Barack Obama and Pastor Wright: Far More Than Guilt by Association

RUSH: I have to go back, folks, I cannot let this end with what we did yesterday, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the spiritual advisor to Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. I have been paying attention to the news media, the Drive-Bys, the mainstream media. These people are so in the tank they ought to be embarrassed. Their job is to ferret out stuff like this and hold the candidates, whoever they are, accountable. He's getting, Obama is, a total pass. In fact, the Drive-By Media mantra on Obama's pastor now seems to be, this is guilt by association. Obama didn't say this. You can't hold him responsible for this. You can't hold Obama accountable. He didn't say any of this. Anderson Cooper last night on CNN, "This focus on Reverend Wright is just completely off track." They're all upset over at CNN and everybody's talking about this, they have to cover it, they don't want to cover it.

In the New York Times today, piece by Jodi Kantor, listen to the last paragraph: "But, despite Mr. Obama's past attempts to distance himself from the harshest language, critics continued to question whether Mr. Wright's statements reflect Mr. Obama's beliefs." How could they not? He chose the place! What is he, an innocent bystander in there? How could they not represent some of his beliefs? Chose to go there, been there 20 years, this guy baptized his kids. You know the drill. We went through all of this yesterday. When you choose a church to become part of your life, to attend it at least on Sundays, to send your children to, you're doing more than simply associating with it in some loose way. This isn't the case of an endorsement from a politically powerful pastor, some wacko pastor saying, "I endorse Obama," and this guy happens to believe the US should be bombed off the planet, it's not the same thing. Obama chose to go to this guy's church, he chose to go up there, sit in the pew, and listen to the sermons. He has this guy on his campaign staff. (interruption) I know a lot of Democrats don't go to church, Mr. Snerdley, and I'll tell you another problem.

Let's cut to the chase here. A lot of the left in this country, and you'll find a lot of the left represented in the Drive-By Media, don't find much wrong with what the pastor is saying. That's why to them it isn't a news story. Well, of course America is this horrible place. This guy represents a body of thought in this country that's found in various enclaves of the Democrat Party and in a very large enclave of the Drive-By Media, and that's why they don't want to cover it, because to them, it's not news. They knew it would hurt Obama to come out and say, "Hey, what's wrong with the guy's sermon? We agree with all this, or a lot of it." This pastor was the central force in this church, and that's why Obama chose it. It's why the pastor married them. It's why he baptized their kids. There is a story on the American Thinker blog today by C. Edmund Wright, who is not related to Pastor Wright, by the way. His theory is simply that the choice of this church by Obama was calculated so that Obama could establish his black street cred with certain elements of the American population. Now, this is just his theory.

In other words, he embraced Jeremiah Wright and the church's agenda to "get his black street cred to escape his 'white half.' Now, he's trying to divert attention away from his black street cred. And a little sober reminder here... he is doing this so he can occupy the Oval Office." We are talking about the leading candidate for the Democrat nomination for president of the United States. Now, this is Mr. C. Edmund Wright's theory, that Obama did this to establish street cred. This was 20 years ago, and did this to mitigate his white half. They chose this church because of the charismatic pastor's beliefs. If they were repulsed by his racism or his anti-Semitism or his trip to Libya with Calypso Louie, or the award given to Calypso Louie by Pastor Wright, they have never showed it. They never said a word at the time. They never said, "Oh, Pastor Wright, we're really, really unhappy here that you're heading off to Libya." No, didn't say a word about that. Now, here's the thing, too. The Obamas are very bright people. They are very, very bright people. They're highly educated people. They are politically astute people. Are we to believe that the pastor's views -- he turns out to be a well-known race-baiter and hatemonger -- were unknown to them, were foreign to them?

