Reverend Wright and Barack

I am a Barack Obama supporter. I liked Senator John Edwards, think Hilary Clinton would make a super president, but have been persuaded ever since the start of the campaign that Barack offers the greatest chance for substantive, and greatly over needed, change.

I'm still in the Barack camp. But, as a vocal supporter, I'd like just a couple of answers about the flap over Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr, the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, the Chicago megachurch where the Obamas have been members for 20 years.

Guilt by association is totally unwarranted. Barack is not responsible for Wright's views. However, how he responds to those views -- and whether he is being straight with us, the voters -- is critical as to whether he should lead our country.

The key issue for me, as both a supporter and as a reporter, revolves around what I view as Wright's most incendiary comments, those implying that America -- because of its own actions -- deserved the 9/11 terror attacks.

Wright made his comments on September 16, only 5 days after the deadly strikes in New York and Washington. He said, in part, "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."

Barack was then serving in the Illinois senate. He had unsuccessfully run for Congress the previous year. Although the Trinity United Church is large (6,000 members), the Obamas were then, and have been since his 1997 election to the State Senate, some of the best known parishioners.

A church, synagogue, mosque, and other places of worship, are like extensions of the local communities they serve. Afro-centric churches like Trinity serve not only as houses of worship but as a backdrop for a wide range of social, personal, and often business, relationships. When a parishioner is away from their house of worship, if the preacher/priest/rabbi/imam says something particularly out of character -- or wildly controversial -- it is almost impossible that members aren't going to talk about it endlessly as gossip.

There was no more traumatic event in our recent history than 9/11. Reverend Wright's comments would have raised a ruckus at most places in America, coming so soon after the the attack itself. Political commentator Bill Maher lost his TV show when he seconded a guest's observation that the hijackers had courage to carry out their attack. The country was emotionally raw.

If the parishioners of Trinity United Church were not buzzing about Reverend Wright's post 9/11 comments, then it could only seem to be because those comments were not out of character with what he preached from the pulpit many times before. In that case, I have to wonder if it is really possible for the Obamas to have been parishioners there -- by 9/11 they were there more than a decade -- and not to have known very clearly how radical Wright's views were. If, on the other hand, parishioners were shocked by Wright's vitriol only days after more than 3,000 Americans had been killed by terrorists, they would have talked about it incessantly. Barack -- a sitting Illinois State Senator -- would have been one of the first to hear about it.

Can't you imagine the call or conversation? "Barack, you aren't going to believe what Revered Wright said yesterday at the church. You should be ready with a comment if someone from the press calls you up."

But Barack now claims he never heard about any of this until after he began his run for the presidency, in February, 20007.

And even if Barack is correct -- and I desperately want to believe him -- then it still does not explain why, when he learned in 2007 of Wright's fringe comments about 9/11 and other subjects, the campaign did not then disassociate itself from the Reverend. Wright was not removed from the campaign's Spiritual Advisory Committee until two days ago, and it appears likely that nothing would have been done had this story not broken nationally.

Come on, Barack. I'm backing you because you are not 'one of them.' You have inspired me and millions of others because you are not a typical politician. You tell it like it is, don't fudge the facts, and don't dodge and weave with clever words to avoid uncomfortable truths.

Tell it straight. Was Reverend Wright so radical that his post 9/11 comments did not cause a stir at the Church, and you never learned about them until 2007, nearly 6 years later? Why, when you did learn about them, did you not ask Revered Wright to step down from his role in your campaign?

Give us the plain truth. You won't lose us by being brutally honest. You only risk shaking our faith in you if you seem like so many other politicians that crowd the field.

Gerald Posner is the author of 10 books of investigative non-fiction, seven NYT bestsellers, and a finalist for the Pulitzer in History. His last book was Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi US Connection

Comments

[cae]

Yes, Sen. Obama appears to be shocked--s­hocked!--t­o hear that these are Rev. Wright's views.

