, it is a lack of understanding of the black church that contributes to the blogosphere’s and MSM’s mistaking Rev. Wright for a hate-monger
This is followed by the most outrageous litany of moral relativism I’ve read in literally months.
Dude. The pastor is at the top of the hate monger pile. He’s up there with Bull Connor and Farrakhan.
You have lost a lot more than your mind. You’ve lost your moral compass. Hopefully there are rehab centers for this. You need one.
Mar 15, 2008 - 7:44 am Richard:You might well have come up with the reasons, and the inherent racism of a single demogogue in a pulpit in the USA is of small issue to most of us. However, even this side of the Atlantic, the President of the USA is not a small issue, and if a candidate follows such a racist preacher that is a cause for condemnation.
You are defending Wright. I am with others here in disagreeing with the defence, but I think it is beside the point. The rest of us are concerned about Obama.
Mar 15, 2008 - 8:04 am rhodeymark:This makes me sentimental for the deceased Bishop Gilbert Patterson of Memphis. I, as a middle class white guy, used to love watching the sermons he delivered to his church. The dude was righteous, and made *everyone* feel uplifted after he was done. Do not equate Wright with “the black church” - his poison is his own. I agree vociferously that steeping the Obama children in this rhetoric is shameful. Mildly akin to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade doing childrens television in Gaza. Young hearts and minds are at stake.
Mar 15, 2008 - 8:26 am Letalis Maximus, Esq.:Chicago’s Black religious/political culture is a hotbed of hard-left reverse racism, paranoia, and social welfare/handouts. If not the birthplace of the reparations movement, Chicago is almost certainly the spiritual home thereof. Going to a church headed by Wright was just how you got to the top of the Black political heap in Chicago. Obama just hung around too long. You gotta dump that local crap once you make it to the national stage, and you gotta adopt more mainstream crap there.
Mar 15, 2008 - 8:38 am junyo:The best thing to come out of this whole episode is a very clear understanding in the black community of exactly what the white community thinks of it. Even in defense, the issue is chalked up to “…a perpetual grudge against America…” with “the 1960s Left” to blame. Not the historical hostility towards blacks that was policy until fairly recently, and is still cultural now? Nope, just blacks and their sick, self pitying society angry at blameless white folk. Nope, who wouldn’t trust and embrace people who thought so highly of them, and who had demographic, financial,and educational advantages?
Mar 15, 2008 - 8:47 am sbw:So, Richard, what is the root of this incapacity? Was it Emerson? “For all the people wiling to hack at the branches of evil, few are willing to hack at the root.” What is the root, and what do you suggest to hack at it?
Really. Email me your answer. It’s important. We are in a race for civilization with no guarantee civilzation will win.
Mar 15, 2008 - 9:07 am Xanthippe:As long as people continue to have different expectations for different “races,” (a foolish construct if ever there was one), racism will continue to be a problem.
“The soft bigotry of low expectations” is spot-on and bears repeating.
Mar 15, 2008 - 9:09 am davod:I read that Oprah belongs to the same church.
Mar 15, 2008 - 11:44 am tanstaafl:What about the 9/11 and HIV stuff?
There isn’t any video of Rev. Wright’s sermons on those topics…
Yes, there is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ38N8OUg3Q
“The government lied, the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color…”
This whole Reverend Wright argument is wearying. I’ll just agree with the remark above that there is not a Black church or a White church, only a church.
And the Reverend Wright’s pontifications and association with Black Liberation Theology and the Nation of Islam would be deplored by his beloved “Jesus”.
Mar 15, 2008 - 11:46 am Shadow Merchant:This is a sad day for black America and white America alike. The diatribes of this crazy preacher aside, there are a great many white people of good will (perhaps even a majority) who are not just willing but eager to cast an historic vote for a black candidate.
This is obviously true on the Left, but I assure you it is felt on the Right as well. There would be significant grassroots support for a Presidential or VP bid by Condi Rice or Colin Powell. If Obama could really live up to his portrayal as a post-partisan biracial messiah, he would undoubtedly be our next President.
