Free Republic

elf-appointed Elder, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, spoke out in Chicago this week on the Rev. Wright controversy. Desmond Tutu believes that Wright says the things that all black Americans want to say... Really? The Chicago Tribune and LGF Quick Links reported: "You are a crazy country," Tutu, 76, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, said in an interview with the Tribune. "You're a country that has I think some of the most generous people I've ever come across in the world." But he chided Americans for getting "very, very upset" with the pastor of Sen. Barack Obama,...

Otis Moss, the man slated to become the new chief pastor at Barack Obama's Chicago church, subscribes to the ideology of retiring pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and is expected to continue Wright's legacy, according to Malik Zulu Shabazz, national chairman of the New Black panther Party... Obama, however said this past weekened he will continue his membership in Trinity. He referred to Moss as "wonderful." "Well, you know, the new pastor - the young pastor, Rev. Otis Moss, is a wonderful young pastor. And as I said, I still very much value the Trinity community," Obama told the New York...

Even before Senator Barack Obama unequivocally denounced Reverend Jeremiah Wright as the loon he is, I was willing to take the senator's word for the fact that his erstwhile pastor's rantings about America, the Middle East, the September 11 attacks, Louis Farrakhan, AIDS and white people do not reflect Obama's own feelings. What pained me then, though, and still does, is the tragic subtext of Pastorgate - that the sort of rank idiocy that was spewed from the pulpit at Chicago's Trinity Church may not be unusual in churches that cater to African Americans. Senator Obama's statement, back when he...

We, the Sixth Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, representing more than 80,000 members and clergy in Georgia, express support for our clergy colleague, the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ. Rev. Wright is a renowned religious scholar, nurturing pastor and outstanding preacher. Our friend and fellow minister has been vilified in the national media for practicing the great commission to go ye preach and baptize in my name. We repudiate the irresponsible and shameful behavior of the national media for replaying and sensationalizing Rev. Wright’s words out of context simply...

We are coming up on the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Israel or, as the Trinity United Church of Christ’s friends in the Sabeel Ecuminical Liberation Theology Center put it, the Nakba or “catastrophe.” Sabeel’s denial of Israel’s right to exist is entirely consistent with a Trinity United Church of Christ bulletin–the official bulletin of the church of which Barack Hussein Obama has been a member for more than 20 years–in which Jeremiah Wright questions Israel’s legitimacy as a nation. Per “Look Again,” Most of our members do not know that my Master’s Degree from the University of Chicago’s...

"it's based in Marxism. At the core of his [Wright's] theology is really an anti-Christian understanding of God, and as part of a long history of individuals who actually advocate using violence in overthrowing those they perceive to be oppressing them, even acts of murder have been defended by followers of liberation theology. That's very, very dangerous." --- "I saw the churches in Nicaragua that he spoke of, and the churches were churches that talked about the need for violent revolution and I remember clearly one of the major churches in Managua where the Jesus Christ on the altar was...

Much hay has been made over the purported anti-American and anti-Israeli statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's church. But Judith Strasser thinks the presidential candidate is the victim of a smear-by-association campaign, as is Wright's former congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ in south Chicago. That's why Strasser is heading down to Chicago this Sunday along with other members of Shaarei Shamayim, Madison's Jewish Reconstructionist congregation, to attend 11 a.m. services at Trinity."I conceived of the trip to support a congregation that has been caught in the limelight by events beyond...

It’s always fun to switch Democrats with Republicans in the same situation and imagine what the media would be saying, but with the Obama campaign, it’s become more head-popping than a Kafka play. Imagine John McCain was discovered to have been attending the Westboro Baptist Church for 20 years, and responded by giving a speech about how Fred Phelps is a part of the American experience, a man he could no more disown than he could disown the entire white community. Imagine the majority of white Americans sitting quietly by as Phelps is declared one of their most important voices,...

HOW CAN BARACK OBAMA’S pastor of 20 years, a man of golden tongue and lofty ideals, shove his own candidate to the back of the bus? This isn’t a stupid man; this is a man who has the audacity to kill hope. He’s John McCain’s and Hillary Clinton’s dream come true. “G-d Damn America!” he infamously intoned in an old sermon that has been splattered across the airwaves, “Not God bless America. No! G-d Damn America for treating its citizens as less than human!” You could just see the veins popping out on white people’s forehead from sea to shining...

Black Liberation Theology... "Black Theology refuses to accept a god who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against the white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of the Black theology is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community..." ...I'm not sure how much of this theology that Obama is aware of and subscribes to, however I severely doubt that he is clean of this theology since he has apparently been going to this church for 20...