[DietrichMoody]

I don't know how much Church you attend, or have attended in your life, but Christians generally go because they worship Jesus. They don't cast stones at their fellow men, and they try to be better people. What you are asking Obama to do is cast stones. To many stones have been cast the last 7 years. Move ON. This ain't the Middle East, but its surely turning into it, with this type of post. I don't want my American politicians to be casting stones at one another.

[DietrichMoody]

Chalk this up to Obama probably getting a big chunk of Ron Paul supporters but if you wanted to vote for someone that "was not one of them" then you should have gone for Kucinich or someone else. Every politician at this stage of the game IS "one of them" but Obama is less jaded and cynical than the rest of them.

[CrimsonTom]

I don't know how much Church you attend, or have attended in your life, but Christians generally do not invoke divine damnation lightly.

This story isn't going to die. After the Reverend asked God to cast the nation into eternal damnation and said that black Americans should do the same, Senator Obama continued to use him as his spiritual advisor.

[kellygrrrl]

This is so deeply painful and horrifying to watch.

Religion is so strange to me. I just do NOT get it.

[J27]

Much ado about nothing. As you said, guilt by association is totally unwarranted. Besides, there are more important issues to be concerned about...gas prices, Iraq, Bear Stearns, etc.

[springsm]

Thank you , thank you , thank you J27. A voice of reason...........

[biglover]

Ditto to J27 and springsm.

[rikyrah]

I have to ask. What kinds of Black churches have YOU been to? Have you been hanging out in Black, acitivist churches, or have you been hanging out with the Prosperity Gospel Hustlers? Big difference in how they see things. I also would like to know how you have the nerve to judge a man's 36 year career on a few minutes of a couple of sermons. Your audacity to even contemplate that Obama needs to answer for another human being is ridiculous. Why don't you read a year's worth of his sermons and see what you come up with. Better yet, get a plane ticket, and actually GO TO TRINITY - show up, unannounced, and report back what you see. I'm so tired of this condescention towards the Black Church, and that's what it is - an attack on the Black Christian Church. Go see for yourself.

[WebForce1]

I found his comments to be racist and anti american. There's no law against him being either one of those things. Also, there's no law that says I don't have a right to be offended by what he says. If you agree with his statements fine. But don't presume to tell other people how they should feel.

P.S. Here's how I presume to have the nerve to judge a mans 36 year career based on a couple of minutes of a couple sermons:

Don Imus. Remember him from last summer? He had a long career but in a careless few seconds he offended the black community with his racial dialogue. Don Imus went on every show he could and apologized and did what he could to take it back, but black people were just too offended, and there was no taking it back.
Reverand Wright isn't even apologizing, or attempting to take it back, not that he could.
But even if I weren't so offended, it still comes down to a question of fair play.

If we are going to publicly denounce, and figuratively crucify Don Imus, then our sense of equality and justice demands that we treat Reverand Wright the same way.

[Nommo]

You are absolutely right. And when Wright gets his nationally syndicated radio program, I say fire him immediately.

[vsign]

WebForce1 - I agree that Rev Wright's comments were racist and anti american.

I want to respond to your comments about Don Imus. I believe Obama is the one who got Imus fired. Do you remember the interview David Gregory had with Obama while he was running up the capital steps? That was the morning of the day Imus got fired by afternoon. Al Sharpton had been on the Imus show that morning saying he was not satisfied with the apologies Imus had made etc. Al proposed that Imus should be fired for good and if Obama said he would not come on his show, maybe then NBC would fire him. NBC sent Gregory out immediately, and in the interview, Obama said the exact words Al was proposing would cost Imus his job - that Obama would not go on the Imus show.

[bauersox]

It wasn't really a "single" racist moment for Imus -- it was a long career of that kind of vile stuff. And the same goes for Jeremiah Wright.

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

You may be right. And I have been trying to listen to Obama's words on this issue very carefully. But, I don't believe I have heard Obama say he never heard "about" Wright's sermon relating to 9/11.

