Free Republic

"I'm sure," said Barack Obama in that sonorous baritone that makes his drive-thru order for a Big Mac, fries and strawberry shake sound profound, "many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed." Well, yes. But not many of us have heard remarks from our pastors, priests or rabbis that are stark, staring, out-of-his-tree, flown-the-coop nuts. ...snip... It is Barack Obama's choice to entrust his daughters to the spiritual care of such a man for their entire lives, but in Philadelphia the senator attempted to universalize his peculiar judgment – to claim...

Some 50 delegates were reportedly poised to unite behind Barack Obama if he had won by even 1 point in Texas. He lost the popular vote by 100,000 ballots, and now we learn that 100,000 Republicans voted for Hillary Clinton, probably not because of some change in party allegiance but because they thought she would be the easier candidate to beat. This kind of strategic voting often backfires (think Ralph Nader). The Texas crossovers are winners. By helping to prolong the Democratic race, they can claim credit for weakening the eventual nominee, whoever it turns out to be. Obama has...

Chicago's Trinity United tied to founder of black liberation theology WASHINGTON --Jesus is black. Merging Marxism with Christian Gospel may show the way to a better tomorrow. The white church in America is the Antichrist because it supported slavery and segregation. Those are some of the more provocative doctrines that animate the theology at the core of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Barack Obama's church.

Mr. Obama’s Philadelphia speech, in spite of its eloquent passages expressing his hope for better racial relations in America, is a mastery example of literary subterfuge, the broadening of the scenery whereby an object of inquiry becomes blurred and lost in the background, or more bluntly, the escaping of a slippery fish from a pond into a lake to hide in a wider expanse of water. His speech is essentially a sophisticated lawyerly defense of Rev Wright’s sin on the basis of self-defense. While Mr. Obama’s understanding on the root causes of America’s racial problems is quite apt, he attempts...

WASHINGTON - Even if Hillary Rodham Clinton and her aides do not mention Barack Obama's fiery-tongued spiritual mentor, don't expect the Illinois senator's well-publicized speech Tuesday to make the controversy disappear, political strategists said this week. Reporters, talk-show hosts and others will keep asking about Obama's close and long-standing relationship to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose most bombastic comments came to dominate the Democratic presidential contest recently, the strategists predicted in interviews. In video clips playing on Internet sites, Wright can be heard arguing that HIV-AIDS was a U.S. government plot to wipe out "people of color," and that God...

An interesting photo has surfaced (h/t Drudge): That's the Rev. Jeremiah Wright grippin' and grinnin' with President Bill Clinton on September 11th, 1998, at a meeting of various clerics where Clinton gave his "I have sinned" speech following the Lewinsky affair. I guess Rev. Wright didn't consider an invitation to the White House as "being treated the same way Clinton treated Lewinsky", to quote the good Reverend. The same day this photo popped up, the story leaked out that the Clintons are shopping the Rev. Wright controversy around to superdelegates in the hopes of getting them to abandon Obama While...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democrat Barack Obama suffered in the polls Thursday after a much-acclaimed speech on race that, pundits said, had failed to defuse voters' anger over rage-filled sermons by his former pastor. Waging an acrimonious battle against Hillary Clinton for the Democrats' White House nomination, Obama confessed to being bruised by the controversy surrounding his longtime Chicago preacher, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. "In some ways this controversy has actually shaken me up a little bit and gotten me back into remembering that, you know, the odds of me getting elected have always been lower than some of the other conventional...

For most white folks, indignation just doesn't wear well. Once affected or conjured up, it reminds one of a pudgy man, wearing a tie that may well have fit him when he was fifty pounds lighter, but which now cuts off somewhere above his navel and makes him look like an idiot. Indignation doesn't work for most whites, because having remained sanguine about, silent during, indeed often supportive of so much injustice over the years in this country--the theft of native land and genocide of indigenous persons, and the enslavement of Africans being only two of the best examples--we are...

Barack Obama delivered a speech on March 18th, just days after the firestorm created by the release of tapes in which his Pastor Jeremiah Wright repeatedly made the most incendiary anti-American statements. So to diffuse the issue he endeavored to deliver a speech on race relations in America. The problem with this speech was that the anger that Jeremiah Wright provoked in patriotic Americans had nothing to do with race. He filled his speech with platitudes about race relations, which while they may be true, have nothing to do with why people are angry. People were not deeply offended by...