It would be reasonable to conclude that this pastor is one of the reasons that Michelle "My Belle" Obama harbors the views that she does. She's an angry woman running around out there. The pastor doesn't just pop off here and there, folks, like the nutty uncle in the attic that Obama is trying to portray him as. This was his usual way of talking. We have a little bit more from him today. We have some extended segments when we come back from the commercial break. And, as you will hear, this is how he thinks. This is who he is. This is what the church life largely consisted of for the Obamas, and they chose this, and this pastor, above all others. I'm telling you, the media's out there trying to say, "This is guilt by association." How many times -- I mentioned this yesterday -- how many times, of those of you who are evangelical Christians, big-time pro-lifers, have you been smeared because you happened to like Pat Robertson? You've been smeared because you happen to like Jerry Falwell? You've been smeared because you happened to go to church? This guilt by association stuff, let's turn it around and do a 180. A lot of us in this country have been proclaimed guilty, found guilty by virtue of association. Now, all of a sudden, see, it works in a different way when we're talking about liberals. You still would have a tough time finding out what party Eliot Spitzer belongs to if you're watching any of the Drive-By networks or reading any of the big papers.

RUSH: How many Republicans have had to apologize, to atone, to beg forgiveness, for daring to speak at Bob Jones University? It's quite a large number, folks. You want to talk about double standards, here? You want to talk about this whole notion of guilt by association? The double standard here is that if Obama's name were Romney, and if the pastor were preaching hate against blacks and associated with neo-Nazis rather than Khadafy, he would be disqualified for president. He would have been drummed out of this campaign many moons ago. Romney made the point yesterday. He was victimized because he was a Mormon, victimized by liberal media. Not because his religion, or his minister preached hate, or segregation, or so forth, but just because his faith was different from the faith of most others. And this guy, Jeremiah Wright, is corrupting Christianity like I can't believe. What he's preaching is not Christianity. We've got a longer version of Pastor Wright from what we played yesterday, three minutes and four seconds here.

WRIGHT: Who cares about what a poor black man has to face every day in a country and a culture controlled by rich white people? Somebody missed that. You got nervous because we got some white members here. I am still in Bible country. I am still in the text. Jesus was a poor black man who lived in a country and who lived in a culture, that was controlled by rich white people! The Romans were rich. The Romans were Italians -- which means they were European, which means they were white -- and the Romans ran everything in Jesus' country. It just came to me with -- with -- within the past few weeks, y'all, why so many folk are hatin' on Barack Obama. He doesn't fit the model! He ain't white, he ain't rich, and he ain't privileged. (cheers) Hillary fits the mold. Europeans fit the mold! Giuliani fits the mold. Rich white men fit the mold. Hillary never had a cab whiz past her and not pick her up, because her skin was the wrong color. (applause) Hillary never had to worry about being pulled over in her car as a black man driving in the wrong lane! I am sick of Negroes who just do not get it! Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home; Barack was. Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people! Hillary can never know that! Hillary ain't never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had her people defined as nonpersons. Hillary ain't had to work twice as hard just to get accepted by the rich white folk who run everything, or to get a passing grade when you know you are smarter than their C-students sitting in the White House. Ooooh, I am so glad that I got a God who knows what it is to be a poor black man in a country and a culture that is controlled by and run by rich white people! He taught me, Jesus did, how to love my enemies. Jesus taught me how to love the hell out of my enemies, and not be reduced to their level of hatred, bigotry, and small-mindedness. Hillary ain't never had her own people say she wasn't white enough! Jesus had his own people siding with the enemy! That's why I love Jesus, y'all. He never let their hatred dampen his hope. There is a name I love to hear, I love to sing. It's worth --

RUSH: All right, let's play audio sound bite number two. Let's play one more here. By the way, what you just heard was the 2007 Christmas sermon at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. This from the same sermon.

WRIGHT: Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill have been good to us? No, he ain't! Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty.

RUSH: He was riiiiiiding dirty in the White House! Rich white people! And one more. We've bleeped this out. You heard it yesterday. This is the G.d. America sound bite. This is from a 2003 sermon.

WRIGHT: 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! Not God Bless America! God (Bleep) America! (cheers) -- it's in the Bible -- for killing innocent people! (cheers) God (Bleep) America for treating her citizens as less than human! God (Bleep) America, as long as she tries to act like she is God and she is supreme!

