<p>Let’s be real Wright through Obama under the bus. He’s a politician and on January 21st of 09 I will still be a pastor…ouch!</p>
<p>Or the fact that he questioned his own spiritual guidance to Obama.</p>
<p>Many pundits are now saying Wright doesn’t want Obama to be president. If he did he would just walk away until Nov.</p>
<p>I would hate to be judged by everyone that I associate with who may espouse nonsense. (Happens all the time.) ;)</p>
<p>I still don’t get why Obama and this guy have somehow become one. It seems that the Clinton campaign and the media have nothing else. Obama is judged by what this guy says, yet Clinton continuously tells out right lies, and gets a free pass. She also has some rather “ethically challenged” associates that haven’t quite been vetted! Has anyone else noticed that Hillary has once again become the media darling? Once again, CNN=Clinton News Network. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Associating with someone is one thing but Wright was Obama’s spiritual advisor. Big diff.</p>
<p>OK, here’s the criticism from Martin Marty’s article:</p>
<p>“…To me, Trinity’s honoring of Minister Louis Farrakhan was abhorrent and indefensible, and Wright’s fantasies about the U.S. government’s role in spreading AIDS distracting and harmful. He, himself, is also aware of the now-standard charge by some African-American clergy who say he is a victim of cultural lag, overinfluenced by the terrible racial situation when he was formed.”</p>
<p>If Martin Marty can say that w/o being accused of being a racist, why can’t others? Fair or not, it is a hot button point and not beneficial to Obama. otoh, I have a great deal of respect for Marty and am willing to read and reread his comments and take the entire article to heart.</p>
<p>I still don’t get it. The pastor is retired, and Obama doesn’t agree with what he said. The only ones who are beating this dead horse are the Clinton campaign, and those who never would have voted for Obama anyway.</p>
<p>(…And the talk show hosts and TV anchors who are biding time until a real story breaks. I say enough is enough. But, that’s just my opinion. :o)</p>
<p>As for the speech last night, the only part I caught was the part about learning style differences, and the reason that set me off was more to do with all this clap trap one constantly gets from the teacher organizations. Our family’s experience comes in the area of math education and the crazy NCTM. I have had countless battles with incompetent math teachers devoted to calculators and who were convinced that girls learned math “differently”. This craziness resulted in more frustation in both my daughters, well, it just infuriated me no end when Wright jumped on that band wagon. The stuff about the presidents and their speech patterns I missed.</p>
<p>Sokkermom - it doesn’t matter who’s beating the horse. If you want Obama to get elected, the issue has to be dealt with so that he gets enough electoral college votes to get in the White House. Denigrating the people who find it offensive won’t do that job. The Obama campaign should have planned for this. They should have seen it coming and planned for it.</p>
<p>Why wasn’t George W. Bush subject to this type of criticism?</p>
<p>Should we even begin listing divisive, bigoted quotes of evangelical leaders who threw their support fully behind Bush and to whom Bush pandered as one of their own?</p>
<p>Oh, that’s right. They’re white, powerful, and rooted in the conservative tradition. When they blame 9/11 or Katrina on homosexuals, they are not attacking America. They are attacking what’s wrong with America. When Rev. Wright blames the government for AIDS (I have actually read a scholastic report that there is a cure for AIDS but it is being suppressed - so I have no idea) or 9/11 or whatever, he is pointing his finger at the immoral behavior entrenched in the status quo - but that is what they perceive to be everything right with America.</p>
<p>mercymom,
If this is the only thing that is raised during his “vetting”, then he is in much better shape than his opponent for the general election. I am sure that if Hillary were to win the nomination, the republicans would find and dissect a lot of her skeletons that would be much more damning to her than this to Obama.</p>
<p>I don’t know, sokkermom, from what I’m hearing Clinton’s saying basically that ALL of her dirty laundry’s been aired. You think there’s more?</p>
<p>Anyone who doesn’t already know what the Clintons’ dirty laundry is was either in a coma during the 90’s or not born yet. As for Bush and the evangelicals, well of course he should be criticized for that, and of course we need to get rid of the evangelical death grip on the White House, but I don’t think you do that by going to the opposite extreme. There are tons of people who do want change, but that doesn’t mean they want the radical far left extremist version of it. I am personally convinced that it is the Clintons being too centrist that is why the Dem party doesn’t really like them, just as it is McCain’s being a “maverick” that the Republicans don’t like him (he is getting none of the fund raising that Bush got). All the other reasons Dems don’t like the Clintons are just pile on. But it is the fact that Bubba seems more like middle america than people like Gore or Kerry do is why Bill got elected twice. Until the DNC understands this, we will be stuck with a Republican White House.</p>
<p>Mark Karlin wrote an interesting editorial (April 24) discussing the Clinton vetting. Here is a small quote from that: "The irony is that at the end of the primary season, Hillary Clinton – who admitted she lied about Bosnia at the ABC debate, but it hardly got a mention – will be the one who remains largely unvetted regarding the financial activities of the Clintons over the past few years – and there are files of GOP opposition research from the Clinton years before that which will be blasted across television screens.</p>