Remember Me By Salena Zito Time punishes war. The war in Iraq is no exception; as each moment passes, public resolve, politics and passion erode its mission. Collectively, many Americans tend to remember the mistakes and politics that led us there, rather than the faces of the men and women who serve and defend us. Seven months ago, Lizzie Palmer, a young lady from Columbus, Ohio, barely over the threshold of childhood, felt compelled to do her part to remind people of those faces. The result is a stunning video that was showcased on Chris Wallace's Fox News Sunday last...

There was a time when patriotism and an outsize love of country was a given in anyone running for president of the United States. Not any more. Barack Obama and his wife have demonstrated that being black means never having to say you’re sorry about your — or your fellow blacks’ — conditional love for America. At two Wisconsin rallies last month, Michelle Obama declared, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.” For such transparent civic disdain, a white candidate’s wife would have been made to crawl over broken glass to beg forgiveness,...

THROW GRANDMA UNDER THE BUSMarch 19, 2008 Obama gave a nice speech, except for everything he said about race. He apparently believes we're not talking enough about race. This is like hearing Britney Spears say we're not talking enough about pop-tarts with substance-abuse problems. By now, the country has spent more time talking about race than John Kerry has talked about Vietnam, John McCain has talked about being a POW, John Edwards has talked about his dead son, and Al Franken has talked about his USO tours. But the "post-racial candidate" thinks we need to talk yet more about race....

There's a new entry next to Mika Brzezinski's name in the annals of MSM elitism. The Morning Joe panelist today lamented blue-collar whites who "can't hear" the message Barack Obama propounded. Poor benighted souls. Joe Scarborough called Mika on it. Brzezinski's comment came in response to Scarborough's exposition of why he didn't think Obama's speech would work with many blue-collar whites. View video here.

Obama's Speech by Thomas Sowell Wednesday, March 19, 2008 Did Senator Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia convince people that he is still a viable candidate to be President of the United States, despite the adverse reactions to statements by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright? The polls and the primaries will answer that question. The great unasked question for Senator Obama is the question that was asked about President Nixon during the Watergate scandal; What did he know and when did he know it? Although Senator Obama would now have us believe that he is shocked, shocked, at what Jeremiah Wright said,...

Will the Gospel According to Jeremiah Wright sink the Obama candidacy? Not very likely. Let's start with two basic facts: 1. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has already won the Democratic nomination. It's over. Regardless of how the remaining primaries and caucuses go, including Michigan and even Florida, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) can never catch Obama in elected delegates. His current lead of 170 pledged delegates will not be overcome no matter what happens. Even if Clinton beats him by 10 points in each of these primaries, he will still lead among elected delegates by over 100. The superdelegates will...

Bill Clinton, once hailed as America’s “first black president,” has been disavowed by a once adoring black community. Geraldine Ferraro has been accused of being a secret racist. Oprah Winfrey is labeled a feminist sell-out. The major campaigns eagerly pander to racial and socioeconomic groups, and try different combinations of divide and conquer strategies. Black Americans are for Obama, and overwhelmingly admit that it’s a vote based on race, women are for Clinton and overwhelmingly admit that it’s a vote on gender. The two campaigns eagerly fight to curry favor with Hispanics. The wealthy are targeted for income redistribution, the...

Just as Sen. Barack Obama sought to distance himself from controversial racial remarks made by his pastor, an anti-American government, anti-white and virally anti-Semitic black supremacist party has endorsed the presidential candidate on Obama's own website. "Obama will stir the 'Melting Pot' into a better 'Molten America,'" states an endorsement from the New Black Panther Party, or NBPP, which is a registered team member and blogger on Obama's "MyObama" campaign website. The NBPP is a controversial black extremist party whose leaders are notorious for their racist statements and for leading anti-white activism. Malik Zulu Shabazz, NBPP national chairman, who has...

More than half of voters are less likely to support Barack Obama for president after hearing the anti-American rants of his longtime Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a shocking poll revealed yesterday. The Rasmussen Reports survey found that Wright's controversial comments made 56 percent of voters, including 44 percent of Democrats, less inclined to vote for Obama. Two-thirds of the 1,200 people polled said they knew of Wright's statements, which have been broadcast repeatedly on media outlets over the past several days. And 73 percent of voters, including 58 percent of black voters, called Wright's comments racially divisive. In...