RUSH: That's like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the spiritual advisor and chosen pastor of Barack Obama for the past 20 years. Some questions for Senator Obama after all of this. Senator Obama, surely you knew of your pastor's background. You knew what he believed. You knew what he preached. You knew he was a race-baiter and a hatemonger. Yet you not only joined his church, you remained there for 20 years; you had this pastor marry you and your wife, and you had him baptize your children. Can you explain yourself, here? Number two, Senator Obama: Do you think it's healthy for parents to let their young children listen to sermons like this where a pastor is using curse words against God, where he is preaching hatred against whites and Jews, where he's preaching hatred for his own country? Do you think that's healthy for your kids to hear? Senator Obama, if you're unaware of what your own pastor of 20 years has been preaching -- of his association with Farrakhan, of his trip to see Moammar Khadafy -- how can you be trusted to be president of the United States?

How can it be said that you are as smart as they say you are if you're going to tell us you don't know what all this guy has been saying? Senator Obama, as recently as 2006, it's reported that you contributed $22,500 to the pastor's church. By then you surely knew of his views. You knew of his trip to Libya with Farrakhan. You knew of the award he gave Farrakhan. You knew all about the hate and racism that your pastor was spewing. Why did you give a $22,500 contribution to this church rather than resign from it in protest? You give this church, Senator Obama, $22,500, and you are endorsing what goes on there, and you want it to continue. How many other contributions to the church have you made, Senator Obama, in your 20-year membership? You've said that you don't agree with "everything" the pastor said. Can you tell us what you agree with, from what he has said? You told us what you don't agree with. Please, Senator Obama, tell us what your minister says that you agree with. These are reasonable questions. The man is running for the office of president of the United States of America, and if we didn't have a Drive-By Media in the tank for the guy -- and who probably didn't think half of what this preacher says is true -- they would be asking these questions. And Senator Obama, you take offense at Geraldine Ferraro and others' little criticisms of you?

RUSH: One more audio sound bite here from Reverend Jeremiah Wright. This is from the Trinity United Church of Christ, a sermon. This is shortly after 9/11. Yeah, you probably hadn't heard this one, Rachel, but in this one, Reverend Wright says we deserve what we got. We "rich, white peeeeople" deserve to be blown up on 9/11.

WRIGHT: 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 (cheers) because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards! (cheers and applause) America's chickens are coming home...to roost.

RUSH: It's right out of the mouth of Malcolm X. It's right out of Malcolm X. Right out of Malcolm X. "America's chickenssss are coming home to roosssst." Yeah, I know. It was around the time of JFK's assassination. Now, we need to get some credit to somebody. Brian Ross is the one Drive-By reporter who's following up the story and reporting on it. Now, the Wall Street Journal had a column today by Ronald Kessler, but yesterday Brian Ross at ABC did. We've gotta give credit where credit is due. The rest of the Drive-Bys are wishing they could make this go away, because they know it is not helpful to Obama. But Brian Ross, we've had our disagreements with him in the past, but he's been in there on this one.

Also, in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review today, David Brown talked to Obama, and the headline: "Obama Addresses Pa.'s Importance, Pastor's Remarks -- Question: I don't know if you've seen it, but it's all over the wire today (from an ABC News story), a statement that your pastor (the Rev. Jeremiah Wright ...) made in a sermon in 2003 that instead of singing 'God Bless America,' black people should sing a song essentially saying 'God (Bleep) America.' Obama: I haven't seen the line. This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements. Question: What about this particular statement? Obama: Obviously, I disagree with that. Here is what happens when you just cherry-pick statements from a guy who had a 40-year career as a pastor. There are times when people say things that are just wrong. But I think it's important to judge me on what I've said in the past and what I believe." Well, that's what this is about, Senator.

Senator Obama, I'd like to ask you another question. Could you tell me, cite some things that he has said that you agree with? So far you've been saying, "I don't agree with that, I don't agree with that, but, you know, he's sort of like the crazy uncle out there, and he's retired. He's been out there 40 years. People are cherry-picking, guilt by association." Tell us something he said that you agree with. There's gotta be something. You're giving the guy $22,500 at a time. We don't know how many times, at least once. Senator Obama, this is your pastor. Senator Obama, I have another question for you. Why did you invite your pastor to do the prayer to your announcement when you were going to run for the presidency, and then the night before, and cancel it? Why did you do that? Why did you rescind the invitation to your pastor, the night before, after you had asked him to do the prayer? Look, it's not Geraldine Ferraro asking these questions. It's me. El Rushbo.

