And again, you lie.  He was NOT there for that sermon, that lie was already debunked.

Furthermore, Wright never "excused" 9/11, so that is another lie.  He rationalized it, poorly, but never excused that atrocity.  Explaining historical events is not excusing them; Wright's explanation may be bogus, but it was never meant as an excuse.

So here's a question for you: what about the rest of what Wright preached?  Do you think that God blessed America for instituting slavery, jim crow, segregation, etc.?

In context you learn that he was quoting someone else.  But hey, you run with a GOP talking point (and GOP intellectual curiosity) all that you want.

Whoops...I missed your subject line.  That changes what you mean.

No, I agree with you on the "riding dirty" line.  I thought that was the most offensive part of all of the clips.  

I'm not saying Wright has clean hands.  I just hate that people are getting rec'd diaries repeating talking points that are demonstrably false.  i.e. "Obama sat under someone who excused 9/11"  That is completely not true.  

Yes. "Context" is so tiresome when we want bumper-sticker discourse.

Because it matters very little.  Do you honestly think Obama is a secret black supremecist, anti-American.  What exactly do you think this implies about Obama?  Maybe that he has bad political judgement...maybe.  But, honestly, isn't this just about an underlying fear of Obama for a variety of incredulous reasons?  Even if you don't have those fears, you at best seem to be exploiting the existence of those fears in others.  Or am I missing some other meaning of this Wright flap?

But wait!!! Didn't you listen to his pastor in context? (snark)

Bob,

That post wasn't in the least bit honest. Obama never said those statements were ok.  He unambiguosly condemned those statements.

I really can't believe you just posted that utter bullshit.

"Frankly, calling Barack out on his bullchips is probably one of the most rational and agreeable things I have ever heard the Reverend say."

Your entire post was so well said, bravo to you!

When BO likes to talk about changing the dialogue in national politics for the better, along with nice things on the international front like meeting with terrorist dictators without preconditions, I guess he didn't realize that people can do mean things, no matter how nice you are to them.

That's why we have armies, and guns, to defend ourselves against meanies who don't act nice, and aren't sensitive to us, and try to kill us no matter how nice we are to them.

Golly gee whiz, some people just aren't fair! Reverend Wright just isn't fair, after Barack was so nice and didn't throw him under the bus. Basic poor political judgement on Barack's part.

That's why older people who have seen life first hand support Clinton, not Obama. We think she gets it.

I gave you a rec'd just for the last sentence.

What was it about his own judgement that Obama claimed was far superior to others?

Remember? Judgement Matters.  It's actually an Obama campaign slogan.

He has to distance himself, and yes it is because of politics. But anyone who considers this rationally understands why he did not leave the church even if he knew that some of his views were controversial. Politics is not the reason Obama attented church, and listening to people who you disagree with is never a bad thing.

Since when does going to church mean you agree or even tolerate what your pastor says?

He didn't hear it himself, stop pushing BS.

and all those videos were for sale well into March of this year.

Obama never agreed with Wright's racial analysis of America, from the very beginning of their relationship, as his first book makes clear. Excuse me while I quote at length from a New Yorker article:

"The first time that Barack Obama met the Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., at Trinity United Church of Christ, on the South Side of Chicago, in the late nineteen-eighties, the young community organizer tried to make a point about the growing importance of class division in America. As Obama described the exchange in his autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," Wright wasn't having any of it: "These miseducated brothers, like that sociologist at the University of Chicago, talking about `the declining significance of race.' Now, what country is he living in?" The deluded black scholar in question was William Julius Wilson, whose 1978 book of that title analyzed the economic forces affecting black Americans and advocated universal remedies over race-specific ones. Wright, a proponent of black liberation theology, dismissed every remark about class from Obama with a categorical racial answer, and Obama allowed the topic to drop. As we all now know, he also joined Wright's church.

That conversation haunts Obama's campaign for the Presidency, in more ways than one. Their first encounter apparently set the pattern between pastor and parishioner whenever politics came up in church. As Obama suggested in Philadelphia on March 18th, when he delivered an intimate lecture on the politics of race, he deferred to the authority of the older man's experience--to Wright's "memories of humiliation and doubt and fear . . . the anger and the bitterness of those years"--even though Obama shared neither the extent of the experience nor the harsh views that derived from it."

Obama was attracted to the spirituality, the thriving community and activism of the church, not the racial politics. Here is Obama, on March 14th, when the endless youtube clips began looping:

"And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.

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. 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.

Let me repeat what I've said earlier. All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn. They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country."

The disagreements have been there all along, as has the tension between Obama's attraction to the man as a spiritual mentor and his clear and immediate rejection of his racial politics. This may well have been politically naive--in Dreams, Obama says he was mostly concerned about Trinity's being "too upwardly mobile" when he joined--but it can also be intellectually honest.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/20 08/03/31/080331taco_talk_packer
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barack-oba ma/on-my-faith-and-my-church_b_91623.htm l

Don't simplify this --- Wright is not a "preacher of hate."  He FOUGHT hate his whole life.

I love how anger from the black community becomes wholly representative of that community, and anger at racist U.S. policies is dismissed and diminished.

So you're saying that Wright preached hate for 20 years?  Give me an example, 'cause I haven't seen one yet.

I actually listen to Obama's statement today... I felt sorry for him, he just doesn't know what to do.

And he wants to be the President ...

But did Obama's poor judgement get 4000 American soldiers killed?
This is such a nonsense issue. Did Wright kill anyone? Did he molest any children? Did he steal money? Was he caught with a prostitute? NO. So what's the big deal? What Wright says only offends ignorant white voters and hillary supporters. And Hillary already has the ignorant vote all wraped up, so what's the problem?
Answer their isn't one. You all just want to hate on someone an d your target is Obama.

Stop the Hate, OBAMA 08'

than him.

That wouldn't, even if correct, make the original diary statement factually correct.