However, there is nothing in his scanty record to suggest that he is able to work in a bipartisan manner like John McCain or Ted Kennedy. We are being given too many clues that behind the affable mask, he is a reliably hard-left ideologue who has drunk deeply from the poisoned chalice of angry black nationalism. And this exposure of Rev. Wright is the icing on the cake that will render him totally unelectable in the general election, even if he does manage to scrape by to the nomination.
Sadly, this will be just one more illustration of white American racism in the eyes of most blacks, and their preachers will get even angrier and crazier, and the list of ludicrous paranoid conspiracy theories circulating in the black community even longer, and it will become even less likely that our first black President will come from the resentful, angry mainstream of black culture. Imagine all the good that could be done if Barack had more of Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and the Tuskegee Airmen in him, and less of Malcolm X and Al Sharpton and Jeremiah Wright.
Mar 15, 2008 - 11:50 am Larry:Simple test: how many issues to Rev. Wright and David Duke agree on?
For starters, the US brought 9/11 on itself. And the Jews did it (whatever “it” is). Should we just try to understand David Duke’s pain?
A side observation:
Is that slick, or what? He’s able to sever himself from any and all egregious statements, without even spelling out (or even knowing) what they are. You got to give the guy credit for slick.
Mar 15, 2008 - 11:59 am tanstaafl:It is standard protocol that the Reverend Wright and all admirers of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam virulently decry black individuals who have risen to prominence within the confines of this “racist” nation, ruled by whites. (Wright’s characterization)
For example, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell are regularly denigrated as Uncle (maybe Auntie) Toms.
I could say with some certainty that sterling lights such as Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas and Michael Steele would be hugely embarrassed by Rev. Wright’s enormous expenditure of energy to keep the “racioarchy” alive and well.
Not to mention the Reverends Jesse and Al, who, along with Wright, have grown wealthy and prominent promulgating the racial divide.
Mar 15, 2008 - 12:02 pm Larry:junyo,
Ok, so now what do we do about it?
And let’s not forget that that perception thing goes both ways. I think a lot of whites are more than a little shocked to learn what blacks think of them, a half century after the civil rights movement and all that subsequently came from that.
It’s possible that we have finally stumbled our way to the “national dialog on race” that’s been talked about so much. If so great, but we’re not going to make any real progress unless we’re brutally frank with each other.
Mar 15, 2008 - 12:08 pm BLOC:Obama has tried to sell himself as a uniter, not a divider. In fact, the subtext of his message is that he is uniquely qualified to do so.
Can there be anything more divisive than this scandal?
And then there’s the issue of good judgement, which he claims to have in abundance (he’s always opposed the war . . . even though he was ignorant of the intelligence reports that informed those who had to make the decision).
Putting aside his associations with Rezko and Ayer, how does a 15 — 20 year long, uncritical association with Wright and his toxic ranting demonstrate good judgement? (Of course, claiming that he “didn’t know” is even worse: how clueless do you want your president to be?)
Mar 15, 2008 - 12:58 pm lucklucky:Yeah, also the Hamas videos against Jews and Christians are also not Racist…I heard that!
I guess it is only racist when a White does it.
Maybe Richard Miniter is a racist since he doesnt takes a “Black Church”(just hearing this as an European makes me shivers) to the same level…
Mar 15, 2008 - 1:13 pm rhodeymark:It isn’t too late for John McCain to pick a Michael Steele or JC Watts for the ticket - sending his own message of reconciliation to the nation, while sending a (needed) comforting message to conservatives as well.
Mar 15, 2008 - 1:16 pm Chuck Pelto:TO: Richard Miniter, et al.
RE: Obama and His Spiritual Mentor…
…or 20 Years Before the Pulpit…
…or should that read 20 Years Before the Blast?
At any rate. If the good Senator had not heard his Spiritual Mentor spew this sort of ‘appalling’ hate…the only things I can construe about his church-attending habits are:
[1] He was not a ‘regular’ attender.
[2] He sleeps a lot in the service.
[3] He balances his checkbook during the sermons.
[4] He’s brain dead.
[5] Or Worse.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Mar 15, 2008 - 1:44 pm michigander:[A minister is someone who talks in other peoples’ sleep.]
