Free Republic

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...