It does give us some insight into Michelle Obama's comments, though, does it not? I think it matters. She goes to the church. She's been mad for a long time, and the church has only made her madder. I'm telling you, she wasn't proud of her country until when? 'Til this presidential campaign came along and Obama tried to pass over that by saying, "What are you trying to say, that he's unpatriotic?" Well, her comments certainly reflect the views of her pastor. Her pastor's not proud of the country. Her pastor hates the country! Let me tell you something, folks. It is clear that Senator Obama is not being forthright. I'll drop the wife. I don't care about the wife. I just think there's a reason for the attitude that she has. Senator Obama is the one running. He's not being forthright at all. He's spinning now. Nobody's "cherry-picking" anything. He's spinning. This pastor's record is full of hate and race-baiting. That's who he is. That's what he preached. And the kind of responses we're getting from Obama are simply not adequate. They are not adequate.

He's running for president! The more he responds the way he is currently responding, the more questions it raises about his ability to lead the nation. He's got a 40-year career of this, is the point. He leads a double life. He's got two lives. He's got the life before he decided to run for president -- a year and a half ago, or two years -- and he's got the decades of life prior to that, and that life we're not really going to be told much about. We're supposed to look at only the last two years of Obama. But you've spent, Senator Obama, 20 years following Jeremiah Wright. See, it's Obama who's doing the cherry-picking. It isn't us. Obama is trying to carve out phrases here and there where he says he disagrees with his pastor; justifying his statements about Israel, for instance, or concocting phone contexts for the statements. He's not made a clean break from this racist hatemonger. He's got him on his campaign staff in some sort of advisor role. His association with this pastor runs very, very deep.

Let me put a fine point on it, ladies and gentlemen. This was Obama's spiritual advisor. The idea that this is guilt by association is a disgraceful, transparent attempt to dismiss racial hatred -- and I see some of these Democrat operatives on cable TV, willing to sell out their own principles and values in defense of this racism in order to propel Obama's campaign further down the road. This is what they are doing with this kind of defense, make no mistake about it: selling out their own principles and values in defense of this racism. Any pundit, any pundit who says that this is nothing more than "guilt by association," when this pastor was and is Obama's spiritual advisor and leader, is destroying their reputations. They're excusing racism. They're excusing hatred and anti-Semitism, because that's what Obama's pastor preaches. Let me suggest, ladies and gentlemen, the kind of hate that Pastor Wright was preaching and that he represents is the kind of radicalism we denounce, the kind of hijacking of religion that we denounce

I am saying that somebody who abuses his position and the Bible to preach hate and racism and anti-Semitism, is to be thoroughly denounced. He is using Christianity to promote personal views that are unconscionable, totally antithetical to Christian values and beliefs, and the idea that Obama selected this church because of this pastor, because of his message -- why else would he have chosen this church? -- is no small matter. And just because the liberal media ignore it, doesn't mean the people of this country should. Obama is asking for our votes. He's asking us to follow him. He's asking us to allow him to lead the nation. He is asking for such authority over our country and the future and the well-being of our families and society. Well, when somebody asks for that kind of power, you damn well know we are going to dig in to who the man is that we are thinking of investing that power. Alarms are going off here, and if the Drive-By Media won't do its job, that's their problem. I can handle it.

RUSH: Obama's spokesman, a guy named Bill Burton, has put out a statement. Let me read the statement to you people. I have it here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. "Senator Obama deplores divisive statements," other than those he agrees with in which he sends them $22,500 -- I'm sorry. Not part of the statement. Let me start again. "Senator Obama deplores divisive statements whether they come from his supporters, the supporters of his opponent talk radio, or anywhere else." Divisive statements in talk radio? How do you squeeze that in there? By the way, it was Senator Obama, February 16th, 2008, Founders Day gala, Democrat Party of Wisconsin, he said this.

OBAMA: Don't tell me words don't matter. I have a dream. Just words. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Just words. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Just words, just speeches.

