A Trinity Church Blog First Posted the Clinton/Wright Photo Six Hours Before the NYT Did

[Stephanie]

The photo was first posted at 3:00 this afternoon on a Trinity member's blog. Ben Smith picked it up from that site and posted it at Politico at 7:50 p.m. The Times did not post it until 9:00 p.m. So regardless of whether the Obama campaign gave it to the Times, the photo was already out there well before that. Is the Times' snarkiness perhaps due to the fact that they were not the first to get the photo?

http://truthabouttrinity.blogspot.com/2008/03/my-pastor-has-represented-us-well.html

Thursday, March 20, 2008
My Pastor Has Represented Us Well



Friday September 11, 1998 in honor of Religious Leaders.....

He's always been such the statesmen!
Pastor Wright was invited to the White House TWICE! This man is a true patriot and a powerful minister of the gospel.

Posted by truthToPower at 2:56 PM 0 comments
Labels: Clinton, Jeremiah Wright, Trinity

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Jeremiah_Wright_was_White_House_guest.html

Jeremiah Wright was White House guest



The recent coverage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright has often cast him as a marginal, almost fringe figure, but Trinity Church is a major Chicago institution, and Wright has long been a prominent pastor on the American scene.

And an anonymous blog set up to defend his church offers some compelling photographic evidence of this: A photograph of Wright and President Clinton, which it says was taken on September 11, 1998 -- the date of a White House gathering for religious leaders.

{UPDATE: The blog seems to have taken that item down; here's the full image that was posted.}

Hillary Clinton, according to her recently-released schedule for the day, was present at the gathering. Al Gore also appears in the picture.

By Ben Smith 07:49 PM

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/photograph-of-bill-clinton-and-rev-wright-surfaces/

March 20, 2008, 8:54 pm
Photograph of Bill Clinton and Rev. Wright Surfaces
By Kate Phillips



During one of the most difficult periods in the presidency of Bill Clinton, he addressed a group of clerics at an annual prayer breakfast in September 1998 just as the Starr report outlining his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was about to be published.

Among those in attendance, was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who is seen shaking hands with Mr. Clinton in a photograph provided today by the Obama campaign. Mr. Wright’s relationship with Senator Barack Obama, as his longtime pastor, has been the subject of considerable controversy in recent days because of incendiary excerpts of sermons Mr. Wright gave at their church, Trinity United Church of Christ, in Chicago.

In providing the photograph to The New York Times, the Obama campaign appeared to be trying to divert some attention to the Clintons after a week in which Mr. Obama’s relationship with Mr. Wright has left him facing one of the biggest challenges of his campaign.

[DerekJ]

1. K & R

[papau]

2. I and others had it on DU a few hours later - a photo-op at a prayer dinner means what?

[Stephanie]

3. It means that the Rev. Wright was respected then by the Clintons who are now trashing him.

Respected enough that he was called upon to preside over Bill's public repentance along with the other 125 most renowned clergy in the nation.

[johnnydrama]

4. so let's see

Mike Huckabee says it's no big deal
John McCain says it's no big deal
Hillary Clinton says how can we use this to win the nomination.

I don't even have any comments to add to that.

[cynatnite]

5. How many people have been guests at the WH during Clinton's tenure?

And it's a gathering for religious leaders, too. :rofl: Even worse, Bill ain't even looking at the guy. Considering the thousands of photos taken at the WH this is one that doesn't deserve much attention.

[Cha]

7. Yeah, I'm sure you'd like everyone to look

at it that way..Pastor Wright was there to give bill clinton aid and comfort in his hour of need and all you can do is bust your gut.

[Stephanie]

8. Context, grasshopper, context. It was a Very Important Day in Clintonia.

Why don't you read up on it?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5181403&mesg_id=5181403

[cynatnite]

18. Oh, okay...

typical politics as usual.

Let's see how much shit I can give about this...um...nope, none. Don't give a shit.

Keep trying, though. I'm sure someone will dig up some pic of her eating babies or find 666 tattooed on her head. :eyes:

[Cha]

6. So did the Obama campaign provide the

NYT with it or are they lying?

This reminds me of 2000 when the DUI surfaced on bush at the 11th hour and the m$$$m went after Gore and accused him of releasing it!

It's about time the m$$$$m got stopped ruling shit.

:wtf: why didn't they just not publish the picture if it miffed their feelings so much?

[EFerrari]

12. I just watched a panel on CSPAN last night where NYTs reporter

John Burns extolled the vigor of the New York Times. He said, do you really think any important story would be out there for six months or a year and not get covered? He went on and on.

I guess he missed the whole part where Bush stole 2004 and hundreds of their readers asked them to look into it and then later, to cover Mr. Conyers's hearings in Ohio. Conyers pretty much assembled the sourcing for them. And still, nothing even though the Public Editor promised us conspiracy theorists that if a story emerged, surely the Times would be right on it. Right.

And as a consequence, the Help America Vote Act passed which mandated those bad machines all over the country as well as hackable voter registration data bases.

And Rove set up vote caging operations all over the country via the DOJ which also pursued political prosecutions in venues the Republicans wanted to dominated. And so, Don Siegelman winds up in jail.

Thanks, New York Times.

[Cha]

14. Lest we not forget freakin'

judy miller.

This guy sounds like he's too full of himself and the nyt..how many times has the nyt had to apologize over blowing it?

[EFerrari]

16. They are in complete denial. A reporter from the Guardian

Nick Davies nailed it in a book he just has out. And the Times shill tried to trash him and his book, tried to say the NYTs has never been more diligence. It was awful.

Burns trotted out that whole "experts all believed they had WMD". Thank GOD (and I'm agnostic) Davies stood his ground and said, you could have gone to Ritter. He was the open door to the story but you never even tried.

I was sort of scared, to tell you the truth, to see how DELUSIONAL the Times reporter was. But, I was also a little encouraged to see that SOMEONE was taking him and them on.

[Cha]

21. Thanks, sf..it's scarey

how delusional so many people are..like an epidemic.

[EFerrari]

9. I love you, Steph.

lol

KnR

[redstate_democrat]

10. True That! I PMd you back, too.

For all of the IDIOTS who believed FAUX NEWS, YOU GOT OWNED!


Rev. Wright's REAL sermon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ

Another for good measure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvMbeVQj6Lw

[jillan]

11. So what? Bill Clinton knew Rev Wright - and this is an issue because?

[Stephanie]

13. I'm tired of you all playing so dumb.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5168167

[Oilwellian]

15. Clinton used Wright

to repair his moral standing in the nation. He begged Wright for forgiveness of his sins.

Moral of the story: If you forgive a Clinton, you're fucked.

[EFerrari]

17. LOL!

Thanks for letting me end the evening with a chuckle. :)

[Metric System]

19. "the photo was already out there well before that." Wow, you people are hypocrites! When the Obama

supporters were screaming that the Clinton camp leaked the photo of Obama dressed in traditional African clothing, I argued that the photo had been online since 2006 and even provided the link. Obviously, that wasn't good enough for the Obama supporters and they continued to bash Hillary over it. So I find it very interesting that you make this argument.

[Stephanie]

20. If you want to make that argument, this Clinton/Wright photo has been out there since 1998

It's curious that the Clintons seemed to have forgotten about it as they busily dialed up the superdelegates to insist they not vote Barack because of his minister. Why didn't the Clintons release the photo first?