Posted on 04/04/2008 6:01:04 AM PDT by stan_sipple
Bob Edgar is a man of many hats.
A pastor at 19, a member of Congress at 31.
Edgar represented a Pennsylvania district in the House for six terms, served as general secretary of the National Council of Churches from 2000 to 2007, became president of Common Cause last May.
No wonder the interview over coffee at The Mill on Wednesday moved so freely from the dominance of money in politics to the war in Iraq to Pastor Jeremiah Wright.
Let’s start where the conversation ended, with the retiring pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Sen. Barack Obama’s church.
“I understand Pastor Wright better than most,” Edgar said. “I have spent a lot of time in the historic black church. I know its rhetorical voice.”
That voice, he said, speaks in the context of racism, poverty and slavery.
The incendiary statements of Wright that ignited a firestorm in the Democratic presidential campaign when they raced on videos across YouTube and TV screens came out of that voice, Edgar said.
“If you listen to the whole of the text, you’re less offended,” he said.
“I would not have used those words, but I understand that voice.”
Martin Luther King Jr. also used that voice and sometimes “made people angry,” Edgar said, particularly when his remarks were taken out of context.
Wright’s words were “far less radical than Pat Robertson saying we should assassinate the president of Venezuela,” Edgar said.
“A lot of the religious right has said far more offensive things.”
As Common Cause president and CEO, Edgar is pushing for public financing of political campaigns to diminish the power and influence of special interests.
Fundamental reforms in health care and energy will not occur if pharmaceutical companies, medical lobbies, coal companies and the oil industry continue to call the shots, he said.
“We’ve allowed money to get out of hand,” he said.
“Washington follows,” Edgar said. “It doesn’t lead very well.”
And so the people, who already have demonstrated through their votes this year that they want change, must act, he said.
“We are the leaders we have been waiting for.”
Common Cause also is pushing for improved voting machine accuracy and security through the use of paper ballots or paper records that would be subject to audits.
Obama’s reliance on 1 million individual campaign donors, rather than special interest funding, is “a good thing,” Edgar said.
“But a better thing would be a public financing system.”
Common Cause believes all three major presidential contenders, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. John McCain and Obama, would be supportive of meaningful campaign finance reform, Edgar said.
Edgar also has some ideas of his own.
Reform the presidential primary system, reduce the campaign to 12-to-15 months, make election day a holiday.
Register every American to vote at birth. Then they’re ready to vote when they become eligible at 18.
The war in Iraq is “creating more terrorists,” Edgar said.
“Take away the fertile ground for terrorism” by helping people climb out of poverty, he said, and open opportunities for them through educational assistance.
“And model democracy ourselves,” he said, “instead of tarnishing our image internationally” with violations of civil liberties in the name of battling terrorism.
I guess Poland France Czechoslovakia Holland Belgium and Austria just didnt understand Hitler’s voice.(/sarc)
Would that be the Dietrich who tried to kill Hitler?
(In my best Sam Kinison voice) You’re right. Why should we be xooncerned aith Reverend Wright? IT’S BECAUSE HE’S A F-—ING RACIST!
So I guess “ridin dirty” is a new Biblical description of corruption ?
When all else fails, they change the subject.
yes i was being sarcastic
I am amazed at the lengths they will go to make a wrong (W)right.
vaudine
Like, the Jihad is justified because of the Crusades. (Even though the Crusades were a defensive response to the Muslim hoards and the barbarity they imposed on conquered peoples).
The irony is that there is a slight admission that Wright is a kook but that he can think of other kooks who have said kookier things.
"I know I was speeding, Officer, but our neighbor, Larry, who lives down the street, drives much faster on this road...And he's a conservative Republican!"
Another difference is that Robertson, like Falwell and others like them, are considered a kook fringe in the popular culture, are they not? They are always scorned and derided, sometimes for good reason but other times not. Wright and his ilk will never be held accountable for the damage they do to this nation. Maybe South Park would have the nerve to take on Mr Wright (I refuse to call him reverend since he is not reverent, IMO.) But have Leno, the Daily Show, or others like that ever laid a glove on him? I rarely watch so I cannot know for sure but I’m sure if that happened we would read about it here on FR.
I think Edgar’s got a tough sell here. Not only is Wright an offensive, foul mouthed anit-semite/white bigot, he’s also a loon. His claims of AIDS being engineered by whitey and drugs being pumped into the hood by the gubmint earn this guy all-star status. He could have kept his mouth shut, but the fact that he and Calypso Louie are two peas in a pod indicate to anyone with a single functioning brain cell he’s not remotely Christian. But we’ll continue to hear what a world-class theologian and scholar he is from folks who have never opened a Bible and stridently oppose every aspect of a Judeo/Christian worldview.
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