Is It Hillary's Turn to 'Denounce and Reject' a Problematic Pastor?

[babylonsister]

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/80486/#more

Is It Hillary's Turn to 'Denounce and Reject' a Problematic Pastor?

Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone at 10:07 AM on March 24, 2008.

We hear about Rev. Wright’s racism 24/7, but there's nary a peep about Clinton's former pastor who's been convicted for sexual child abuse.


The blogs are talking about it, but the mainstream news is not. Still, this is interesting. Blogs such as AdvanceAmericablog, commondreams.org, the National Journal’s Hotline, and wakeupfromyourslumber.com are talking about the scandal that has enveloped the former Pastor of the Clintons, but it appears only the Utica, NY newspaper is covering the story. The rest of the mainstream media is silent. Perhaps the story isn’t divisive enough for the mainstream media to take notice. Of course, it is as unfair to blame Hillary Clinton for her former pastor’s abuses just as it is unfair to blame Barack Obama for Rev. Wright. Still, that means the mainstream media is far more enamored of condemning Obama for his Rev. Wright’s tirades about 9/11 and race than it is concerned with the plight of a seven year old girl abused by Hillary Clinton’s former pastor. From the Utica Observer-Dispatch:

UTICA -- When the Rev. William Procanick put his hand on the Bible during his sex-abuse trial in Oneida County Court earlier this year, he swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

But as the former Clinton pastor was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for inappropriately touching a 7-year-old girl at his home last March, Judge Michael L. Dwyer said Procanick sacrificed his honesty the day he testified.

"As a minister of God, you got on the stand and you lied," Dwyer told Procanick, the 54-year-old former pastor of Resurrection Assembly of God church on Kirkland Avenue.

A jury found Procanick guilty Jan. 22 of first-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.

Let me be clear here. Hillary Clinton has nothing to apologize for, nor should she feel tainted because her former Pastor, William Procanick has been convicted of sexual child abuse of a seven year old girl. By the same token, Barack Obama has no responsibility for the words of Rev. Wright, nor for the words of his successors in the pulpit. All of these people have personal responsibility, and Rev. Procanick is going to be answering for his crime. Hillary Clinton has no need to “denounce and reject” the man. Indeed, it may be a good thing if she were to express her sorrow for his crimes and compassion for those the man hurt. But she has no obligation.

The irresponsibility here is on the media, who wish to blow out of proportion those issues which will inevitably divide Americans, by focusing on the behavior of Barack Obama’s former Pastor, while ignoring other transgressions by the pastors of Presidential candidates, even though Hillary Clinton’s former Pastor has actually been convicted of a crime.

AlterNet is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed by its writers are their own.

[Clear Blue Sky]

1. Glad attention is being focused on this...

While the real problems of the day are being ignored - economy, war, immigration, health care, etc.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. So you posted *another* "Gotcha!" -- ?

And again, a too-clever-by-half AlterNet hipster pundit, reminding us in bold type that Hillary is off the hook "even though Hillary Clinton’s former Pastor has actually been convicted of a crime".

The "Gotcha!" tactics might even be understandable, except that Team Clinton had nothing to do with Rev. Wright.

--p!

[babylonsister]

6. Another Clinton Surrogate & a Clinton Campaign Staffer Push Rev. Wright Story

Nothing to do with it? You might want to rethink that...


http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/03/another-clinton.html

Another Clinton Surrogate & a Clinton Campaign Staffer Push Rev. Wright Story

March 21, 2008 10:33 AM

Seriously, how can the Clinton campaign with a straight face claim it in no way is pushing the Rev. Wright story?

(Answer: practice.)

Former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who appeared with Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, Tuesday in Philly writes in the Huffington Post of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, that "Claims of superior intuitive judgment by his campaign and by him are self-evidently disingenuous, especially in light of disclosures about his long associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko."

Then this liberal blogger, Chris Bowers, writes that at a Philadelphia ward meeting, a Clinton campaign staffer "specifically listed Jeremiah Wright as an example of why Obama would be less electable in the general election. The context of his argument was that the Wright story demonstrated that Obama had not gone through the rigors of a presidential election before, and it was possible that more damaging stories like that would come out as the campaign progressed. Aka, the Wright story is demonstrative of how Obama is less electable.

"While we are not superdelegates, we are committee people in Pennsylvania, so the campaigns consider us very important right now. Maybe not superdelegate important, but important none the less…"

- jpt


http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/asked_whether_advisers_are_pus.php

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5192806

[Dogmudgeon]

8. What about "guilt by association is so unfair!" -- ?

I guess that's only the case when Obama's ox is being gored.

As I've said before -- this knife has two edges, and it belongs to no one.

I'm still waiting for a Keith Olbermann Special Comment on Jeremiah Wright, given that he was so outraged at the vulgarity spewed by Geraldine Ferraro. Somehow, Gerry Ferraro's racist outburst was Hillary's fault, but Wright's was completely unconnected to Obama.

Then, too, we had Bill supposedly "race-baiting" by simply comparing the SC primary this year to the one in 1988. How dare he! But Obama's "inartful" gaffe about the "typical white person" was an innocent blunder.

You don't think that Rev. Wright is going to come back to bite the Obama campaign in the ass? I guarantee that Obama has put some heavy thought into it. He made a fine speech, and I said so a few times, but this will be the proverbial gift that keeps on giving. Some people don't appreciate hearing rhetoric like "God Damn America". You know and I know that it requires severing Wright's words from their context to make this into Obama's disrespect, but it's still too powerful for most people to dismiss. So, yes, it affects BHO's electability. And that sucks.

And if you think that Hillary is a witch because her "surrogates" occasionally talk about it, wait until Obama faces John McCain. The Republicans will bring it up more often than Obama brings up the IWR vote. The ads will put Wright shouting "God Damn America" right next to a picture of John McCain on a stretcher, the newly-liberated and long-tortured Prisoner of the Viet Cong, and that swift boat will launch itself. So we damn well had better get ready to deal with it in the likely event that Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.

Now do we clear the boards of the bullshit on all sides and let Hillary and Obama keep debating, or do we keep fighting among ourselves and blaming it all on Hillary?

I know you guys want to win real bad. But malicious gossip and what the Bible calls false witness isn't the way to do it.

--p!

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[ingac70]

5. ....

:rofl:

[caledesi]

4. Not this time! NT

[aquart]

7. "Turn"?

The lady who takes the big states takes "turns" with the guy who takes...the states with the long empty stretches?

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Oh, boy. Another round of who's your pastor.

Suddenly, Hillary's supporters will find an epiphany of what all the fuss really is.

Red herring form the University of Illinois at Urbana

[tavalon]

10. That's the weirdest variation of "Who's your daddy?", ain't it?

[polmaven]

11. Hillary sat in the pews for 20 years

and watched this creep sexual abuse children? :shrug: