Conservative's Trinity Obsession Crosses Border Into Nonsensical

Over the weekend, Townhall's Duane Patterson begun posting up church bulletins from Senator Barack Obama's former congregation at Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago. Patterson is apparently paid by the upload because much of the stuff he's discovering and breathlessly posting is not to terribly controversial, and vital only for the Trinity Church Bulletin completists.

For example: Patterson published these bulletins, in which the Church asks its members to rally around a congregate who needs a kidney transplant, sounding a call for potential donors and providing them with important information. Later, the bulletin encourages church members to be sure to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit to which they are entitled. I know! Clearly, Barack Obama's great-uncle helped liberate Buchenwald for nothing.

Also, this bulletin, congratulating young congregates on their recent graduations. Truly, these people are monsters.

Comments

[mredder4]

The continued mention of Trinity United is intended to keep the story in the public's eye until November. Yeah, the content is weak and decidely non-controversial, but what matters is that conservative voters and like-minded independents will continue to see connections between Barack Obama, Trinity United, and the raving pastor who damns America from his tax-exempt church pulpit, or did, at least, until his recent retirement. And when the ads come on, asking why it took 20 years for Barack Obama to hear any hate-speech in those sermons, people will not have forgotten about Trinity United.

Anyone thinking that this situation will have disappeared by the fall and that most Americans can forgive Obama for his involvement in that racist snakepit are obviously living in a different dimension. Do I think it's right that this will happen? No. Will it happen anyway? Yes, yes it will.

[TroubleNYC]

I expect what comes out of Sean's underdeveloped cranium. But for Colmes to just sit there? It's pathetic.

[urfree2speak]

Personally I noticed that Hannity seems to manifest a "strange" type of fascination with Sen.Obama..and then he started in on the Sen. wife...you know like a jealous thing. I personally have never seen this level of public interest of one man in another...in my life.Seriously this guy needs to be watched....his fixation with Sen.Obama is way past creepy....

[Faith101]

I think Hannity (Fox news) is obsessed with Barack Obama. Sometimes I flip to that channel to see what they are talking about. There is rarely any comprehensive news. It is just about 90% bashing Obama. What is his problem? He is blinded by rage or something. I bet he dreams about Obama. His objectivity is so muddled and so profoundly biased. He has never said anything positive about him. At least not the times that I ever tuned in. He should not be in broadcast news, no objectivity at all. As a matter of fact, since he is so blinded, I think his show should be moved back to 10 pm.

[HannibalSilver]

Faith101 makes an excellent point, although, Hannity and FOX obsession with Obama seems to be based on lack of news ethics and political cynicism, I would not be surprised if their intense emotional hatred of Democrats, dissociation from internal truth and external reality will not eventually drive them to a psychiatric ward of their nearest hospital. Some of their news bites are pure lunacy.

[XME]

YES! I have been saying this about Sean for months. It's past being about anything rational and really seems purely obsessive and hateful. I certainly can't claim with certainty that it he's scared to death of a black man being his president, but clearly he's very hateful about Obama for some reason and it's extremely disturbing and quite disgusting that FOX is basically promoting hatred.

I believe FOX really stands for F.ear O.bsessed X.enophobes!

[HannibalSilver]

XME is correct and precise. Fear is the mother of all pathologies. Racial prejudice is a highly contagious disease rooted in control, power obsession, and resistance to change we can believe in.

[3Gs]

I simply can not wait. I am absolutely frantic with excitement. My life has been reduced to a quivering mass of post-bush jelly.

That old saying, 'when you're at the bottom, there is no where to go but up' definately applies to me in the sence of national spirit.

The actions of the right wing propoganda machine prove my belief that religion is the farthest thing from spirituality. Religion is more about controlling and containing communities. Another old saying, 'the masses are asses' comes to mind. Don't know why; just popped in there. Must be getting old.

[normathumb]

One salient point in all this is how clueless The white right crowd is about other points of view regarding American history. All they know and want to know is the Parson Weems whitewash. These are the folks who will say things like "Why are they still upset? Slavery ended with the Civil War." As if slavery didn't continue with a different verbiage at least until the modern civil rights era. African Americans were not free to travel, own property, go to school or vote until relatively recently, certainly well within my lifetime. American aparthied was the law of the land until the sixties. Large scale ethnic cleansing took place in riots of white violence, (Rosedale, Tulsa, East St Louis and others) against black communities well into the twentieth century. These are the American experiances of men like Wright who still served this country with much greater distinction then Sean Hannity, the Dick Cheney or just about any of the chickenhawks who make up this current junta. A good start on the history of the lack of civil rights and the essentially unchanged condition of African Americans in post Civil War America would be Stetson Kennedy's book, "'After Appomatox'; How the South Won the War".

[booksnmore4you]

Hint-hint, the top two AM radio talkers, Limbaugh and Hannity, never completed college. They'd both probably need to look up Parson Weems before even knowing what you're talking about - if they even bothered looking it up, since it is much easier to apply an emotional label to you and talk over you.

[normathumb]

Correction; Rosewood, not Rosedale.

[booksnmore4you]

How dare they inform church members of the need of another member to have a kidney donated without first checking to see if there was a white person who could use it first.

[3Gs]

LOL, you're good.

[army193]

Republicans don't want to go there...We have a lot more of theres to bring to light if they want.

[ChiGuy]

Let the guy continue with his little campaign.
It's only helping the 0 man.

[happypup]

Pitiful!

I read somewhere that several of Robert Kennedy's children made money one summer selling buckets of sand from the public beach in Hyannisport to tourists and journalists, claiming it was 'Kennedy Sand' from the Kennedy compound. What is the members of Trinity were to offeriup all kinds of nonsensical mementos to the press? Trinity paper towels, hymnals, pencils, even toilet paper - the possibilities are limitless.

[Nommo]

Be thankful for small favors. There was a time they would have just firebombed the church, and likely have tried to do the same to some member's houses.

[Ariane]

You think they haven't gotten plenty of bomb threats? and Rev Wright, Rev.Moss and church members have gotten death threats. They have had to really tighten security.

This is a wonderful church that does so much in tutoring and mentoring kids, provides college scholarships, helps people with AIDS, homeless, drug rehab, old folks housing, prison ministry, etc. etc., it is supportive of women in the ministry and welcomes people of ALL races, and straight or gay. It has been so demonized because of a few controversial statements - and even some of those have been twisted and misinterpreted. - - and it has been misportrayed as something it definitely is not- some kind of "black separatist" cult.
I find it strange that people who do not seem to have a problem with Swedish Americans, Polish Americans, etc. having pride in their ethnic identity and heritage, and even having churches organized on ethnic lines, like the church our neighbor attends where some of the masses are in Polish and it is oriented to their Polish heritage and has connections with Catholics in Poland - - yet if African Americans take pride in their heritage or have an Afrocentric church in an overwhelmingly African American neighborhood - - oh no, that is "racist", that is "separatist".

[StillIRise]

Historically, the African American church has been under a scrutiny that no other ethnic church has experienced. During slavery, blacks were not allowed to congregate in worship unless a white man was present. As black churches began to emerge, they were often monitored to ensure that their worship conformed to the dictates of the majority race, and when there was the slightest indication that the worship threatened the status quo, the churches were shut down or burned down. Even during Martin Luther King's time, with the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, the church members often had to meet in secret.

When the attacks began on Trinity United Church of Christ and Reverend Wright, I realized that though we've made much progress, much has remained unchanged. Trinity is a church that boldly celebrates the history and heritage of African Americans, that challenges our role as Christians in our personal lives, within our families and community, our role as American citizens, and also the role of our government, past and present. Obviously, some people feel threatened by this, and once again seek to eradicate this type of "congregating" by blacks because it does not conform to THEIR standards. Witnessing the unwarranted assaults on Trinity and Reverend Wright, and now Father Pfleger, has been very offensive to the overall African American community. As Reverend Wright said, it has been an attack on the black church itself!