Doug Giles in Townhall.com makes the point that Rev. Wright has this in common with the all the so-called "Black Leaders:" when he is questioned about his more outrageous statements he doesn't back down.No, Reverend Jeremiah Wright hasn’t hoodwinked me with his fiery flapdoodle from this past week’s press briefing. Yes, I still think the guy is certifiable. Listening to Wright last Monday at the National Press Club was like listening to Charles Manson during one of his parole hearings; the guy’s frickin’ insane! He’s whacked. His worldview is a bit, let’s say . . . skewed. I put what...

Michelle Obama lifted the lid on the irritation felt by the leading Democrat candidate for the White House at the way anti-American outbursts by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, have dogged his campaign..... SNIP... Mrs Obama told a rally in Durham, North Carolina, on Friday that only her husband's desire to change US politics had helped him to control his feelings....

JERUSALEM – More pastor problems for Sen. Barack Obama? The man slated to become chief pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ has called blacks "lepers" with a "skin disease," claimed U.S. entertainment corporations operate with "disdain" for black people, and in a fiery sermon claimed retired pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright was "lynched" by the media and compared the embattled pastor to Jesus. Otis Moss III, lauded this week by Obama as a "wonderful young pastor," also recently refused to deny claims by Wright that the U.S. government was involved in distributing illegal drugs to minorities or spreading the...

May 02, 2008, 0:00 a.m. We're Not in Philly AnymoreJeremiah Wright is now disowned, and Barack Obama is forever discredited. By Charles Krauthammer “I can no more disown him (Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown my white grandmother.� — Barack Obama, Philadelphia, March 18Guess it’s time to disown Granny, if Obama’s famous Philadelphia “race� speech is to be believed. Of course, the speech was not just believed. It was hailed, celebrated, canonized as the greatest pronouncement on race in America since Lincoln at Cooper Union. A New York Times columnist said it “should be required reading in classrooms across...

On Monday April 28th, I was seated directly in front of Rev. Jeremiah Wright at the National Press Club as he recommitted himself to the very bigotry-laced anti-Americanism that his most famous long-time parishioner, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, had contended were feelings the reverend no longer possessed. Exactly one month earlier on ABC Television's “The View,” Mr. Obama argued that he wouldn't have stayed with Trinity United Church of Christ had the reverend “not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people” and was “inappropriate.”

"Here endeth the lesson." Sean Connery's memorable line in the 1987 movie "The Untouchables" followed sage advice to Kevin Costner character Elliot Ness that had nothing to do with politics or image rehabilitation. But, oh how I wish those four words had come to mind for the Rev. Jeremiah Wright last week when he concluded taping his memorable, but now forgotten, interview with PBS journalist Bill Moyers. But then we would have all missed last weekend's attention-grabbing flurry of activities. None of us would know that the good reverend could do a pretty good imitation of a drum major for...

Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) sharp denunciation of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright this week has superdelegates moving in his direction. While the reverend’s controversial remarks and his widely panned appearance at the National Press Club caused many pundits to wonder if superdelegates would be frozen into indecision, those who moved into Obama’s column this week cited the Illinois senator’s reaction as one of their reasons for backing him. Former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Joe Andrew was perhaps the biggest jewel of the week for Obama. Until Thursday, Andrew had supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). He was appointed DNC chairman...

As an Illinois state Senator, Barack Obama received more than $100,000 from a company owned by an entrepreneur whom Obama helped to obtain a state grant. Robert Blackwell Jr., a contributor to Obama’s campaigns, began paying Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer in early 2001 to provide legal advice to his technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. At the time, Obama had recently completed his unsuccessful campaign for Congress, and had numerous debts and a law practice he had neglected for a year while campaigning, the Los Angeles Times reported. Obama had been so strapped for cash that his credit card was initially...

Will Barack Obama's longtime connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright continue to hurt him? Evidence that it will comes from pollster Scott Rasmussen, who finds that only 30 percent of likely voters say Obama denounced Wright because he was outraged, while 58 percent believe he denounced him for political convenience. Only 33 percent believe Obama was surprised by Wright's statements at the National Press Club, while 52 percent say he was not surprised. Some 26 percent say it's very likely that Obama "shares some of Pastor Wright's controversial views about the United States" and 56 percent say it's somewhat likely...

