Obama Excused Wright Comments Before Saying He Never Heard of Them.

It's fascinating to watch the cable news talking heads try to digest this one.

After virtually equating Geraldine Ferraro's clumsy points on race with hate crimes, they are now stumbling to excuse Pastor Wright and Obama, terming them innocuous.

The "comments are taken out of context" I heard CNN's Jeffrey Toobin say this afternoon. Exactly what context makes, "The government created the HIV virus to kill blacks," and "America's bombing of Hiroshima" excuses the 9/11 terrorsit attacks, acceptable? And did the CNN talking head mean that his own network took them out of context? If only Toobin were so candid.

I haven't heard such hate-filed, deluded racist diatribes since Lester Maddox. Even Malcolm X came to abandon this style of rhetoric.

The most frightening part of the video (particularly the longer versions on YouTube, v.s. the excerpted ones on ABC and Fox) is to see the GenY types chanting and screaming in affirmation of Wright's hate speech. Don't dismiss this as the harmless rantings of an old eccentric. His pulpit reaches 8,000 parishoners.

As for Obama, he made up excuses for Wright's racist rnts, before he said he had never heard about the comments. Backwards, much?

Continuing to believe in Obama now includes believing that he went to that church for about 20 years without ever witnessing or even hearing that Wright was making these comments.

My concern is how many more of these 'uncles' does Obama have in his background? What further revelations are coming? We have barely touched the surface with Rev Wright. There was a posting here yesterday of three videos highlighting just little bits of the issues.

There will be more videos going over the issues. We can not have this and expect to win in November. Expect patriotic groups to begin picketing Obama events. This is a nightmare scenario.

Obama may have given this speech for political reasons. But he is not saying that voting for Hillary Clinton (or McCain) is akin to rejecting the post-racial politics of unity espoused in this speech. What he's saying is that wallowing in Rev. Wright's sermons is a sign of the cynical politics of the past. And it is. Nobody has found a shred of evidence suggesting that Obama actually believed the paranoid black nationalism of Wright on display in these sermons. No offhand remark, no published speech or book, no reference from a conservative who worked with him. Nothing.

So we are left with the only question: why, if Obama rejected this divisive and hateful and paranoid politics did Obama still stick with Wright and TUCC? And that's what he answered today with as much clarity as any honest person could do. He saw Wright as a much more complicated and compelling figure than portrayed in the continuous loop TV videos.  He saw Wright as the man who turned him to Christianity, who helped counsel him and his family, and challenged him to serve the poor, marginalized and oppressed. He was one of the few black preachers to accept gays and lesbians in his congregation and speak against homophobia. But he was also, obviously, controversial. Enough for Obama to ditch him? Barack Obama didn't think so, and I'm not going to question his religious reasons for staying there.

There are many reasons to support Hillary Clinton. She has more experience in the traditional sense than Obama, she has a ruthlessness that can win in November, she has encyclopedic knowledge of policy, and she is committed to progressive domestic policy. All of those are perfectly respectable reasons to support her. But nowhere has Obama suggested the false choice between him and racism. That is your own false choice.

What disturbs me the most is his casual dismissive attitude when he mentioned one sentence about women,in the glass ceiling remark,  One sentence, that is exactly where Obama is at.  He cannot see his own myopic view about gender.  How his very candidacy puts the lie to his unity phrases by using white women to insulate himself and his pastor and mentor as somehow the real issue, as if we are forced to deal with race, and why are we forced to deal with this issue?  

Because he has set himself up as the candidate who is at the same time, the only one who can bridge the divide, and the one who creates that divide by his campaign.  He has consistently tried to turn the Clintons into racists, by twisting their words to suit his purpose, the lie that they have perpurtrated was expressed by Wright and apparently internalized by Obama that the Clintons pandered and screwed the AA community.  How disgusting that is.  It reeks of self serving distortion and Obama has consistently used race to his advantage and then when anyone even mentions the issue, he is somehow offended that anyone would even think any racial thought.

Then he stands up there and claims that we are obligated to take him as the racial savior, and that by doing that we can actually remove some of our guilt and responsibility for the black condition in our country.  Yeah, it all Bill and Hillary's fault.  That is who has been screwing them , sure thats the ticket.