It is time we Americans educate ourselves - this Obama church dustup should be a start. Books have been written about our governments behavior and the “blowback” that ensues. Please do some research on the books written by Chalmers Johnson and read P. M. Carpenter opine over at Buzzflash. Keep in mind that Chalmers message is that unless the American people become educated as to where our leaders are directing our country we will fail to stop are own destruction. He believes we are bankrupting our country because of our over reaching militarism.
Here is an excerpt of Carpenters column and some writings of Chalmers Johnson.
“Yes, Obama’s fire was indeed centered on Wright’s words, but what the New York Times, Newsday and the Nation were addressing was the first installment of Professor Chalmers Johnson’s “Blowback” trilogy, which nevertheless said precisely the same as Wright:
What the daily press reports as the malign acts of “terrorists” … often turn out to be blowback from earlier American operations.
… And what U.S. officials denounce as unprovoked terrorist attacks on its innocent citizens are often meant as retaliation for previous American imperial actions. Terrorists attack innocent and undefended American targets precisely because American soldiers and sailors firing cruise missiles from ships at sea or sitting in B-52 bombers at extremely high altitudes or supporting brutal and repressive regimes from Washington seem invulnerable. As members of the Defense Science Board wrote in a 1997 report to the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and technology, “Historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States.”
By the way, I’m a Catholic. The Catholic politicians of which there are many didn’t lose their office or candidacy when the pedophilia scandals broke. The Church hierarchy knew of the pedophile priests for generations and they hid it and out right harbored these people in some cases. Are the Catholic members guilty of these crimes also. NO!
It is total hypocrisy to believe Obama has to pay for Rev. Wright’s rants.
Mar 15, 2008 - 5:15 pm Chuck Pelto:TO: michigander
RE: Blow-Back and Obama and Rev Wright
“It is total hypocrisy to believe Obama has to pay for Rev. Wright’s rants.” — michigander
It’s not ‘blowback’. Your analogy is WAAAAAY off, here.
I think it is not having to ‘pay’ for the Reverend’s hate-speech. Rather, it’s an indication of what sort of philosophy Obama seems like to listen to….for 20 years.
Hope that helps….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Mar 15, 2008 - 5:43 pm Steve in Seattle:[If you meet an ‘exceptional’ person find out what books he reads….or who he listens to on a regular basis. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, paraphrased and updated to this situation.]
Give me a break, michigander. Is it supposed to be some brilliant insight that terrorists attack in response to US actions? Sorry, I think most of us figured that out years ago. Does that mean that all US actions are wrong, and therefore deserve retaliation? Only to the blame-America-first crowd. The very use of the term “American imperial actions” tells us where the writer is coming from. You’re only telling us that this Chalmers Johnson guy sees America as an evil empire, just like the Good Reverend Wrong. And which are these “brutal regimes” we’ve supported that have earned us this retribution? Karzai in Afghanistan (as opposed to the peace-loving Taliban)? The Iraqi government (as opposed to the kindly Saddam Hussein)? Israel (as opposed to Hamas)?
As for the comparison to the catholic church/pedophilia thing (which, I notice, has been seized upon by Obama supporters to excuse his association with this racist, hate-mongering reverend), the analogy simply does not hold up. Pedophilia may be a personal failing of some (but by no means all) catholic priests, but it is NOT a tenet of the catholic faith. You don’t sit there in mass and listen to the priest extol the virtues of sex with little boys. That’s quite different from Reverend Wrong’s “black liberation theology,” which is BASED on racism and “God damn America.” Nice try, but these comparisons only show your desperation.
Mar 15, 2008 - 6:12 pm tanstaafl:What the daily press reports as the malign acts of “terrorists” … often turn out to be blowback from earlier American operations.
I’ve read all the fatwas.
In their own words.
I don’t buy this thesis, which I’ve been hearing essentially since the first plane hit the first WTC bldg. in 2001.
Maybe I’ve been hearing it long before that, but I was asleep. Maybe after the 1993 attempt at bringing down the WTC. Or before that, at the embassy bombings in Africa, the Cole…and all the other signs and indicators.
