“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
The story of Barack Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, hit the MSM over the last few days. But it is a story that has been simmering for quite some time. A quick Google search reveals a Rolling Stone story from over a year ago,with quotes from Wright that I’ve never heard in a pulpit. Obama, no doubt realizing that Wright might be a problem, disinvited him from his presidential announcement. Yet until the stuff hit the fan, Wright remained a part of the campaign, his testimonial only having recently been removed from the candidate’s website.
In January 2007, Obama had this to say:
Obama says that rather than advising him on strategy, Wright helps keep his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated.
“What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice,” Obama said. “He’s much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I’m not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that’s involved in national politics.”
This is what Obama had to say in his HuffPo blog last week:
I first joined Trinity United Church of Christ nearly twenty years ago.
[…]
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.
I’m having a bit of trouble with Obama’s statements here. The only plausible explanations I can come up with for not hearing these kinds of statements is that he didn’t go to church very often or he wasn’t very close to the pastor. Neither of those things makes much sense. After all, this is the church he was married in. This is the church that his children were baptized in. And this is the church that he has donated a lot of money to.
For Obama to say that he’s never heard these things strains credibility. And at least one Obama supporter agrees with me.
Unlike Donna Brazile, who said on Sunday’s TV show that she attends a mostly white Catholic church (and, therefore, should have kept her mouth shut instead of adding fuel to the fire), I’ve attended mostly black churches as well as mostly white churches. I can say without hesitation that I’ve heard black pastors say things that would make white people uncomfortable. Heck, I’ve heard black pastors say things that make me uncomfortable. (As a matter of fact, the pastor at the church that I grew up in, the one that I was baptized in, the one that my father was ordained in, said something that has kept me away for a number of years.) But the language of Wright? Never.
I’m not buying that Wright only said these things when Obama was absent. The very things that Obama says attracted him to this church and its pastor -“a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day” – belie that. Obama’s statement was an attempt to mitigate the damage, just as his disinvitation was. What Obama has demonstrated that he’s just another politician, willing to do and say whatever is necessary to get elected.
Or, as MLK Jr., said, he’s just dangerous.
UPDATE: See this article on Obama’s church. h/t: Below the Beltway
UPDATE2: The dates mentioned in that article are wrong. See here.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
My mistake — I meant to include this as the second link above, instead of repeating myself. My apologies.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/16/144034/998/1007/478018
Um, just where is HRC saying anything about this? (And, BTW, that Kos story references the HuffPo story.)
HRC is wisely letting Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity do her dirty work for her.
And they are doing it with relish. The smart thing, from their Republican point of view, would have been to wait until Obama had defeated HRC, and then dropped this on him in the General Election run, but they just couldn’t wait.
All things considered, this is a good year to be a Libertarian. There is no way the coming train wreck is going to be our fault.
Um…yeah, sure, “good year to be a Libertarian”. You might manage to get a whole percentage point in the election this year as opposed to the 0.32% the Libertarian candidate managed to get in 2004.
Or are you going to get the other crazy uncle (Ron Paul) to run and you might manage to get 2.5% of the vote?
The Clinton campaign is staying quiet on this.
Viv, not so fast. It might’ve been smart NOT to wait until the fall for this. I’d bet a shiny new nickel GOP higher-ups want HRC, if not for McCain, but for many down-ticket races. If anything, they might’ve waited too long.
oops, I meant Don, not Viv. Sorry.
Vivian,
Can you name one black pastor in Norfolk that openly welcomed gays and lesbians into the church in the 70’s. Anybody who really believes that a “black racist” has a logical reason for joining a white denomination, the United Church of Christ, to be a black separatist is either crazy or stupid or both. It is a lie. Wright has said nothing I haven’t heard before or will hear again in a black church. This is what Al Gore calls, “a convenient truth.” Who benefits.
As I tried to say above, Wright is an disciplined non-conformist when it comes to inclusion and openness. He practices what he preaches and what the United Church of Christ teaches.