What is happening is that positions are being hardened in this country along racial lines.  This is Obama's doing, and it was done on purpose and by design.  There is really no excuse for this but the raw need to win at any cost.  Obama has and will say anything that he thinks will fool enough people to get him this nomination. What makes him think that he is an adequate representative for the down scale white democrat in this country.  His whole career has been in the south Chicago area, he has worked with this church and this pastor for 20 years.  These views are prevalent at this church.  This is not a fair representation of black churches in this country.

His speech was so condescending to white voters, as if he thinks talking about white fear or busing is going to be the bone to allow his pastor to get by with this kind of hate speech, to be simply dismissed as typical black church rhetoric, which it is not.

Amen! Amen! Amen! - The truth being told is Obama has exploited race for his political gain and now want to pretend that he wants to unify the country. Why Obama don't speak for the real Black man: Just ask him to explain the tenants living conditions in the tenements managed by Rezko. Specifically what he and his church did doing the time when no heat was being provided to the buildings? His answer will demonstrate how he develop solutions or devise exploitations to advance his on cause.

Yes I do applaud Barack for explaining race relations, and what must be done to improve them. I agree with him on race relations and if that is the key part of the speech in one's mind then that is all that needs to be said, but it is likely that as a supporter of Sen. Clinton then you figure that Rev. Wright and the playing of the race card are the things that needs to be explained.

I am a little put out that Sen. Clinton will never have to do a speech on something that is part of her identity like Sen. Obama did, as an Obama partisan. , but glad as an American (which is to say when I get annoyed at those who only attack Obama supporters I become more towards an Obama partisan, when I can have civil discussion I become more of an American)

About the question which is the choice Sen. Obama offered.

I don't think it is completely a false choice or completely a true choice.  It is sort of in between.  He is saying that racism shouldn't influence our lives, which is a noble choice and he put up how he treated his grandmother which was with love but to dislike her remarks that made him cringe.  That is what he is doing with Rev. Wright.  That is why I wouldn't say it is a false choice.

However it isn't a true choice, I really can't explain why I think this.  Something in his explanation doesn't seem complete, but I am parsing beyond what I considered enough to consider the speech a success and even with this failure I think it was a good speech, just not as good as it could have been.

Also your reaction to the speech seems to also have in play the issue of who played the race card first which I think we've discussed, though if I am wrong I am willing to discuss some more. (In short I think the media fomented it before SC because of ratings.  They gave the initial remarks on both sides massive media time as opposed to issues.)  Also Obama didn't benefit exclusively from it in my opinion, in states like Tennessee, Oklahoma, and possibly Florida it helped Sen Clinton in that it solidified the white vote behind her (comparing the demographic breakdowns in NH and NV to these).

I think that after the first time it simmerred under the surface and it bubble up from time to time due to human nature of not being perfect (see Gerry Ferraro before TX and Ohio which set the stage for the results in MS)

That is just my thoughts I would be happy to hear a reaction

We are in agreement on a lot here.  I thought he should have realized that Wright would be dangerous to him before he wanted to run for president, but I can understand his loyalty to him.

The media hit Sen Clinton hard on the woman issue (Cankles, the laugh, etc.)in ways that were excessively unfair.  
However she [not her campaign, which I think is another of her mistakes] did play the gender card several times. "All the boys are gaining up on me"
One of which possibly saved her skin (the I just care so much in New Hampshire was mostly honest but I think she went overboard)

If I appear out of line here I am sorry I am just saying what I saw as an Edwards supporter.

I as we both said before Mark Penn is a fragging idiot (if she had woven her gender more into the narrative she would be 10% up on John McCain in my opinion and not have an opponent in the primary), but that would have required doing what the Obama campaign did which is to defend the narrative very well: aka his narrative can not stand in the face of perceived racial bias so his campaign [note not Sen Obama himself] has to keep any negativity about race off the field, just like Senator Clinton would have had to do if she had a non-POS strategist).

I have a more positive perspective of the speech than you do (maybe due to my naivety/youth/idealism pick one here) or because I am willing to forgive Obama of more than you are due to my support of him (cognitave dissonance here) but your final statement rings true with me.  We shouldn't have to atone for our sin by picking him, we should be able to it by recognizing his outline of race relations as true and work to improve them.

That's just my opinion

Also I would like to say that you are extremely rational (a very high complement from me) and that I appreciate your view point.  A discussion on a real issue like health care might be interesting.