Obama doesn’t “pay for” his pastor’s rants. Nor do Catholic laypersons “pay for” the church hierarchy moving around pedophile priests over many years’ time, treating it as purely an “internal matter”, no one else’s business.
But, as an associate of Trinity church and a friend to “uncle” Wright for 20 years, Barack Obama doesn’t get a free ride, either.
Mar 15, 2008 - 7:03 pm WJA:> Michele Obama’s offhand remark that > she had “never been proud of
> America”
Not only did she not say that, the quote is on video. She said “for the first time, I feel really proud to be an American”. Rightwing sites ran a clipped video in which “really” is garbled, but she clearly says that. “Really” can imply that she was somewhat proud or moderately proud to be American before. But only a totally dishonest ideologue would misrepresent what she actually said the way you did. Or are you just misinformed?
Mar 15, 2008 - 8:30 pm tanstaafl:“For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.”
No America or American or mention of her own pride in being an American.
Hell, maybe she meant Sudan.
(just kidding)
But there was a “really” in there.
Mar 15, 2008 - 9:05 pm Chuck Pelto:TO: michigander
RE: [OT] Blowback Terrorist Acts
“Terrorists attack innocent and undefended American targets precisely because American soldiers and sailors firing cruise missiles from ships at sea or sitting in B-52 bombers at extremely high altitudes or supporting brutal and repressive regimes from Washington seem invulnerable.” — michigander
Hey. If you want to get down and dirty with them—going after them with a knife in your mits—that’s fine with me. Personally, I prefer going to a knife-fight with a longer-range weapon.
On the other hand, I don’t buy into your idea that the terrorists kill innocent women and children—and others—just because they can’t touch US. They kill such because it is in their political agenda’s interest to kill them. Not because they are PO’d at US.
You obviously are neither a student of history nor politics, let alone the interaction with warfare.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Mar 15, 2008 - 9:47 pm persian peasant:[Those who would treat politics and morality apart will never understand the one or the other. — John, Viscount Morley of Blackburn]
I think youpeople did not read the entire entry that Miniter made. If youread it closely, you would see that this is not a DEFENSE of Wright, obama, farakhan, or anybody else. It is a clever way of exposing liberals for the hate mongers they are. yes on the surface they make it look like a racial thing, for example,, but that is just the facade behind which they hide their true liberal hatred of the U.S.
Miniter is actually 100% on point with this. Stop saying this is really a defense. Read beyond the title since the title is part of the clever writing method he used. Don’t be so stupidly literal. Reaad between the lines.
Mar 16, 2008 - 4:22 am Chuck Pelto:TO: persian peasant
RE: TARGET!….
“….this is not a DEFENSE of Wright, obama, farakhan, or anybody else. It is a clever way of exposing liberals for the hate mongers they are.” — persian peasant
….Cease Fire. [Note: US Army Tanker jargon for, you’ve made a direct hit.]
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Mar 16, 2008 - 9:18 am Kip:P.S. ‘Go to’ in Iran. I’d love to see the country and people moved to a true democracy. My Brother-In-Law would too. Then he might be able to go home, on occasion.
I find it sickening that people are judging Reverend Wright by a few short clips the news has purposely picked out to make him look bad.
Obama has said the good Christian things from that church have inspired him. It’s such a shame they don’t show you those. What about how the church helps out the homeless, and other charity work? What about the good things the pastor has said? Ever listen to “Audacity To Hope”? It’s a beautiful, inspiring sermon that Obama himself named his book after. I would love to attend that church if most of the pastor’s sermons were like that. If Reverend Wright were a hateful anti-American like they want you to believe, they would have found more than THREE clips. Maybe Obama was telling the truth when he said, “Sometimes people say things that are just wrong”? You aren’t the ones who have experienced that church first-hand. You are in a poor position to judge.
Wake up people. Wright is only a frustrated black man from harder times, but you are just as much a portrayal of the ignorance in society we should be moving against. Obama ‘08.
Mar 16, 2008 - 10:06 am Bob:What racist nonsense. Do you honestly believe that anti-American, anti-white vitriol is an intregral part of all black churches?