While you’re pondering that, what is Hillary’s Methodist Church’s position regarding gay clergy and gay unions and who should she be denouncing?
Finally, thanks for your friendship and encouragement. They are greatly appreciated.
sb – I’ll repeat what I said above: I’ve never heard a black pastor use the kind of language that Wright used. And I’ve been to a lot of churches in my lifetime.
Whether Wright is a good man is not the issue. I can’t imagine my father saying God damn America.
Regardless – that’s not my point. My point is simple: Obama is either lying about how often he went to church or lying about not having heard Wright say similar things. Either way, he’s lying. And that speaks to his character.
Who do you think made sure the MSM got the tape last week — just hours after Ferraro stepped down? And if you’re going to disqualify candidates because they told a lie (which we don’t know for sure YET in this case) then there will be no one’s name on the ballot next fall — including HRC. In her case, she lets those lackeys around her (Wolfson, Penn, McAuliffe, etc) do it for her. I could accept the indignation here if HRC’s hands were clean, but there has been a stench from her campaign from Day One. I’m about ready to throw in the towel on the whole works. NONE of them are talking about anything important or of substance — just busy playing “gotcha.” Start practicing saying: “President McCain.”
Vivian,
You understand perfectly well the context of that statement. It was a statement of condemning American hypocrisy. Whether your father, a man who was a full generation older than Wright, would have said what Wright did is irrelevant. To step up and say that Obama is “lying” is a big leap. You still haven’t answered my question about any black minister that openly accepted gays and lesbians as members of his church in the 70’s, nor have you acknowledged Wright’s AIDS ministry and ministry for gay and lesbian singles. Too many black pastors are stuck in the 19th century, Wright isn’t and Obama is being attacked for being a member of Afrocentric, integrated, and gay-friendly church. It’s amazing. In contrast, the nonsensical and distorted contortions Hillary Clinton’s Methodist Church has gone to deny gay clergy and gay parishioners the blessings of the church remains unremarked upon.
Prove it. The MSM has ignored this story for over a year. Had they not been so eager to paint Obama as the second coming the public would have had this information long ago. Instead they chose to drag up anything -real or perceived – negative about Hillary. And way too many bought it – hook, line, and sinker.
Now that the vetting process has started folks are discovering they may have bought a pig in a poke. And that stench you’re smelling? It’s not from the Hillary campaign.
Besides, you seem to think that my indignation somehow comes from the Hillary campaign. It does not. I speak only for myself.
sb – no I do not understand that perfectly well. I’ve never heard a preacher say God damn America until Wright said it.
And it is no leap to say Obama is lying – because he is. Your question about gays is more irrelevant to the topic at hand – that’s, whether Obama is lying – than my comment about my father. Obama is not being attacked for belonging to that church. He is being attacked for lying about it.
Vivian,
So there is something wrong with belonging to an integrated, afrocentric, gay-friendly, progressive church that has been a positive force in the community since its founding? Really? Enlighten me. To be honest with you, unless it was a Unitarian Chuch or an MCC, I have never read, seen, or heard about a single mainstream African American Church that specifically had a life affirming ministry for gays and lesbians, not to mention one that had one before the 90’s.
But on the strength of misinformation planted by Fox News, Sean Hannity, and somebody’s sophisticated opposition research, I am supposed to castigate the bi-racial Barack Obama, his family of many colors, his 8,000 member church that neither of us has never stepped foot in and his Pastor as being “hateful.”
I can’t do that, hon. Neither should you.
I defy you to name one gay-friendly, mainstream protestant African American congregation you’ve ever stepped foot in where you’ve experienced hatred.
You can’t because there is no such thing.
And that has what to do with whether Obama lied?
Are you denying that Obama claims both to have attended this church and to never have heard Wright make comments like God damn America?
Obama can go to church where ever he wants. But lying about doing so tells me a whole lot about his character.