Posted on 03/18/2008 4:54:14 AM PDT by SJackson
The Audacity of Hate
By the Editors
‘The audacity of hope” just got less hopeful. Senator Barack Obama is facing questions about his closest spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, from whom he cribbed the title of his second book and rallying cry of his presidential campaign.
The controversy has forced Obama to schedule a speech in Philadelphia today where he will address race and the campaign. Over the weekend, he lamented how “the forces of division have started to raise their ugly heads again,” although nothing has been as ugly or divisive as what Rev. Wright has said.
In recent days, we have seen videos of Wright, Obama’s longtime pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, preaching a vile anti-Americanism from the pulpit. “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America,’” Wright told his congregation in 2003. “No, no, no — God damn America. That’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”
On September 16, 2001, just five days after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Wright told his congregation, “We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. . . . We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” Wright referred to America — “white America” — as “the U.S. of KKK A.”
In a sermon this January, Obama’s pastor criticized Hillary Clinton and disparaged the idea that black voters should support her. “Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us. No he ain’t! Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was ridin’ dirty.”
Obama dismissed previously reported incendiary comments by his pastor by likening him to an uncle who says disagreeable things. But you don’t chose your obnoxious uncles, and you certainly don’t put them on advisory committees of your campaign (Wright is now off Obama’s African-American Religious Leadership Committee).
In the face of video evidence of Wright’s angry rantings, Obama has attempted to distance himself from his choice of mentors by repudiating his pastor’s “inflammatory” and “appalling” remarks. “The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation,” Obama said in a statement Friday night. “When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.”
But that left the question unanswered: Even if Obama heard none of the specific statements at issue, is he telling us he went to that church for 20 years and is only now aware of Rev. Wright’s venomous views? The enthusiastic reaction of his fellow congregants apparent on the videos contradicts Obama’s incredible claim that Wright’s anti-American, racist rantings are an anomaly. Perhaps Michelle Obama was more attentive during their pastor’s sermons. There is an echo of them in her complaints that America is “downright mean,” and her comment that she has been proud of her country as an adult only since her husband began to have political success.
In his statement, Obama explained, “And while Rev. Wright’s statements have pained and angered me, I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in; on my values, judgment, and experience to be President of the United States.” The problem for Obama is that the length and depth of his relationship with the Rev. Wright and his unconvincing attempts to distance himself from his mentor tell Americans far more about his values and judgment than his compelling campaign speeches about racial harmony do.
The Hillary Clinton campaign is loath to raise the Rev. Wright issue and John McCain even apologized after his campaign staff e-mailed around an oped about Rev. Wright’s ravings. But Obama’s association with the pastor is a legitimate issue that — if Obama is the Democratic nominee — will get, and deserve, even more scrutiny in the general election. Super-delegates beware.
Perfect title. It ought to win an award.
Related question. I’ve read often that Oprah used to belong there, and quietly left the church, probably because of Wright’s comments. Anyone know about when that occured. Possibly after 9/11..so even if she wasn’t in attendance, she obviously heard about it, thus belying Obama’s silly claim.
Thomas Sowell, check.
chirp.
chirp.
chirp.
I have just read an article called "Remote Viewing for Dummies" and have remote viewed Senator Obama's answer to his critics. I have composed a little poem to summarize his speech.
Free speech for me
but not for thee,
for you my contempt and contumely.
Shut up! don't force me
to against you use calumny.
I am a minority
and you're not, it's PC!
If Oprah left the church, quietly or not, it shows she has more sense than Barack. Think about that for a minute. (Yes, I know her empire is worth billions—he’s still aspiring to one).
There is absolutely no way that he doesn't share those same views. No one would expose their children to such hate unless it was shared.
http://blithespirit.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/oprah-bailed-out-of-obamas-church/The plot thickens in the matter of Oprah Winfrey’s belonging to or attending Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th St. in Chicago, as mentioned in various places, including in a Chi Trib piece in January 2007:
At least one member of Rev. Wright’s church apparently had her fill of [his] rhetoric. Oprah Winfrey, a staunch backer of Mr. Obama, began attending the church in 1984. But sometime in the mid-1990s, Christianity Today reports the superstar abruptly stopped going.