Despite the recent show of strength by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the odds against_her_winning the Democratic presidential nomination are as imposing as ever—and probably worse. There was a time when one of the stronger arguments in favor of nominating Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was that he was more electable than Clinton. The thinking at the time was that Clinton was so polarizing, she could get close to winning a general election but would have difficulty getting over the top. Now, about the only plausible argument that Obama is more electable is to claim that Clinton’s backers would probably get_over...

Obama, who has attended Trinity United Church of Christ for more than 20 years, calls Wright his spiritual mentor.

Director Spike Lee has waded into the controversy surrounding Jeremiah Wright, the Chicago pastor whose provocative statements have proved a thorn in the side of Democrat frontrunner Barack Obama. Lee advises the preacher to do the right thing and keep quiet. "The more he opens his mouth, the more damage he does," he told the Guardian. For good measure, Lee hinted at a political conspiracy behind Wright's recent, contentious attempts to justify his remarks. "It looks like he's being paid to keep talking," he said. "Jeremiah Wight needs to be quiet," Lee said yesterday. "If he loves Obama he needs...

Our country is stuck in a quagmire. Unrelenting terrorism and violence mean families are held hostage in their own homes as gun-toting thugs sweep neighborhoods. The collateral damage is staggering. Twenty shootings in government-run schools have left innocent children dead. With 336 confirmed shootings in three and a half short months, we should ask for an immediate withdrawal of all law enforcement and first responders because they seem to do not much good, and there is a pervasive sense that we have lost. Perhaps America should echo the words of Barack Hussein Obama regarding Iraq. Pull our forces out –...

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 30% of the nation’s Likely Voters believe Barack Obama denounced his former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, because he was outraged. Most—58%--say he denounced the Pastor for political convenience. The survey was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday night. Obama made his statements about Wright on Tuesday. Wright held a mini-media tour last weekend capped by a press conference at the National Press Club on Monday. Only 33% of voters believe that Obama was surprised by the views Wright expressed at Monday’s press conference. Fifty-two percent (52%) say he was not surprised. Fifty-six percent...

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 30% of the nation’s Likely Voters believe Barack Obama denounced his former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, because he was outraged. Most—58%--say he denounced the Pastor for political convenience. The survey was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday night. Obama made his statements about Wright on Tuesday. Wright held a mini-media tour last weekend capped by a press conference at the National Press Club on Monday. Only 33% of voters believe that Obama was surprised by the views Wright expressed at Monday’s press conference. Fifty-two percent (52%) say he was not surprised. Fifty-six percent...

Thrown off his game by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright uproar, Barack Obama’s strongest answer to Hillary Rodham Clinton is one he won’t give: Senator, do you really want to get in a contest with me over who has more unsavory personal associations? For all the coverage about the rising heat between Clinton and Obama, this year’s nomination race still is a mild affair by historical standards — restrained by a powerful sense on both sides that there are lots of things they could say but shouldn’t. There is one theme, however, that runs through not-for-attribution conversations with both sides: Each...

In his achingly slow steps toward repudiating the repugnant words of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama has run the risk of serious political damage by leaving vague what it was that attracted him to this outspoken critic of American society. In the rational part of Wright's appearance Monday at the National Press Club, before he got to the self-justification and the denunciations of our government and the nation's values, Wright offered clues to the answer to that question. They came in the form of his succinct interpretation of the historic goals of the black church. These...

A new national poll suggests the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is a tie. Forty-six percent of registered Democratic voters questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday support Obama as their party's nominee and 45 percent back Clinton. It's a statistical tie when taking into account the poll's 4.5 percentage point sampling error on that question. "In mid-March, Obama had a 52 percent to 45 percent edge over Clinton, but his support has dropped six points while she has not gained any ground," said Keating Holland, CNN polling director. He...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "That is just terrible, absolutely dreadful," a prominent supporter of Barack Obama said Monday morning after listening to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's screed at the National Press Club. He proposed that the presidential candidate at long last must denounce his pastor, unequivocally and immediately. It took 28 hours after a tepid early reaction Monday, but Obama finally did it Tuesday afternoon. Did that solve Obama's pastor problem? Leading Democrats certainly hope so, but they are not sure. His vulnerability transcends relations with a radical preacher. If Obama is seen as not just a presidential candidate who happens...

While the Rev. Jeremiah Wright continues to play out in sound bites on cable TV and talk radio, it isn't Wright who might be president. It is Barack Obama who wants that job. Rev. Wright is consistent in his preaching that America bore some responsibility for the 9/11 attacks and in his conspiratorial lunacy about "how the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color," but Obama has been inconsistent in what he has said about issues that will have a far greater impact than the outrage produced by his former pastor....

The palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.Thomas Paine In my recent column "Pulpit Racism Leads Blacks To Destruction," I dealt with the racism coming from many black preachers. The hate-filled anti-American sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and other wolves in sheep's clothing have been exposed. Yet, there still remains an unspoken disease infecting the black church – the racism in the pews.

Washington, D.C. — Fresno, CA – In the U.S. military there is a wonderful little expression: “A good plan never survives the first contact with the enemy.” The corollary to this rule is “Expect the unexpected.” Then of course, there is the expanded version of the Boy Scout motto: “Be Prepared – For Anything.” This week has served to remind me how apt these quaint little expressions really are.My plan for this week was very simple: conduct a series of quiet interviews for print and broadcast media and a few low-key appearances in preparation for the release of my new...

Whenever a political figure lets fly with some remark that bounces badly, he or she is likely to protest that it was taken "out of context." The implication is that, if the critics would just read (or, better yet, quote) the rest of the speech, the offending utterance would be seen in a different and far less offensive light. But is that really true? The defender of the statement almost never points to anything else in the speech that actually modifies the damage done by the words in question. We are asked to assume that it is there, somewhere, but...

Northwestern rescinds honorary degree offer to Rev. Wright 21 minutes ago Northwestern University has withdrawn its offer of an honorary degree to the former pastor of Democrat Barack Obama. A university official says the school had offered the Rev. Jeremiah Wright an honorary Doctorate of Sacred Theology. But vice president for university relations Alan Cubbage now says the offer has been rescinded because of the controversy surrounding Wright. He also says the school wants "to ensure that the celebratory character of commencement not be affected." Wright is the former senior minister at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. His...

Egomania: Dictionary.com defines it as "obsessive preoccupation with the self … an intense and irresistible love for yourself and concern for your own needs." And that brings me to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. ( ... ) Among other points, Wright strongly insinuates that Obama's true motivation in disavowing him was but a political ploy and that the U.S. government played a major role in creating the HIV virus. He also plays up his ties to controversial Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan. Wright finally forced Obama to completely sever ties with the man who not only officiated at his...

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama's spiritual advisor and former pastor, holds a charter membership in the white-man-done-me-wrong, things-remain-the-same, we-feel-your-pain club. Here's the "victicrat" mindset: Kids having difficulty performing well on standardized tests? Blame "cultural bias." Get pulled over by a cop? DWB -- driving while black. A disproportionate number of blacks in prison? A racist criminal justice system that "targets" blacks for prosecution and imprisonment. Katrina? As Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., put it, "ethnic cleansing by inaction." Difficulty qualifying for a loan? Blame banks' devious plan to prevent blacks from getting "access to capital." Pay more for car insurance...

LOS ANGELES — Barack Obama is right. Enough is enough, certainly when it comes to his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. On Tuesday, the Illinois senator finally did what he should have done a month ago, which was to express outrage at Wright’s comments, make clear that he is running as the antithesis of everything Wright wrongly stands for and, in political terms, throw him overboard. But will that put an end to the controversy? Of course not. Even before Tuesday, I think you would have been hard-pressed to find too many people who honestly believed that Barack Obama, running on...

I’ll say it again - the timing on Rev Wright’s “Revenge Tour” at the National Press Club was perfectly timed to cripple Barack Obama in such a way he has no time to recover from the PR hit before the critical primary in NC. As I noted in the previous post it would be most enlightening to know when Wright’s show was booked at NPC - my bet is it was scheduled very recently - maybe around the PA primary which would be a required precursor event for a Wright blow up on TV to have any value to Clinton....

By Tim Graham | April 30, 2008 Since Time now sends out its issue on Fridays, perhaps they regret the decision to hand over a page to leftist professor Michael Eric Dyson to proclaim that Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a "war-tested patriot," unlike draft dodgers like Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton. "War-tested" is an odd word, since Wright served stateside, but "patriotism" is even weirder for a man who has alleged that America is a terrorist nation who deserved 9/11. Dyson, used to arguing for bigger thugs than Wright (gangsta-rapper Tupac Shakur) and inveighing against insufficiently radical blacks (Bill Cosby),...

Obama's in trouble because Wright brings out our biases It's not usually my style to beat a dead horse, but today I can't help myself. Barack Obama and his presidential campaign are at a crossroads, brought there in large part by his old pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But he's not at the crossroads alone. We're all pretty much right there with him, standing in various corners of the intersection, facing in different directions. Where we go from here in the next few weeks and months could determine our course as a nation for a long time forward. A lot...