<p>So when it comes to the superdelegates looking at the facts on the ground, it is almost impossible to become elected when nearly 60% of the population distrusts you – and the more you campaign, the higher your negatives go.</p>
<p>And as far as Clinton being vetted, there are still a lot of Hillary and Bill bags that haven’t been opened yet, and you can be sure that the McCain campaign is rummaging through them right now. "</p>
<p>If we are stuck with a Republican White House, it is because the Democrats are moral cowards. They could have cut off funding for the aggressive, hostile occupation a year ago. Instead they have chosen to “stay the course”.</p>
<p>^^^
Theoretically, yes. But when you are in the minority in all three branches and then only have a slim majority, it is almost impossible to assert power without significant compromise.</p>
<p>I do agree that they allowed themselves to be painted as immoral by the right wing propaganda machine without fighting back that standing up against poverty, oppression and bigotry, ecological devastation, blatant lies and cronyism, and unnecessary wars is moral. They have been very spineless. I think the republicans have transitioned to a 21st century model built on social values while the Democrats still hold to the New Deal framework that served industrialism well but not the information age.</p>
<p>
If it was just conversative talkers, Wright would not have a problem. In fact, it is just about everyone other than Obama supports who don’t make excuses for Wright’s nonsense. Today he was given the opportunity to reverse his theory about the government creating AIDS to kill blacks, yet his response was to cite some nutty books, articles he had read. </p>
<p>Even NPR liberal Juan Williams was pointing out how foolish Wright sounded today. Wright is a hate filled ogre and is exploiting his followers by lying to them and making them hate whites and blame whites and the government for all the things wrong in their lives.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much Wright influenced Sen. Obama, but I do know Wright is not a man to be trusted or followed.</p>
<p>Wright says he is not a politian, but it seems so much of what he talks about is politics.</p>
<p>^^^ I agree.</p>
<p>The dems have not learned how to sell themselves as well as republicans. The real problem for the dems is Nancy Pelosi and Reid. They have now been in control for 2 yrs and nothing has changed, if anything the country is more divided and partisan. Pelosi promised to fix the cost of gas 2 yrs ago and she has…it’s now $1.26 more a gallon while she flies back and forth to CA every week on the taxpayers dollar or spent 16K in flowers. As bad as Bush’s rating is the MOC’s have lower ones. I will be voting this yr for no incumbents, don’t care what party, I figure if we get a whole new congress in we might have a better chance of fixing the nation…I think Teddy and Byrd have been there long enough to try and do something besides voting on the road to nowhere!</p>
<p>“Wright is a hate filled ogre and is exploiting his followers by lying to them and making them hate whites and blame whites and the government for all the things wrong in their lives.”</p>
<p>Sigh. I suppose if you say it enough times, it might become true.</p>
<p>“Sigh. I suppose if you say it enough times, it might become true.”</p>
<p>No one has to keep repeating it. Wright speaks for himself. Very loudly. And clearly.</p>
<p>I typically do not post on politically-oriented threads because I am panpolitical (my sociopolitical viewpoints are all over the place, and I dont conform to any single political partys ideology), but I am going to weigh in on this one. </p>
<p>After hearing and reading about Rev. Wright on a daily basis for the past several weeks, I finally saw him in action for the first time on television last night. I liked him immediately. I like him not because of what he says, but because he has the guts to say it. He tells it like it is. Hes like the little child from the folk tale who pipes up, and–to the shock and chagrin of his politically correct elders–blurts, But the Emperor has no clothes! Rev. Wright is simply blurting–to the shock and chagrin of “politically correct” America–that racism is still parading throughout our country buck naked, and that wed all be better off if we finally admitted to ourselves and to each other that the sight is very real and very ugly.</p>
<p>Rev. Wright also brings to mind screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky’s brilliantly crafted and unforgettable character, veteran news anchor Howard Beale, Networks Im as mad as expletive and I cant take it anymore! Mad Prophet of the Airwaves, about whom entertainment programming producer Diana Christensen wisely perceives, “Howard Beale got up there last night and said what every American feels, that he’s tired of all the expletive. He’s articulating the popular rage I see Howard Beale as a latter-day prophet, a magnificent messianic figure, inveighing against the hypocrisies of our times .”</p>
<p>Rev. Wright is 100% real and 100% sane, but like fictional madman Howard Beale, Rev. Wright is inveighing against the hypocrisies of our times. Bravo to him.</p>
<p>People make this out to be liberals supporting Wright and conservatives against. I think it’s simply an issue of people who understand the black church and people who do not. </p>
<p>To call Wright a hate-filled ogre blaming government and whites for all the problems is absurd. He is a highly respected theologian across many racial and political ideologies. He has worked hard to inspire self-responsibility in urban black culture. Simply pointing out that the oppression of blacks is not all their fault is stating a fact, not being filled with hate.</p>
<p>One does not have to agree with all of his perspectives to see that he cares and loves. Did you even hear him last night? The man spoke of the love and unity that binds all human life and all religions. Perhaps you simply do not understand black culture.</p>