Posted by: Michael Zappe on May 1, 2008 11:19 AM

Posted by: Linda Weatherby on May 2, 2008 09:33 PM

Posted by: Ryan W. on May 2, 2008 10:54 PM

Sadly, it is a precise summary of what Obama has said so far. He has claimed not to have been present when Wright said his many inflammatory statements -- including not on the Sunday after 9/11, when record numbers of people went to church. Even recently, he said he had never heard such comments before, nor anything remotely like them:

I’ve known Reverend Wright for almost 20 years. The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church....

Yet Wright's recent comments were entirely consistent with every taped and transcribed sermon we've heard from him. Even Obama had previously admitted that Wright had said he would have to distance himself from him in order to run for office. If he had said nothing extreme, how could that make sense? And if there was nothing previously disreputable about his views, then why do Obama aids admit they disinvited Wright from Obama's candidacy announcement over a year ago? He never heard any controversial remarks until this week? It beggars the imagination.

And how could Obama now say Wright's comments were not an accurate portrayal of the black church? They were certainly a portrayal of his own church -- Wright was the head pastor! I don't see how the head pastor's views, when he preached them almost every Sunday for two years -- could fail to represent the views of that church on Sunday. Much less when the Congregation can be heard screaming near-hysterical agreement with his racist remarks?

(Or is Obama now claiming to have attended a different black church, of which Wright's was not representative? This is a typical slippery Obama remark: this isn't representative of black churches, never mind that it was, in fact, the one I chose to attend for decades.)

Regardless of how implausible the belief he's never heard such rhetoric before is (after having defended the allegedly "unheard" rhetoric previously as not that bad) he's still asking us to believe that he's a phenomenally bad judge of character.

Now, I’ve already denounced the comments that had appeared in these previous sermons. As I said, I had not heard them before.

So he's never heard them before. He had NO IDEA whatsoever that Wright believed in a form of black nationalism? Did he never see the church's own website, for example, which enumerated their race-specific values?

It's a lie (my vote) or he's asking us to believe he's one of the stupidest people's I've ever heard of.

(Even in the first Wright sermon Obama ever heard, according to his own recounting, Wright asserted that "white folks' greed runs a world in need". This is the "audacity of hope" sermon, and even it contains a nice smidgeon of white-people-bashing. But even though he, himself recorded that line, Obama has never heard such sentiments before.)

And he does indeed want to run US foreign policy.

Posted by: Tim (Random Observations) on May 3, 2008 12:50 AM