I think Obama has been very careful, maybe too careful, to say he has never personally been in the pew or personally heard Wright make these particular stements that have surfaced.

He has left himself two openings.

1. I don't htink he has actually denied ever hearing ABOUT these statments from another source
2. I don't think he has denied ever personally hearing any OTHER similar statements

The first interview I saw was with Keith Olbermann where he tried to make it seem like he hadn't even heard about these statements until the vidoes came out.

Keith asked him if he was aware ofthese statement before the videos surfaced and Obama said "Frankly No'

Then Keith aksed when he became aware and Obama answered "recently'

Now we know t hat Obama became aware of these statements before announcing his run for president. When was the last time you used the term 'recently' to describe an event from over a year ago?

If his first answer to Keith's question was 'Frankly No', then how could the answer to the second question be anything other than this week when the videos surface was the first I was aware of these statements?

[Ides]

Obama denounced other inflammatory comments in January of last year. He also condemned both the statements of Louis Farrakhan and the man at around the same time when Reverend Wright gave an award to Louis Farrakhan.

The question isn't "Why didn't Obama come out in front of this." The question is, "Why is the media so damn far behind this?"

Even Newsweek implied that Obama wouldn't denounce Farrakhan until pushed by Tim Russert when, in reality, he had already done so more than a year ago.

This is the reality. Obama has already handled all of these crises before they got out of hand. Now they are getting out of hand AGAIN and he has to revisit the same themes.

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

well he would have been better off never having Wright serve in an official capacity on his campaign. But, then he would have run the risk of offending religious voters.

[CrimsonTom]

Does anyone truly believe the Obamas did not go to church the Sunday after 9/11?

Honest query. I'd like an Obama supporter to respond.

[dsmyre]

When this blows over, I want Fox News to purchase videos of every evangelical southern baptist sermon Huckabee every preached and scrutinize them just in case he comes back around as VP. And lets see some sermons from Mitt Romney's Mormon elders, too, while we're at it.

[WebForce1]

I can get on board with that. Pat Robertson has been saying inflamatory and outrageous remarks for years. As for the others, well I just don't follow religeous leaders careers that closely, but I can guess at what's being said by a great many of them.

But check this out, you're agreeing that we should be scrutinizing Wright and Obama correct?

You didn't say leave them alone, you basicly said let's go after more of them.

[Barackanot]

This goes far beyond Rev. Wrights words. For those of us who have spent months researching Barack and Michelle Obama this is nothing new. What is new is the front page media coverage of a heretofore hot potato. Finally, we have the catalyst for in depth coverage of Barack and Michelle Obama's obsession with race. Coverage that has been shamefully absent from the media these many months. Barack has been struggling with his identity from the time he changed his name from Barry Soetoro to Barack Obama. His wife has been equally obsessed, choosing the Black community as the topic for her college thesis wherein she claims that only 10% of educated blacks have respect for the white race. A person would have to be an idiot not to be well aware of Rev. Wrights beliefs as they pertain to the white "captors" - his term, not mine. Everyone knows he traveled to Libya with Louis Farrakhan to visit with Col. Khadafi . Barack's speeches are well rehearsed sermons matching the adopted cadence of his good friend and mentor Rev. Wright . This is a wakeup call for America. I pray they will heed the alarm.

[WordManMI]

Excellent post! Keep up the good work!!!

[LeoMarvin]

P-R-O-J-E-C-T-I-O-N

[knosiswar]

'DESERVED' sounds harsh, and NO, those that have died did not DESERVE to die, but there is a fundamental rule that we all live with, YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW, And WE HAVE been harboring a form of 'terrorism' within our borders, and it's called GREED. We have a history of Hypocrisy, a tendency to look the other way when we have allowed our corporations to invest with Governments who do not support Democracy, but we do business with them to suit or wants and 'needs', and in turn make those forms of governments ultimately successful. We do have a problem with the Saudi's, we have made them rich, they are the most repressive middle eastern government, and they are the root of Anti-American sentiment. They repress their people while at the same time, they fund Wahabism schools that teach an anti-american fundamentalism world-wide. Asia in particular. But we have turned a blind eye to human-rights issues in favor of cheap consumer goods. Actions Have Consequences.

