Obama cuts the cord and his friendship with Rev Wright
April 29th, 2008 | by Dusty |In a press conference today Obama went off on Rev. Wright:
“I am outraged by the comments that were made yesterday and saddened by the spectacle,” Barack Obama just said about the things said Monday by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor.
Obama has opened a news conference in North Carolina with a statement.
He’s also said that “if Rev. Wright thinks” that what he’s saying today is “political posturing, then he doesn’t know me very well.”
Obama specifically condemned Wright’s comments that the government might have been responsible for the AIDS virus and Wright’s expressions of support for National of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
“When I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it,” Obama said.
Obama said that he called the news conference in part “to make people absolutely clear that, obviously, whatever relationship I had with Rev. Wright has changed.”
Monday’s appearance by Wright “was a bunch of rants, that aren’t grounded in truth,” Obama just said, “and I can’t construct something positive out of that.”
Will this be enough to end the nightmare Wright has created for Obama a week before two important primary’s?
6 Responses to “Obama cuts the cord and his friendship with Rev Wright”
By Lisa on Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
I have to go along with what Craig said about a dog and pony show in the “Derailed” post.
I would really like to hear more defense of things like the guns and religion comments or How this is the first time Michelle was proud of her country(and I am sure she meant that from the bottom of her heart) because you know she was held down from becoming successful.
Yeah I want to hear 3 more weeks of things like that. I guess those are good as issues as anything else.
By the way what does he think of anything else?
By Craig R. Harmon on Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
Will it be enough? I don’t know. Rev. Wright has, twice at least, publicly stated that Obama is distancing himself from Wright because, as a politician, he has to. The implication being that he’s not distancing himself because there’s really all that much distance between Wright and Obama but that no one who would thoroughly embrace Wright and his theology/politics could ever get elected in a white America. This last part, it seems to me, is absolutely true. Just as Wright could never be elected president, neither could a black candidate who had no problem with Wright’s politics and religion. The question is, who will Americans believe: Wright or Obama?
That is to say, will Americans buy that Obama, in spite of spending 20 years belonging to and supporting a Church with a preacher such as Wright has revealed himself to be in the last several days, actually have the significant disagreement with Wright that Obama said, in his Philadelphia speech on race and in his statement today, that he has with Wright and his most controversial statements? Or will they buy Wright’s implication, that Obama’s has been and is being a fraud to the public, pretending to be the uniter and one who transcends our nation’s racial divide. The difficulty here is that Wright is no uniter nor does he even attempt to transcend racial differences; rather, he augments them and if Americans even suspect that Obama and Wright are spiritual kin, Obama will have no hope of election.
The kicker is those 20 years of Church membership and close personal friendship and advisory position that Wright once had on Obama’s campaign. Will Americans buy that Obama sat for 20 years in Wright’s Church and, until Wright’s more controversial statements came to light, had no clue of Wright’s true, theologico-politico-racial world view.
I don’t have the answer. My guess is that they will buy Obama’s “The Wright I saw yesterday was not the person that I met, 20 years ago” statement, will distinguish Obama as a wholly different person, which he obviously is, but also a person with an entirely different world view and way of dealing with people, white and black. My guess is that Obama will survive this with his reputation as a uniter and an agent of change in tact, though there will be more people that doubt this than there would have been had the Wright debacle had not occurred. That is, he will draw less support from the national electorate than he would have in the general election (assuming he is the Democratic nominee) than he would have had he been a member of a different Church with a more conventional, less radical and less politically polarizing pastor.
My bottom line is that, while I think that this will damage him politically, it will not be politically fatal. Obama will be our next President.
By Dusty on Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
Lisa, do you ever stay on topic?
Thanks for your two cents Craig. Much appreciated.
By Lisa on Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
Dusty you want to know if this will end the nightmare Rev Wright caused for Obama? Now you aren’t defending Rev. Wright? I thought him explaining himself on TV was a good thing.
By Craig R. Harmon on May 1, 2008 | Reply
Dusty,
You’re welcome. Glad I could do so without incurring your wrath!