And what is even worse is the ridiculous notion you are peddling that all black people somehow can’t see through the garbage this scumbag bigot is preaching. Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations.
As to the idiotic Obama supporter Kip who claims that Jeremiah Wright is not an anti-American racist I say, yeah good luck trying to convince anyone of that. Do you honestly think anyone is going to believe that these so-called “three things” are the only instances of anti-American, anti-white vitriol this scumbag has spewed over 20 years? For god’s sake, it only took the purchase of one DVD by ABC to find those instances. Obama has willingly associated with this hate-monger for twenty years, long after he knew Wright was the black equivalent of David Duke. Face it, Obama is done.
Mar 16, 2008 - 11:14 am persian peasant:to Kip
No one is preventing you from going there to the United Church of Vitriol. Since you think this is a unique church, in your own way, you ought to move there. If it is as unique and great of a church that you think it is, and you have that kind of a void in your heart which only Rev Wrong, Minister Farakhan or another member of Obama’s posse can cultivate as farmer would his fields, or a shepherd hisherd, then by all means go there. That way you can learn first hand how horrible of a country the USA actually is and how to hate us. I hear his vitriolic sermons and rants of lunacy are absolutely serene and beautiful, crafted as an artisan would craft the labor of his love.
I advise you to go there forthwith as there is little time for you to lose.
Do not deprive yourself from Obama’s illumination inspired by Rev Wright’s political church of racial hatred (which should have its religious designation revoked by the IRS).
Mar 16, 2008 - 3:20 pm Steve in Seattle:Kip: Did the press put those words in the Reverend’s mouth to “make him look bad” ? The way it works is, if somebody says something hateful, they look bad; they don’t require somebody else pointing it out to make them look bad. It’s pretty straightforward. I’m sure you would see this if you weren’t so blinded by your adoration of Obama that you’ve twisted logic beyond all recognition.
Mar 16, 2008 - 3:43 pm persian peasant:To Larry who said the following:
A side observation:
Let me say at the outset that I
vehemently disagree and
strongly condemn the statements
that have been the subject of
this controversy.”
Is that slick, or what? He’s
able to sever himself from any
and all egregious statements,
without even spelling out (or
even knowing) what they are.
You got to give the guy credit
for slick.
Mar 15, 2008 11:59 AM
Larry you hit the nail on the head. I caught this when I heard his statement saying he condemns the statements Rev Wright made that are AT ISSUE and then noticed all of his statements actually split hairs like this. Even in the quotation provided above by Larry he is only condemning the statements “that have been the subject of this controversy”. This made me wonder that, if he is so slick as to condemn statements in this limited precise manner so as to not actually damage the speaker, and not set aside the horrible man as a hate monger, how does he interpret bin Laden, who actually says similar things to Rev Wrong… does Obama merely condemn the statements bin Laden has said that are AT ISSUE or does he detest bin Laden as a horrible person as would be expected? Is his judgement clearer when it comes to bin Laden? Isn’t this the same guy who’s judgement says bomb Pakistan and talk to Iran and leave Iraq and Farakhan is a minister and got a pseud-endorsement by Ghaddafi and this list can go on and on ad nauseam.
Also, he condemns Wright’s statements that are at issue, which means that he condemns only the statements that we have heard thus far. What if there are other statements that level-headed Americans would condemn if they were aware of them, but have not yet heard about them? Does he condemn those too–not according to his statements on the topic. That may call for a new round of tailor-made laser-guided condemnations. I thnk he should come clean and tell us all the hateful stuff that Wright has said which we have not yet heard. He was there for 20 years after all. he knows well what inflamatory things Wright has said.
This guy’s judgement is jsut so far off I cannot believe that he is a serious candidate. its almost as though we are electing a Jesse Ventura-type to president (Obama is as big a joke as Ventura by any measure). Are there parallels to the mentalities of the Jesse Ventura voters and the Obama-craze? This kind of blind frustration which I can’t comprehend seems to be involved with both.