I come from a religious tradition where we shout from the sanctuary and march on the picket line! Where we give God the glory and give the devil the blues! — Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Sunday night in Detroit. The black church in America has long lived between the glory and the blues, between the ecstasy of worship and the exigencies of politics. It is a place concerned with both the sacred and the profane, both a religious and a political institution. It is for that reason that an ambitious young Barack Obama first sought out Reverend Wright twenty years ago....

OUT OF 'CONTEXT' OR OUT OF HIS MIND?April 30, 2008 Whew! I'm certainly glad to hear the "snippets" from Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons "in context." In the famous B. Hussein Obama speech that sent a tingle down Chris Matthews' leg, Obama dismissed the clips of Rev. Wright being played on TV as mere "snippets." He claimed the media were highlighting Wright's "most offensive words," complaining that they had been played endlessly, as if repetition were the problem with the statement: "GOD DAMN AMERICA!" It's absolutely unheard of to repeat passages from famous speeches. In fact, I have a dream that...

At the start of his campaign, Obama ran in counterpoint to the previous candidacies of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Here was a black man running for president on issues that had nothing to do with race as he rose above the victimization rhetoric that characterizes so many speeches of African-American political figures. Now, in attacking the Rev. Wright as he did Tuesday, Obama can further define himself in contrast to Wright, just as he did earlier vis-à-vis Jackson and Sharpton. So if, as the Chinese ideogram suggests, crisis is a synthesis of danger and opportunity, the controversy surrounding Wright...

Let's not kid ourselves. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright was going to be a part of this presidential campaign through November, whether Sen. Barack Obama smacked his former pastor upside the head, or not. Now that he has taken the necessary steps to separate himself from Wright, Obama must go on his most vigorous offensive to date and make it clear that he is running for president, and not Wright. Sen. Hillary Clinton is doing all she can to make the case to undeclared Democratic superdelegates that Obama is a wounded duck because of Wright; that she has a better shot...

The Ranting Rev is back, trailing malodorous clouds of sulfurous new controversy, imperiling the Obama campaign at its very core. The Obama promise of “a more perfect union” directly contradicts the Jeremiah Wright insistence on unbridgeable racial difference and distinction. Nothing makes this pastor-protégé conflict more obvious or more significant than Wright’s crackpot theories on education and his fiery insistence that the different “brains” of black kids and white kids require totally different educational approaches. In his Detroit NAACP speech on Sunday night, Dr. Wright cited (and somewhat distorted) the controversial work of a professor at Wayne State University named...

African American ministers in Los Angeles expressed angst and concern Tuesday that a fresh round of comments by Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor was hurting the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign and skewing public understanding of the black church. In a series of nationally televised appearances over the last few days, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. has defended his controversial remarks as "prophetic theology," and said criticism of him amounted to an attack on the black church. But most black church leaders and members reached Tuesday disagreed. "This didn't have anything to do with the black church -- it was...

..... Now, I’ve already denounced the comments that had appeared in these previous sermons. As I said, I had not heard them before. And I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church. He has built a wonderful congregation. The people of Trinity are wonderful people, and what attracted me has always been their ministries reach beyond the church walls. But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS, when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow...

N.B. bold red-letter emphasis is mine. The original article's emphasis is making the case that Barack Obama is a Muslim. My emphasis is that Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ claims to have "many Muslim members." --Dajjal http://www.sonsofapesandpigs.org/2008/02/press-release-america-is-being.html Press Release: America is being fooled by Barak Hussein Obama!! [posted by] ibn Misr on February 15, 2008 We ask for your immediate attention, and viral dissemination of this news. America is being fooled by Barak Hussein Obama!! "YES, MUSLIMS ARE MEMBERS IN OUR CHURCH." "WE HAVE MANY MEMBERS IN OUR CHURCH WHO ARE MUSLIMS." I am Usama K. Dakdok,...

When Barack Obama met Rev. Jeremiah Wright in 1985, the pastor warned the young community organizer that he might want to distance himself from such a rabble-rouser. Obama didn't listen. Until now.

"Just maybe now as that dialogue begins the religious tradition that has kept hope alive for a people struggling to survive in countless hopeless situations will be understood." -- The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., April 28, 2008 The right way to respond to the controversy that has been generated with regard to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. is not to run away from the United Church of Christ pastor, to condemn him, or to try to apologize for him. Rather, it is to listen to him and to recognize that Wright's not the problem. Indeed, this former Marine who became...