AFRICAN AMERICANS, INDEPENDENTS, DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS COMPLETELY AGREE, COMPLETELY DISAGREE... Looking at the reaction of a MediaCurves focus group of 709 viewers to Sen. Barack Obama's race speech in which he took on the issue of his controversial pastor, Rev. Jeremiah C. Wright, it's once again interesting to see the racial divide in how the speech was received. It's the same racial split Obama so deftly described in his speech. Blacks who took part of the survey had higher levels of agreement with Obama than non-blacks. And Democrats had more favorable impressions of the snippets of the speech they were shown...

Did Senator Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia convince people that he is still a viable candidate to be President of the United States, despite the adverse reactions to statements by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright? The polls and the primaries will answer that question.

Election '08: Rather than break ties with his demagogic, anti-American pastor, Barack Obama used a speech on race to excuse his behavior and sweep the controversy under the rug. Passing the buck is not very presidential. Speaking in Philadelphia, steps away from where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were enacted, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president delivered an address that used the words "race" or "races" 11 times, "racial" or "racially" 15 times, and "racism" or "racist" six times. But Obama's recent troubles, which this much-hyped speech was supposed to put past him, are not about...

Barack Obama—the self-anointed soul-fixing, nation-healing political Messiah—has lost his glow. That is the takeaway from the beleaguered Democratic presidential candidate’s “major” speech in Philadelphia yesterday.

Barack Obama — the self-anointed soul-fixing, nation-healing political Messiah — has lost his glow. That is the take-away from the beleaguered Democratic presidential candidate's "major" speech in Philadelphia yesterday. For all of his supposedly unique and transcendent understanding of race in America, Obama's talk amounted to the same old, same old. The Glowbama mystique has gone the way of the Emperor's clothes. Instead of accountability, we got excuses. Instead of disavowal of demagoguery, we got whacked with the moral equivalence card. Instead of rejecting the Blame America mantra of left-wing black nationalism, we got more Blame Whitey. Same old, same...

Well, we knew the liberal MSM would come out in favor of their chosen one, and they didn't disappoint: There are moments — increasingly rare in risk-abhorrent modern campaigns — when politicians are called upon to bare their fundamental beliefs. In the best of these moments, the speaker does not just salve the current political wound, but also illuminates larger, troubling issues that the nation is wrestling with. Inaugural addresses by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt come to mind, as does John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religion, with its enduring vision of the separation between church and state....

It is a major scandal that threatens to derail Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, but the mainstream media is treating it as a minor political scuffle, says Fox's Bill O'Reilly. In his talking points memo Monday night, O'Reilly played tapes of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright's (Obama's former pastor's) rants against the United States and then said that all clear-thinking Americans including Sen. Obama are appalled by what he called "those hateful words." Noting that Obama said that the picture being painted of Wright is not accurate, O'Reilly wanted to know what about it was inaccurate and...

There are moments — increasingly rare in risk-abhorrent modern campaigns — when politicians are called upon to bare their fundamental beliefs. In the best of these moments, the speaker does not just salve the current political wound, but also illuminates larger, troubling issues that the nation is wrestling with. Inaugural addresses by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt come to mind, as does John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religion, with its enduring vision of the separation between church and state. Senator Barack Obama, who has not faced such tests of character this year, faced one on Tuesday. It is...

Obama’s speech is out at Drudge and reading it I find it lacking. Maybe in person it was not so bad, but most of us won’t be listening to it or seeing it. Most of will have to simply read it. The first problem is the history lesson on this great and imperfect nation. Obama comes of sounding like he is the only one on a journey to perfect the union, to move beyond the divisions and hate: "This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of...

It was extremely unlikely that Hillary Clinton was going to overcome Barack Obama's lead in delegates, states and total votes and take the Democratic nomination, but Obama's speech this morning -- graceful, thoughtful, nuanced, sweeping, challenging, unprecedented -- pretty much wiped out any chance at all. It was a speech Hillary could never have given -- really, few U.S. politicians ever could have given. I write this not just because I think this will dampen the Rev. Wright controversy. I write this because Obama did an extraordinary job of presenting himself as the candidate of "the better angels of our...