If we elect this guy, its kind of like the Roman Emperor who put his horse on the senate. Its as big of a farce as that…
Mar 16, 2008 - 4:24 pm morton from vienna:you peeple r so unfair. u said he’s a muslim since he had a photo w a turban. then u said his name is hussein so he’s a muslim. then u said he made his face blacker on tv. then u demanded he prove that he paid income taxes on drugs he may or may not have sold (trying to force him into admitting to conducting activities which you consider illegal and kind of lowering him to the level of a “lady of the late evening” since the revenue stream is of questionable legality).
Now u r saing that since his pastor believes these things, & since the pastor named the book of Audacities for Hopes, and other “evidences”, then he must also believe the same stuff as The Reverend Wright!!! taht is so ludicrous to make that connection. Besides what The Rev. W says is actually the painful truth about the oppressed black people and the zionists who hold the occupied territories hostage.
Minuter is an idiotic bufoon.
Mar 16, 2008 - 4:44 pm John Tampa:The choices we make dictate the life we live; for that my dear be true to thy self. I believe on everything we do we must measure our consequences. To say that Obama never hear of such thing from his pastor is a question of character. My wife is black and when I lived in Maryland, I had a hard time finding a church that would suit us both and our children. We came across a church that preach such as the way of Mr. Wright. Our attendance in that church only lasted for that Sunday. We search for another church that preach purely on the Word — yes it was a black congregation. That is to say, we must be secured in ourselves and exercise good judgement. There are many black churches out there that are pure, and preach just the word. As a naturalized US citizen, I don’t care if he is muslim, or wears a turban, but I do care that the interest and the security of the United States is kept in tact. We have suffer greatly with the 9/11 situation and the thousands of YOUNG YOUNG YOUNG people who have lost their lives.
Mar 16, 2008 - 11:04 pm Keith Richmond:Why is everyone making a big deal out of what he has said. For atleast the past thirty years, I can thank of atleast two white minister’s who have said worst and you all gave them praise. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson both are racist and praticing idiots everytime they open there mouths. The only reason Falwell isn’t raising hell today is because he no longer can.
Mar 18, 2008 - 2:32 am Steve in Seattle:Keith Richmond: it’s easy for you to tar everyone with the “you people” brush, but I’m no fan of Falwell or Robertson. However, if McCain gets support from this Hagee guy and Farrakhan publicly supports Obama that’s one thing, but Obama’s being a member of this racist church for 20 years is just as bad as if we found out McCain belongs to an Aryan Nations church. And I bet you’d be screaming about that, now wouldn’t you?
Mar 18, 2008 - 9:28 am CertainSkeptic:Mr. Miniter, now that today’s (Mar. 18, 2008) speech by Sen. Obama has come, 4 days after your last entry, is anything different? Let me break it down, as the “lawyer Obama” would have done, had he any “court time”…
Obama’s statement today did not satisfactorily address his relationship to Wright, in fact, muddied the waters somewhat. Whatever his grandmother might have said, I doubt it could rise to the level of “God damn America” or “We asked for 9/11″ as shouted from the pulpit by Rev. Wright. Nor can Grand-Ma’s racist statements to a few people compare to the hundreds, possibly thousands of people over the years in Wright’s congregation who were subjected to his racist/hateful sermons. In the background of those recordings were the loud “amens” of his congregation; apparently in support of Wright’s ideology. While a member of that congregation Obama must have stood-up and cheered “Amen!” along with the rest of the congregation every week. It is a statistical marvel that over 20 years Obama has managed to never be present when any hateful/racist statements were made by Wright. Would Wright, with his strong unabashed “public” statements, not mention nor discuss any of them with Obama at the “personal” level, one-on-one? Obama likened Wright to be as close as a “family member.” He can’t have it both ways: Either he was “close” and so, had to have known of Wright’s ideology, or their friendship was so “distant” that he could not have recognized Wright’s ideology? It’s difficult to fathom how he could have made Wright the “religious compass” of his campaign without knowing of Wright’s statements. Most people change churches when the Pastor preaches the opposite of what they believe. Obama had to at some level agreed with the Pastor’s vile ideology, AND accepted it–otherwise, such a hateful/racist person as Wright would have repulsed any true “non-racist” person. We need a more complete understanding of Obama’s “real” core beliefs before we make him our President.
Mar 19, 2008 - 12:21 am