Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the man who's been Barack Obama's pastor for 20 years, who performed his marriage, baptized both of his children, inspired the title of his book, The Audacity of Hope, and is a part of his African-American Religious Leadership Committee knows a thing or two about damning statements. In a film just circulated, Wright was shown delivering an inflammatory sermon to his Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.
The statements have already taken on a life of their own, swirling through the consciousness leaving a swath of opinion in their wake.
I'll let you decide for yourself: do these quotes amount to trouble for Obama?
Here are the quotes, unfettered.
In a 2003 sermon, Wright said:
The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.
Then, the Sunday after September 11, 2001, Wright told his congregation:
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.
What do you think? Especially after Tim Russert asked him about his position on Louis Farrakhan (with but a brief mention of Rev. Jeremiah Wright), now that these quotes have surfaced, will we see a repeat of the "reject or denounce" argument? Is this another statement of faith that does Obama more harm than good?
Catherine Malandrino
all i will say is
1and this is his pastor
ok, that's it, I swear.
2What a loony bird. I certainly wouldn't want a president with such close ties to an America-damning nutjob like this, so I hope Obama distances himself. Then again, I wouldn't be suprised if many Obama supporters also supported this type of hate speech, so who knows.
3
4Does America really want to hear the truth?, Do we really want to hear anyone air our dirty laundry?, Do we want these statements to get out because other countries already think this about us?, or Do we want to punish?
I think OB will have to denounce these statements but they were the Pastor's statement to his congregation-obviously the congregation did not have a problem b/c he is still their pastor. Of course this is what the American people will run with and this may just be damaging.
5i'm just watching my little rant guy, and he's so funny. try this - read those words that the pastor says out loud like he's talking. it's fun.
about the pastor's comments - I must say it's a terrible time to be running for president. Now a days anything ANYONE remotely or closely connected to you says or does will make front page news.
note to self - distance myself from all crazies before starting our 2012 Cine_Lover/Syako ticket.
6haha Syako!
7wherever he is Spitzer must be like thank you God, this at least takes some heat off him in the media.
8Oh, they haven't even scratched the surface yet when it comes to Spitzer. He is totally and completed f*cked.
9I'm in syako!
I want Jillness' opinion on this one, because we were discussing this topic in another thread. She said that because McCain gets support from a loony Evangelical Christian, then McCain must have similar feelings. Does this mean that Obama feels America should be damned? That we deserve what we get? Honestly, people like him upset me to such an extreme I find it hard to write on this topic.
10he is f*cked but now everyone will have their two cents about obama all the nay sayers will come crawling out the cracks, turning this into another media spectacle. It is so random how the republicans are the ones looking squeaky clean in this whole nomination process and the democrats are the ones shooting themselves in the foot.
11nyara, I was thinking the same thing yesterday. It is a strange reversal.
12It sure is Cine and Nya!
13
cine time to delete the myspace profile, cut off connections with your crazy pastor (find a nice,
moderate one with preferably no real thoughts of his/her own) and we'll need less of this 
if our
ticket will be successful in 2012 and to avoid the soon to be media 
14i know hey cine i swear john mccain is looking like the lesser of 3 evils at the end of the day and with all the fuss about iraq, iran etc you would think that the republican party would be taking the heat. I am by no means a fan of the republican party but credit where credit is due. They have handled themselves impeccably, in fact they could teach the democrats a thing or two. The dems started as this was their election to lose, they wouldn't have to do "that much hard work" but now with each passing,meaningless squabble they are getting tiresome.
15This is bad news.
The syako/cine ticket has my support!
16from call girls one day to presidential candidates the next - God bless America!
17haha Syako!
18You forgot to add in high class call girls!
Hey syako we already have 3 votes! We are good to go! I have a bit of a past, but if I write a tell all book, then it is all okay, right?
Nyara, I could not agree more. Except I am a fan of the Republican party, or actually I should say true Conservatives and True Republicans.
