Why Obama’s Pastor Matters

Monroe Rising ^

[ensignsj]

On September 16, 2001, I was driving through Chicago with my wife. We were on our way back from visiting family in Wisconsin for a week. Obviously, this vacation was more than marred by the events of 9-11. As we drove through a toll booth outside of the city, I was struck by what I saw on the electronic signs. They said simply, “God Bless America.” There was very little traffic that day, in part because of the fact that it was late on a Sunday morning, but much more because of the horrors that had occurred just days before. A Major League Baseball game I was supposed to attend the day before had been canceled. The NFL games scheduled for that week had also been canceled. It was as if the whole world had stopped. The country was shocked, and it was united. Bitter congressional rivals stood outside the Capitol Building, singing “God Bless America.” Little did I know at the time, that just a few short miles from where I sat marveling at how the country seemed to be of one mind, Rev. Jeremiah Wright was delivering this message to his congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ:

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 because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

[Always Right]

The terror that 9-11 brought has faded, but the memory is still seared in our minds.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

By the way, has Byrd ever renounced his membership and participation in the KKK?

The free pass Dems get — even when their own are guilty of association of the most evil of polar opposites and conflicting ideals — is beyond astounding.

[KeyLargo]

Notorious racist news commentator MARY MITCHELL, says that whites need to get over it.

Chicago Sun-Times

Wright caught in undeserved political glare Whites don't get it, blacks do -- and it's time to move on March 20, 2008 Mary Mitchell

"We get it. A lot of white people were offended by snippets of sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

But frankly, critics and those who are supporting a candidate other than Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination have gotten all of the mileage they can out of this debate."

"Indeed, many would consider it a great honor to be nurtured spiritually at the feet of a man like Jeremiah Wright."

"Despite all the hoopla, Wright is revered on the South Side of Chicago and is treated as a gifted theologian across the country."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/852746,CST-EDT-mitch20.article

[SE Mom]

This is what struck me as well- just reading the words, while mind-boggling, didn’t have nearly the effect as listening to Wright on the tapes.

~snip~

From the passage above, you can see that Wright found it prudent to blame America for 9-11, even as the towers smoldered and rescue workers searched for survivors among the thousands of casualties. What you don’t get from that passage is the bitter anger and hatred in this man’s voice. I think it’s Wright’s tone that will end up hurting Obama even more than his actual words. This man has clearly been spewing hatred for America and for whites for decades, and his tone and words will be echoing in the ears of many white voters in this Democratic primary and the general election if Obama is the nominee.

~snip~

[LWalk18]

Whites don’t have to “get over it”- if they perceive Obama as someone who is hostile to whites or is at least sympathetic to those who are hostile towards whites, they have every right to not vote for him. Obama doesn’t have a right to anyone’s vote, it is something that must be earned, and you need at least half of this country’s votes to win, which is a lot of whites. A racist agenda is and should be political suicide.

[mtbopfuyn]

Indeed, many would consider it a great honor to be nurtured spiritually at the feet of a man like Jeremiah Wright

Whoa! If the original article hadn't turned me off Wright, this one certain would have. Obama worshipping at Wright's feet for 20 years is bound to be influential in any state decision. No, thanks.

[driftless2]

What Obama has to do to be an honest candidate and assuage the doubts of millions of Americans is to give a speech to the American public where he thanks God for being an American and tells the rest of his followers to reject the hatred towards their country as exhibited by his pastor. What are the odds that he’ll give that kind of speech?

[IrishMike]

People are judged by the company they keep. It is hard for me to believe that Obama would title one of his books based on one of Wright’s sermons and yet be unaware of what he preaches. That Obama should protest that he only became aware of Wright’s views at the outset of his presidential campaign, and yet retain him as a national leader of his campaign’s African-American Religious Leadership Committee, descends to the depths of disingenuousness. Now that’s what I call audacity.

[driftless2]

What Mitchell is exhibiting is the fact that she knows nothing about America outside of her little, self-insulated, liberal conclave of fellow grievance-mongers and anti-Americans. She knows nothing of what makes America great.

[Twinkie]

. . and the very idea that that church gives special honors to people like Louis Farrakhan tells me all, as a person of no color, that I really need to know.

We have ALL experienced insults, slights and snubs of all sorts. If we’re women, it might be not getting asked to a dance because the elite girls in the school blackball us and the boys at school don’t want to cross the elite girls. If we’re poor women, it may have been not getting invited to join the snotty, elite girls’ “sorority” in high school simply because we didn’t live in town, or our houses and clothes weren’t considered fancy enough, or whatever it was.