RUSH: Words mean things. Words matter. No, no, no, except in the case of the pastor, in which case he's a crazy uncle, he's been cherry-picked, he's got a 40-year career out there, and just tries to be provocative.

Obama has been attending this church for 20 years.

His oldest child is 8.

Which means he was a member for 12 years before she was born.

After 12 years of Reverend Wright’s sermons, he chose to have his child baptized by Wright.

Sorry, there is no way possible to pretend you didn’t know what was being taught, Barack.

What people don’t realize is that this business by Wright is like the game “Dozens”. The “G_d d*mn America” statement is like when someone says to you “Your Momma has a butt as big as a Buick”, and you saying back “Your Momma’s butt is as big as a house!”. It is not really a true statement of what you think, but rather a statement on a scale of escalating one-upmanship.

The same is true of political speech. One pastor says one thing, and another community organizer tops that. Before too long, you arrive at “G_d d*mn America”. He doesn’t really mean it, but he has to top the other guy.

Genteel discussion and reasoned criticism of the government was left behind in this game a loooooooong time ago.

I hope you prayed for him. Sometimes when God wakes me up in the middle of the night, I try to pray for folks. Looks like Pastor Wright needs a lot of it.

You know something? Just thinking about your suggestion has eased my mind, which has been unquiet all day because of the words of this man. Thank you. I will take your advice.

(steely)

The Rev. Wright has an appropriate first name...Jeremiah

A Jeremiad is a long literary work, usually in prose, but sometimes in poetry, in which the author bitterly laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone of sustained invective, and always contains a prophecy of society's imminent downfall.
The word is an eponym, named after the Biblical prophet Jeremiah, and is inspired by the tone of his surviving literary works, the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I awoke in the middle of the night last night and started thinking about this Pastor Wright guy,

Yes, encountering evil does that. The same thing happened to me when I first heard the speeches of Malcom X. I could not get his words out of my head. The man had given himself over to hatred. Contempt for whites squirmed inside him, desperate for violent release. Wright apparently swallowed some of the same Kool Aid.

Obama's spiritual advisor -- !

Thank you for posting. I am unable to “listen” to Rush so enjoy being able to read the article.

My father’s parents came over from Poland, managed to work and then own two grocerystores and raise 9 children. And they all learned English right away.

They didn’t ask for everything to be printed in ‘Polish’ as the hispanics do and they didn’t ask for recompensation for what their ancestors went through as the blacks do.

Pastors, like Wright, keep reinforcing anything bad that happened to them clear back through American history. They can’t get over it inspite of all the welfare and special aid for minorities from the government.

The children sitting in that church will end up having the same views. It is an ongoing tragedy.

Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is a conduit channeling the influences of his life.

Note that he came to Jeremiah Wright at a very formative time, the age of twenty-three, and stayed with Wright for twenty-three years, half his life, the adult half, the most recent half. Barry O'Bama can't say Wright is peripheral--Wright is essential.

Barry shares with Hillary the steeping in the fellow traveling radical Saul Alinsky--drive them into despair by reinforcing how bad, how impossibly miserable their life is--then give them the radical revolution as the only way out.

Barrance of Arabia offers the seven putzes of wisdom: Marx, Alinsky, Farrahkan, Che-the-pop-cult-revolutionary-icon-on-a-t-shirt, I-clean-up-nice-like-JFK, Malcolm X, Rodney Can't-we-all-just-transcend-partisanship King, and Ron Poppell the Inventor of the Obam-A-Matic: it slices, it dices, it purees, busts the fat, and takes you up to cloud nine without the teeth grinding of Hillary's suitcase of pills.

Such a deal the German people got in 1933 with just such a Miracle Man, but the hangover, folks, the hangover. . . .

The fool is ready to sit down with Assad and Ahmadinejad in a railroad car and negotiate Peace in Our Time--

Submission, not peace, is his schtick.

Schtick it, Barry.

Submission, not peace, is his schtick.
Schtick it, Barry.

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Yeah!

Either one getting close to the WH just makes me ill.

So hard to believe McRINO is the only alternative we can have.

Oh, the insanity!!!

Barack “Milhous” Obama’s minister-friend is a hate-monger.
He HATES America, is part of the Blame-America-FIrst crowd.

So sad ...

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