19Seems a lot of rejecting other people's comments and views has been done so far.
20yeah we can just black mail our high paying clients (like Nancy) to get them to donate to our campaign.
21I think this is much more serious than the McCain thing, McCain isn't an active member of that church, his kids weren't baptized by the guy, and he certainly didn't get married by him either!
Theres no amount of smooth talking that can get Obama out of this one. His best hope is to withdraw his membership from the church and be stronger in denouncing this looneytoon... but even then I'm sure there will be some kind of swift boat type attack ad that will come out reminding everyone of this.
22Nancy
Cabaker, It certianly does not look very good for him. And in all honesty is shouldn't.
23Withdrawing from the church is too little too late because these comments were made years ago and i am sure since they are pretty inflammatory he must have been aware of them and if he wasn't doesn't he have people who are paid to do know these things. I'm not sure it ill make that much of a difference for him with his supporters it will only give those who don't like him and his opponents ammunition.
24I don't necessarily think this really hurts him all that much IF he distances himself from the church and the pastor publicly.
I do agree about the Dems shooting themselves in the foot on this election. It seems like they've done that the past few times around with candidate choice, etc. For awhile now, the Republicans have run a much better "election machine" on the national level. It will be interesting to see how that plays out through November.
25Oh, and I was curious about what Jillness would say about this too, cine!
26cine what are true conservatives? I'm a liberal, the only thing that i'm conservative about is priests getting married lol.
27nyara, good point. His supporters are so die hard that this will not deter them from voting for him. Now fence sitters and Hilary supporters that is a whole nother story.
28What timing!
THe funny thing about this is, I am a hypocrite if I don't get offended by this, while the other side is a hypocrite if they ARE offended by this.
What he is saying is really no different from Pat Robertson, except he blamed 9/11 on gay people. It is also no different from Hagee saying Katrina was also the fault of gay people.
Obama has already said that this man is like a kooky uncle who says things that he doesn't always agree with. I do think that these remarks are pretty inflammatory, and I don't agree with them, and Obama should make very clear that he doesn't support these ideas as well.
The difference here between Obama's situation and McCain, is that McCain praised Hagee's stance on Israel even though the man has very condemning ideas about people of Jewish faith. Obama has not said that he likes this man's ideas on 9/11.
29Once you're on the Obama train you don't get off lol. I like Hillary Clinton, flawed she may be and foolish she may have been for standing by her man but I really truly like her. I also like McCain, weird, but I honestly can't find a negative thing to say about him except, but I have been on the fence about Obama. It's not the issue of religion, experience, charisma but there is something about him I can't quite put my finger on it but something is off.
30nyara, I say true Conservatives, because I do not put Religious Right in the same catagory of Conservatives. Now I have no problem with having religious values swaying your vote, it is your own right to choose on what issues are important to the individual. But many people, and I believe we can thank the media and the educational system call Conservatives and Religious Rights the same thing, and they most certainly are not. In fact, most conservatives are NOT religious right.
So I should not have said "true Conservatives" without more of an explanation, because Conservatives can be a pretty broad term.
I can go on forever on this topic. I have whole blogs dedicated to this.
31It seems like random people have had more influence on the campaigns than the actual candidates themselves, recently.
32Jill you are SO right about that!
The candidates are like supporting players in their own election, its madness!
33Oh geeze, this entire thing is just turning into a circus. Each presidential candidate and nominee is probably closely linked to someone who from time to time may say pretty inflamatory things- he*l so are we (will this stop me from running for president one day? no..)! Although I don't agree with his first comment I do agree with his second. Of course, his comment was said a couple years after 9-11 when times were still shaky and people were living in fear and anger of our situation. I think everyone can let their emotions get the best of them (ever seen pastors in action?). I do think and hope Obama will denounce this comment...but we have to realize we can't agree with EVERYTHING everyone we're linked to says. This man may have said and done alot of other things that we may deem as "appropriate" and "powerful". Get over it already. These democrats are pis*ing me off. While the Republicans are just laughing at the comedy act (and I don't blame them).