[gerardsnj]

Can we just check on the spelling and grammar of these articles before we rush to post them? I love the Huffington Post, but this is really sloppy.

[sedonakaren]

You have to realize that many of those writing here don't have much education. And you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, so they always say!

[kyunschooler]

I'd like to take this a step further and point out that lack of education is not necessarily the issue, and it is stereotyping to say so. I work with people who have literacy/language disabilities and fully embrace the concept of multiple intelligences. Many people experience years of "education," but never fully develop complete competency/skill in standard written English conventions for a variety of reasons. They nevertheless may be brilliant or creative in other aspects of intelligence. Or average, or whatever. But I think it behooves people to judge posts on the quality of the thinking involved, and not the surface conventions of grammar and spelling.

[GeorgeKaplan]

Trinity Church and Rev. Wright will NEVER go away. The Republicans will NOT let us forget about this issue. It will be something that Obama will have to knock down every time this comes up. It might not be fair, but he cannot let any attack go unanswered or he will end like Kerry. The Swift Boat ads in 2004 were obscene lies, but it hurt Kerry anyway.... welcome to the world of politics.

[research]

Obama gained on HRC over the course of the Write story.

It proved that Obama was a Christian to all but the terminally stupid.

To any who haven't listen to Wright's Excellent speeches, I linked to them in my profile.

[walk0nwalls]

It's called an old story. Barring a new development. Its already been spent. Kerry got his ass handed to him by swiftboating because he couldn't respond to anything worth a damn. Obama did it properly. So now it's gone.

[StillIRise]

It's not gone, but I do believe that Senator Obama will respond to it appropriately. Trinity, Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko are all that the GOP have to use against Senator Obama. If they had much more, we would have seen it when they were throwing all they had at him in their effort to destroy him before he could win the nomination. So they will swiftboat the old weapons they have used with as much ferocicity as they can muster up, but as we've all said before, they will be beating a dead horse, and as research suggested, only the "terminally stupid" will buy into it, those who want to believe the worse and those who would never vote for Senator Obama anyway, but need an excuse to justify their opposition to him.

[GeorgeKaplan]

Ok... but the General Election a bit different than a primary. Recent elections are about swing voters. I hope you are right.

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

Yes except for one thing. They've been banging on about Wright for months and it hasn't had any real affect. The are spinning their wheels on this because this is the only thing they can do.

[MarkieBee]

People are starting to realize that if Rev. Wright was white we'd have seen as much of his stupid "GD America" sermon as we have Pastor Hagee's "Nazis did God's work" sermon. There's nothing quite like an angry black man on a rant to scare up ratings for Fox News, and when that happened all the other stations couldn't let Fox have the story to themselves. The story started feeding on itself as did the media. Not even a major candidate's foreign policy lies could dislodge the wolves from the feeding frenzy. Sad, but true.

[GeorgeKaplan]

Agreed.

[indypete]

What border was there to cross... this issue was always nonsensical!

[runnerin1]

Think this article isn't so, just tune into Hannity and Combs this evening. Then, I want you to count the number of times the christian Hannity, mentions Jeremiah Wright, and now Pleger(sorry if I misspelled his name). Remember, regardless of the topic, count the number of times mentioned. Now, he will come across as being a moron, but what's more interesting is that he's doing this, to influence votes. What's scary is that a good percentage of the voters really do buy this crap, and they feel, "if Hannity says so, it must be so".

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

The ones still watching Insanitty will never vote for a Democrat anyway. Talk about preaching to the choir!

[3Gs]

I agree, and Obama's sweeping victory in November will prove that a few Repubs still have more than two functioning brain cells left after drinking the bushCo coolaid.