That’s John Fund in the subscription-only Political Diary of the Wall St. Journal. He’s referring to Christianity Today’s 4/1/02 piece, “The Religion of O,” which quotes a Black Collegian magazine column in which Wright shows himself irked by Winfrey’s departure and indulges in some unseemly backbiting:
Wright mentioned Oprah as an example of African Americans who forget their roots in the church after finding success. “A lot of us do not even like the word faith anymore,” he wrote [in the column]. “We prefer the more chic-sounding word, spirituality! We are caught up in an Oprah-generated mentality and a 12-step vocabulary that prevents us from using the very words and the very bridge that ‘brought us over!’ “
He makes her out to be a cheapskate in his comments to the CT writer:
“I think it is hard for most very wealthy people to be a part of the church,” he says. “Somebody who makes $100 a week has no problem tithing. But start making $35 million a year, and you’ll want to renegotiate the contract. You don’t want to be a part of ‘organized religion’ at that point. That’s a generalized statement, but that’s what I’ve found across the years. The wealthier somebody gets, the more they pull away from the church.”
In any case, she had not attended the church for eight years, Wright said in 2002, presenting her as a backslider:
“She has broken with the [traditional faith],” he says. “She now has this sort of ‘God is everywhere, God is in me, I don’t need to go to church, I don’t need to be a part of a body of believers, I can meditate, I can do positive thinking’ spirituality. It’s a strange gospel. It has nothing to do with the church Jesus Christ founded.”
Fund speculates that she wanted “to distance herself from [Wright’s] fiery speech” and notes that Obama “took a different path,” remaining in the church.
Interesting. I wonder if Oprah ever joined another congregation. Pastor Wright rails against her and talks about the tithing of poorer people as opposed to Oprah. So, I think his irritation is the loss of having a billionaire leave his church - resulting in a loss of lots of mega bucks. I doubt he is really worried about Oprah’s soul.
What a contrast between other preachers and this little people hater who claims to be a Christian. Most Christian clergymen do not give a rip about anyone’s skin color, just their souls.
I have often wondered why the blacks persist in being segregated on Sunday. Now I understand it. They have been fed a gospel of bitterness and hate, which explains a lot about all the pathologies their communities face. Nothing is ever their fault. Every one is out to get them. So, with that indoctrination they can never look internally to themselves to uplift their lives and and improve their behaviors.
Remember how Bill Cosby was berated when he tried to tell the blacks that they needed to reform their behaviors? He was exoriated.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Oprah is clearly into the New Age realm of “spirituality” today. However, after knowing about the content of the so-called “gospel” she would have been receiving at Wright’s church, I almost can’t fault her. I just wish she would have searched for a real Christian church that actually preached the real Gospel instead of a gospel of hate and black supremacy.
They are also reaping what they have been sowing
black Americans and the far left believe every word that Wright is preaching.
Just go look at the comments on YouTube.
Geez... let me amend that.
A majority of Democrat voting black Americans and the far left believe every word that Wright is preaching.
For Obama to claim cluelessness is utter Barbra Streisand.
The emphasis on Wright is somewhat misplaced. He is obviously a black separatist racist. However, the church with or without him is clearly a bastion of black separatism and Marxism. The principles of the church are black separatism and Marxism.
Obama is similar to many rat black politicians. When running for an office in which blacks are not dominate, they play the racial healer role. In the black community, they are angry racial separatists blaming the man for all ills of the black community. An authentic black must be an angry black separatist in the eyes of the dominant black community.
bump for read after Obama’s speech!
He should leave this church. No one should vote for him unless he leaves this church. Where is the media hammer on this?
This just keeps getting better and better. I can't wait until some enterprising young reporter or reporterett corners Oprah and wrestles her to the ground to answer some pointed and oh so uncomfortable questions about the Wright Reverend and her attendance at some of these little hate fests. I can't seem to get this silly grin off my face today. I really need to stock up on the popcorn on the way home tonight.
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