34I think whats delicious about this from a right perspective, is that this is what we get slammed on all the time! So its kinda nice seeing it on the other side...
35thanks for the explanation cine that is true though cine about the media lumping conservatives and the religious right together, i used to think bible-bashing, gay-bashing anti-abortion loonies when i thought conservative, sad but true, but now i know different. And good point Jill. When was the last tie we hear anything actually said by Hillary or Barack.
36LOl cabaker, i love the use of delicious, savour every moment.
37nya - hey we gotta take what we can get!
38I don't lame you at all when they are ones cooking it up and dishing it up themselves. Wouldn't it be nice to have a week without an outrageous comment and all the media outlets scrambling to show either a) righteous anger or b) exploitation and endless coverage of a few sentences. Can we have a democrat free week next week and it pains me to say this lol.
39Thats what I thought after Hilary got some momementum at the last set of primaries... OH man we gotta listen to them bicker till the end of April?! I mean, as a conservative I was stoked, but as a TV viewer I was not happy!
40The sad thing to me is, I think Obama is really a patriot in the true sense of the word.
He went into communities after he graduated college and started working for the people. He couldn't get enough done, so he went to law school and became an expert on the epitome of America: The Constitution. He was president of the Harvard Law Review, an organization that has had 6 Supreme Court Justices as its members. He taught Constitutional law as well. He was very sought after when he left Harvard, and he instead went back to the community that he was helping before.
His whole career has been focused on our laws, and how to make America achieve her potential. I think it is so sad that so many people have a different idea about him based on ramblings of other people. That is the nature of politics, I understand, but I think it is tragic none the less.
41I heard (not sure if it's true) that the media has acquired footage of all of this guys sermons. They are trying to find a shot of Barrack in the audience "enjoying" one of these rants. Now I'm about as big a Hillary supporter as anyone could be, but I don't agree with this at all. No one should be targeted in that way.
What really pisses me off is the fact that these campaigns aren't nearly as negative as the media is making them out to be. It's MOSTLY supporters running off at the mouth and the media digging up crap that nobody should care about. I don't associate the above clip with Barrack at all, but I know SOME people will and it makes me sad. Let's get back to the issues!
42I do agree, harmonyfrance that a lot of this is media and supporter driven. I think some of that may be because the two candidates have similar views on so many important issues, so it is coming down to personality and sensationalism instead of being issues-driven.
43That definitely makes sense lilkimbo.It's just such a shame. I think we have some really amazing people running for President and I hate how petty it's getting. I think we need all of them in the white house in some capacity. Our country is in a lot of trouble. We need as many capable people as possible helping dig us out. How about an Obama/Clinton/McCain ticket? Anyone? Anyone? LOL
44jill, it's funny you compare this to mccain.. this man is obama's mentor for the most part.. i mean look at their past relationship, the book, baptizing his children, etc.. mccain may have "praised" in a speach some outlandish statements, but obama has a personal tie to this man and quite frankly (especially in politics) actions speak much louder than words..
know that i am not personally against obama, and infact if it wasn't for his withdrawal plan, i would really be supportive of him.. we all have someone crazy like this in our life, but the deal with this guy is 1. he's a freak (if you actually listen to him speak, it's out of control and 2. he's been a direct influence in obama's life for years.
45Who cares what his pastor says. I want to know what Obama's dentist said about the war. Or the man that gives him his haircuts!
46I want to know what his dog walker says about America
47Jill, what is funny is that it is his knowledge of the Constitution that confuse me as to why he is so liberal in his politics. I know I have said this before. But I would love to discuss the Constitution with him. It gets me all excited at the prospect of discussing the Constitution.
48syako, I thought that was a hooker emoticon!
49LMAO @ POP. Pop you just made me laugh out loud at work. I would like to know what the dentist says as well or the guy that lives next door to him.
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