[saintswriter]

Could it be that the church was "not all abuzz and shocked" by Reverend Wright's remarks because in the context of the sermon those remarks were not as "shocking" as they are displayed nakedly through a 30-second soundbyte. As a member of Trinity for 24 years, I know that Pastor Wright purposely adds "shock" value to his messages in order to get the congregation's attention. But he doesn't leave us there. If you listened to the soundbyte about God %%% America - his next words were, "it's in the Bible, it's right here in the Bible." Of course the fear mongers would not let that sentence finish itself out so that we could learn where in the Bible was the text that correlated with his remarks. I'm sure if somebody came to Barack and said, "Reverend Wright just preached a hatefilled sermon" Barack or I or any long-time Trinitarian would say, "no, he didn't". Because he doesn't. So before you pass judgment on Pastor Wright, or Barack, or the congregation of Trinity United Church of Christ, you should at the very least listen to a whole sermon. If the sermons were so "anti-American and anti-white," we wouldn't have so many white members and supporters. If Reverend Wright was so hateful, he would not be teaching at a leading theological seminary, he would be invited to speak at conferences throughout the world and the nation, he wouldn't be one of the most esteemed and educated ministers of the Bible ever to have graced a pulpit, he wouldn't have been honorably discharged from the United States Marines, he wouldn't have served with President Lyndon Baines Johnson, he couldn't have written over a dozen best-selling books, and songs that are still being sung and recorded throughout the Christian community. Sir, a 30-second soundbyte does not and cannot define a 36-year distinguished ministry. If you're truly an Obama supporter and if you've really grasped his vision of change, you would not be asking such backward questions.

[WebForce1]

Regardless of the Reverands motives to "grab the attention" of the congregation, his words were still bigoted and inflamatory.
What's more, there is a tremendous double standard in this country.
As you were explaining Reverand Wright's meaning, did it ever occur to you that a white reverand saying "Barack doesn't know what it means to be a white woman in this country" and so on and so forth would be taken as extremely racist remarks by the black community? And what's more, the vast majority of the white community would condemn that reverand instead of trying to justify his behavior.
Stop insulting everyone. People keep saying don't judge Reverand Wright for 30 seconds taken out of 30 years. Well that line of reasoning fell on deaf ears when the black community was offended by 30 seconds out of Don Imus' career.
If you're going to give no quarter, then don't ask it of someone else.

[ceti]

The only double standard is you cannot question America's motives in the world, its empire, not its claim to moral righteousness, all of which will get you branded a traitor and run out of town. The tin ear over the Wright flap reveals this, that many Americans are happy with their empire and the exploitation and oppression of other people. It's not that they don't know about it, which many don't, but they actively and willingly participate in this project of domination that began with the Native and African Americans and spread to the rest of the globe as fitting their manifest destiny.

There has always been another current, like Mark Twain and the old anti-imperialist league who have fought against this tendency, but they have always been shouted down by the self-righteous lynch mobs of the self appointed patriots.

[hopefulintexas]

the one i am having trouble getting my mind around is the statement that the government created the HIV virus as a means of committing genocide against "the black man." tell me how i have misunderstood or misconstrued this.
because barack has been like he has been -- no lies exposed, no senseless political machinations, no apparent "power-grabbing," -- i will not judge him or Pastor Wright on these soundbites. but i think barack needs to seriously and in some detail put these into perspective for us who do not understand where they come from.

[biglover]

Reverend wright is not the only one who believes this. Interestingly, the HIV virus was first found in Lake Victoria in Africa in the early 1980s s See below

[WordManMI]

You are dreaming if you think that 30 seconds of the recently shown video is the only evidence of Wright's hate-preaching. There's plenty more to come. He's been preaching this way for a very long time and very frequently. There's more video and audio to come, plus he's written plenty, too.