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama in a speech Tuesday addressed the controversy surrounding his former minister, using it as an opportunity to challenge Americans to take a closer look at race relations. Speaking to supporters at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center, the Democratic presidential candidate said he rejected racially charged comments made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but he tried to explain the root of those remarks. Wright formerly preached at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where the senator from Illinois worships. Some of Wright's old sermons came under fire after an ABC News report last week,...

Obama blows away the chattering class with Philadelphia speech. Delivers historic remarks on race in address that was wide-ranging, personal, and (at times) passionate. One key topic: his relationship with the Rev. Wright. Click above to watch excerpt. Widespread praise from anchors/pundits/reporters for sweeping remarks drawing on American history and his own biracial upbringing to explain struggle of race in the country. Suggests his campaign can help unify a long-divided nation. Now: what do real people, superdelegates, and talk radio show hosts think? On racial struggles: “This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck...

Barack Obama is preparing to deliver a major address Tuesday on race, politics and unifying the country after being hounded by questions about his relationship to a pastor whose sermons have been laced with anti-American invective. In a speech whose religious significance could compare to one given in December by former GOP presidential hopeful and Mormon Mitt Romney, Obama may be forced to explain the philosophy of the 8,000-strong Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where the Democratic presidential candidate has been a congregant for 20 years. In announcing the morning address, to be delivered in Philadelphia, Obama would...

OBAMA WAS ON THE COVER OF REVEREND WRIGHT'S TRUMPET MAGAZINE (THREE TIMES) http://www.trumpetmag.com/pdf/mediakit_sept07/MediaKit2008High.pdf

The Huffington Post sends us this essay by Frank Schaeffer claiming that Republicans have acted hypocritically in scolding Barack Obama over Jeremiah Wright — because the GOP embraced him and his father. His father is “Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer”, which around here might combine up with a buck to buy a bag of donut holes. Schaeffer fils has repented of his conservativism — hence the appearance at HuffPo — and spends most of it spanking his dad: Take Dad’s words and put them in the mouth of Obama’s preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and...

Think it’ll have anything to do with the forces of division starting to raise their ugly heads? Barack Obama will give a major speech on “the larger issue of race in this campaign,” he told reporters in Monaca, PA just now.He was pressed there, as he has been at recent appearances, on statements by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.“I am going to be talking about not just Reverend Wright, but the larger issue of race in this campaign,” he said.He added that he would “talk about how some of these issues are perceived from within the black church issue for...

Video clips of Obama's former spiritual adviser's most controversial remarks

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright thinks that, given their treatment by white America, black Americans have no reason to sing "God Bless America." "The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America," he told his congregation. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human." I'm not a believer in guilt by association, or the campaign vaudeville of rival politicians insisting this or that candidate dissociate himself from remarks by some fellow he had a 30-second grip'n'greet with a decade...

I had a really good post all ready to go.  There was a video posted by the Trinity United Church of Christ, which I found on their YouTube page, of Louis Farrakhan being honored with the Jeremiah A. Wright Trumpeter award.  It's gone from YouTube.  And there was a video of disgraced Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick receiving a similar award.  It's gone from YouTube, too. But the one I'm really mad about is the one of the church's new pastor, Otis Moss III, talking about gangster rap and crack cocaine.  They pulled that one, as well.  Maybe it had something to...

Two of the three big news stories last week – those of Eliot Spitzer and Geraldine Ferraro -- are already fading into the dust heap of boneheaded but mostly harmless decisions by people in the public eye. But the third story, that of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, will not go away, much to the detriment of Barack Obama, his supporters, and those who have for years paraded the fiction that identity politics (whether of gender, race, or any other grouping) is a truly uniting force for the Democratic Party. Reverend Wright, who retired in February from his position as head of...