Boys had their own set of slights to endure. Also, try being Jewish in pre-WWII Germany. Slavery ended a century and a half ago and the likes of this “church” villify people who know what suffering is.

Bogging down in any of these sorts of examples of “past regurgitation” is what people who are fat and content and don’t have enough to do indulge themselves in. I can guarantee if these young gang members had to live in situations where the next welfare check wasn’t in the mail, they might live in the countryside and have to depend on the next squirrel they could shoot, or the next corn crop their family could make, (like my parents did) and at least they would have enough to do and might be better for it. I remember Rush once making a comment about the big, strapping, muscular black youths who were rioting and looting during the Rodney King farce. Some “Dan Rather” type was quoted as saying, “They’re rioting in the streets because they’re HUNGRY!” Hah. Hungry for a wide screen tv to pawn because they certainly looked a lot better fed than the typical talking head looks.

Twinkie

[Girlene]

For the people in that congregation to cheer Rev. White’s words, just 5 days after 9/11, is beyond acceptable. I’d like to know where Barack and Michelle were on that Sunday, 9/16/01. They have never said. The churches were over-flowing with people that Sunday. People came together in prayer, sadness, and worship. People who normally attend church on a fairly regular basis would have especially chosen this day to attend a service. This is a Sunday where most people remember what they were doing.

[Fresh Wind]

By the way, has Byrd ever renounced his membership and participation in the KKK?

Theoretically he has, but that didn't stop him from using the term "white n****r" on Fox News in 2001. Apparently, Obama didn't have a problem with this as he raised money and campaigned for Byrd in 2006. That's the same Obama who wanted Don Imus thrown off the radio for his "racist" comment.

Obama is a hypocrite of the highest order.

[kitkat]

***What Obama has to do to be an honest candidate and assuage the doubts of millions of Americans is to give a speech to the American public where he thanks God for being an American and tells the rest of his followers to reject the hatred towards their country as exhibited by his pastor. What are the odds that he’ll give that kind of speech?***

I’ll go further than that and say that Obama would have to go so far as to say that it was white republicans who freed the blacks from slavery, and it was whites who fought for equal rights (along with the blacks) and it was whites who fought the first black president, Bill Clinton, and forced him to sign the Welfare Reform Act which put more blacks in a position to earn money. But, most of all, Obama would have to say that the Dems love to keep the blacks on welfare so that they’ll vote for Dems who claim they will give the blacks still more.

[driftless2]

"honest candidate"

I'd love to see that, but I be satisfied if Obama could just express love for the country that has made him and many other Black people wealthy and famous. I don't expect him to thank Republicans although as you stated they were the impetus for getting rid of slavery and segregation. As a Democrat he can't do that. Especially as a candidate for president. But he can thank his country. And tell others not to hate it.

[Verginius Rufus]

I remember seeing something on TV from not long after 9/11 (maybe not quite as soon as 9/16)—some event in Chicago with Jesse Jackson. It was all about JJ’s usual grievances, not a whiff of patriotism.

[Iron Munro]

Working class people are already economic slaves toiling away to support the welfare class.

Obama, with his own oily circular logic, has already made the case that whites aren't doing enough for blacks who are pissed off because whites aren't doing enough for them!

If he wins the presidency you can bet he will remedy that situation to the satisfaction of him. the Rev. Wright, and all of those black seperatist maniacs we see cheering the Rev. on in the videos.

[ridesthemiles]

Why does Obama’s pastor matter???

Show me who you hang around with, and I will show you what you are made of....

Birds of a feather flock together......

[ridesthemiles]

We get it. A lot of white people were offended by snippets of sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

But frankly, critics and those who are supporting a candidate other than Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination have gotten all of the mileage they can out of this debate.”

“Indeed, many would consider it a great honor to be nurtured spiritually at the feet of a man like Jeremiah Wright.”

“Despite all the hoopla, Wright is revered on the South Side of Chicago and is treated as a gifted theologian across the country.” “”

SNIPPETS??? SNIPPETS?? Not nearly enough of a word ....

Whoever considers it a “great honor” to be at the feet of Wright, never stands a chance for hospitality on my property.

“A gifted theologian across the country”???? I would like to see the list of people who have signed onto that kind of claptrap....

This man is America’s version of the Imam in the Iran mosque....He is dangerous and he is filled with hate.
If Obama used this guy to cover up his Muslim upbringing, he is no Presidential material for the USA. Maybe Venezuela—Not my USA. Not now— not later- never.

[brazzaville]

Good morning.
“We have ALL experienced insults, slights and snubs of all sorts.”

How about being a soldier passing through San Francisco in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s?

It's going to be an interesting summer.

Michael Frazier