[gabbyone]

I checked my book to see if what Rick Lowry wrote is accrate.....Note that it was this first sermon that Obama named his second book after..........The Audacity of Hope

Wright in "Dreams of My Father" [Rich Lowry]

Before he ever thought he would have to deploy Clintonesque spin to try to get himself out of a campaign controversy, Barack Obama wrote (an achingly good) memoir. In the book, Obama makes it clear that Wright when he first got to know him was pretty much the same Wright we're getting to know now (the one that Obama is at pains to say is on the verge of retirement). Wright was striking some of the same notes, saying racially venomous things and attacking the bombing of Hiroshima. Note this passage about the first sermon Obama heard from Wright, the source ultimately of the title of Obama's second book and one of the central themes of his presidential campaign:

The title of Reverend Wright’s sermon that morning was “The Audacity of Hope.” He began with a passage from the Book of Samuel—the story of Hannah, who, barren and taunted by her rivals, had wept and shaken in prayer before her God. The story reminded him, he said, of a sermon a fellow pastor had preached at a conference some years before, in which the pastor described going to a museum and being confronted by a painting title Hope.

“The painting depicts a harpist,” Reverend Wright explained, “a woman who at first glance appears to be sitting atop a great mountain. Until you take a closer look and see that the woman is bruised and bloodied, dressed in tattered rags, the harp reduced to a single frayed string. Your eye is then drawn down to the scene below, down to the valley below, where everywhere are the ravages of famine, the drumbeat of war, a world groaning under strife and deprivation.

“It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!”

And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded, though, the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate. The reverend spoke of the hardship that the congregation would face tomorrow, the pain of those far from the mountaintop, worrying about paying the light bill…

[Ides]

That sermon can be heard in its entirety here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xFZROa0rlMU

[Marlyn]

"America's chickens are coming home to roost"

I agree with Rev.Wright. America needs to change its foreign policy. America is the bully of the planet with more than 800 military bases outside the USA. America is a big war machine, and this is why we are DAMNED around the world.

AMERICA needs to CHANGE its foreign policy. BRING THE TROOPS HOME. ALL OF THEM.

NO MORE WAR!

[jhamm1]

Indeed, for if by happenstance, Obama actually agreed with the Reverend's comments, than it would further reinforce his commitment to alleviate America's nationalistic ego, and actually commit toward implementing ethical foreign policy decisions that would progressively heal the rift that we've created in far too many areas, not to mention lessening the collective outrage that provides so many terrorist organizations with eligible recruits.

[Lukah01]

I agree it was a story but it was covered already and is getting quiet old and tired now. If the media is going to keep throwing up clips of of Rev Wright at least offer some new analysis or information. I would like to know which sermons these were a part of. I would like to know the overall point Rev Wright was trying to make aside from the theatrics. I wonder why no one mentions Rev Wright was a US Marine? I know this is too much for Fox news but how about some others?

[AnninCA]

I am a Hillary supporter, and I'm naturally more attuned to Obama's failings. He lies too glibly. He has asked the public to swallow a whopper with his statements on how he didn't "know."

It reminds me of how he didn't realized he couldn't trust Rezko.

The whole line just smells to high heaven.

He's a competitor, for sure. The best defense is a good offense, so Hillary-bashing apparently will be his answer to this.

Different kind of politician?

Obviously not.

[FreedomLoverX]

Talk about Hillary's ties to Rezko, why don't you?

[biglover]

"He lies too glibly". And ANNINCA how does Hillary lie? Not even glibly just out and out liar and I used to love the Clintons - but no more. They have proved they want the presidency more than they care about the party.

[outnow]

I would add that all members of the church of Rev. Wright are disqualified from holding public office by your reasoning, but not the members of the Pat Robertson types. Sheer hypocrisy and dangerous thinking that leads to witch hunts and conformity to official dogma.