From the very start, Barack Obama's attempt to distance himself from the controversial sermonizing and policies of his pastor Jeremiah Wright has resembled someone trying to thread a needle. When asked at the Democratic debate in Cleveland about the racist Louis Farrakhan's endorsement of his candidacy, Obama's visage became strained, and his subsequent response to the question about whether he agreed with the views of Farrakhan, was measured, pained, judicious and less

The Early Show did its best this morning to help Barack Obama climb out of the hole he's dug for himself with his close association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In a set-up segment, CBS's Dean Reynolds rhetorically asked: "the question is whether the rhetoric is so remarkable, because in African-American churches pastors often seek to rouse their congregants to self-reliance by speaking harshly about the country's troubled racial past and the need to overcome it." Nice try, but how does accusing the US government of introducing AIDS and giving black people drugs equate to a call for self-reliance? Reynolds...

Clarification: The Obama campaign has told members of the press that Senator Obama was not in church on the day cited, July 22, because he had a speech he gave in Miami at 1:30 PM. Our writer, Jim Davis, says he attended several services at Senator Obama's church during the month of July, including July 22. The church holds services three times every Sunday at 7:30 and 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Central time. While both the early morning and evening service allowed Sen. Obama to attend the service and still give a speech in Miami, Mr. Davis stands by...

Poll: Fifty-Six Percent Say Wright Makes Them "Less Likely" To Vote For Obama By Greg Sargent - March 17, 2008, 11:55AM If the numbers in this new Rasmussen poll are an accurate reflection of the electorate's sentiments, it would seem that Obama has not sufficiently distanced himself from his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, despite an aggressive media push on his part to do just that: Most voters, 56%, said Wright’s comments made them less likely to vote for Obama. That figure includes 44% of Democrats. Just 11% of voters say they are more likely to vote for Obama because of Wright’s...

God's Judgement of White America (The Chickens Come Home to Roost) Malcolm X, edited by Imam Benjamin Karim December 4 , 1963 note - this speech was delivered before Malcolm left the Nation of Islam and accepted true Islam -- so his views in this speech do not reflect his own or those he held near the end of his life. This speech is sometimes called "The Chickens Come Home To Roost," because of an answer Malcolm X gave in response to a question following the speech. The question concerned the late President John Kennedy. It was Malcolm X's answer,...

The Early Show did its best this morning to help Barack Obama dig out of the hole he's dug for himself with his close association with Jeremiah Wright. In a set-up segment, CBS's Dean Reynolds rhetorically asked: "the question is whether the rhetoric is so remarkable, because in African-American churches pastors often seek to rouse their congregants to self-reliance by speaking harshly about the country's troubled racial past and the need to overcome it." Nice try, but how does accusing the US government of introducing AIDS and giving black people drugs equate to a call for self-reliance? Reynolds concluded by...

I recently found this long review of Obama’s first book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. It was written a year ago by Steve Sailer and its a review of a book in which much is revealed on what makes Obama tick, and why he would be so dangerous as President of our country: Why haven’t many grasped the book’s essence? First, Obama’s elegant, carefully wrought prose style makes Dreams a frustratingly slow read, which may explain why the book was remaindered in 1995, and why so few of the many who have purchased it following...

It was the liberals who spearheaded the civil rights movement. It was the progressives who preached freedom and equality, who challenged tradition, who demanded change and fair treatment. They were the ones who changed the flawed way Americans used to believe. And thanks to them, and the little bit of good within every one of us, racism in the traditional sense – laws denying blacks equal rights as whites – is dead. And yet people like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Jeremiah Wright Jr. (Barack Obama’s pastor) still seem to be thriving on their incessant and irresponsible patterns of screaming...

Seventy-three percent (73%) of voters say that Wright’s comments are racially divisive. That opinion is held by 77% of White voters and 58% of African-American voters. Most voters, 56%, said Wright’s comments made them less likely to vote for Obama. That figure includes 44% of Democrats. Just 11% of voters say they are more likely to vote for Obama because of Wright’s comments. However, among African-Americans, 29% said Wright’s comments made them more likely to support Obama. Just 18% said the opposite while 50% said Wright’s comments would have no impact. Overall, voters are evenly divided as to whether Obama...

Obama church responds in 9/11 row The church attended by US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has dismissed criticism of its senior pastor over comments he made on race and US policy. Reverend Jeremiah Wright said in 2001 that the 9/11 attacks were like "chickens coming home to roost". After the remarks resurfaced Mr Obama denounced them as "incendiary" and "completely inexcusable". But now the church says the attacks on Rev Wright have been made by "external forces" that want to "vilify us". In a statement released on Sunday, the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago compared the criticism to...