Hey, guys -- what in the hell happened today?

[beachmom]

Look, I watched Wright on Bill Moyers and was very impressed, and thought the whole thing was over. Then, apparently, everything blew up today. I'm going to trust Andrew Sullivan here, because he has been very charitable both to Obama and Wright during the controversy that erupted a couple of weeks ago. So I take this post from Sully very, very seriously:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/04/wrights-poison.html#more

Barack Obama stood up at YearlyKos last summer and told us how he came to Chicago 20 years before not knowing a soul, and was now a U.S. senator running for POTUS. He ended by saying "politics ain't no beanbag". Well, it looks like we have a moment where Obama will have to show that. I think he is a good and decent person who did not want to turn on someone who he viewed as a father, but I actually did sense from Wright even on Moyers some resentment at Obama for ANY criticism. Something is going on here, and I think it amounts to betrayal. Obama is moving forward, and Wright wants to stay stuck, even if it means spoiling the chance of Obama becoming POTUS. Obama is going to have to fix this or give up on the idea of being president. I defended Obama during the Wright flap, but Wright now coming out and saying this:

His claim that the September 11 attacks mean "America's chickens are coming home to roost"?

Wright defended it: "Jesus said, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic divisive principles."

His views on Farrakhan and Israel? "Louis said 20 years ago that Zionism, not Judaism, was a gutter religion. He was talking about the same thing United Nations resolutions say, the same thing now that President Carter's being vilified for and Bishop Tutu's being vilified for. And everybody wants to paint me as if I'm anti-Semitic because of what Louis Farrakhan said 20 years ago. He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century; that's what I think about him. . . . Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains, he did not put me in slavery, and he didn't make me this color."

He denounced those who "can worship God on Sunday morning, wearing a black clergy robe, and kill others on Sunday evening, wearing a white Klan robe." He praised the communist Sandinista regime of Nicaragua. He renewed his belief that the government created AIDS as a means of genocide against people of color ("I believe our government is capable of doing anything").

Praised the Sandinstas? Said the government was responsible for AIDS? This smacks of someone who is trying to sabotage Obama. I mean, the GOP couldn't have written it better.

Indefensible. Obama needs to fix this. And it will show us if he has what it takes, which sometimes means being ruthless. I hate ruthless, but as a student of history I know it is necessary in a president at times. This is one of them.

[Dr Ron]

1. Response From Obama re Wright

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/obama-addresses-wrights-remarks-again/

I'm sure this won't be the end of it as clearly Obama has to do more to differentiate himself from Wright

[beachmom]

2. What Sully added is that some of Wright's views are outright HOSTILE to Obama's views.

That Wright has a view of race in America that is not Obama's view at all. I have to say, taking a step back, this is a remarkable development: the Minister decides to screw over Obama. I mean, WTF??? Who would have predicted that? What many say is the silver lining is that this gives Obama the opening he needs to make a break. But somebody needs to tell Obama; I have a feeling Obama does not want to do this, but he must.

[Inuca]

8. EXACTLY!!!!

That's what upset me the most, in a way. Last night I finally had the chance to watch part of the NAACP speech and most of the appalling Q&A from yesterday. The part of the speech that I saw on CSPAN included the whole theory with left brain vs. right brain, etc. WTF?!?!?!? Can you imagine if somebody who is not black had said the same thing? The fact that he is black is no excuse. I obviously do not have all the facts, did not read the books, etc., but I am 99.99999999% sure that it is utter and absolute and idiotic BS. This is as anti-Obama a message as one can imagine. It is one thing to acknowledge and even nurture cultural differences, traditions, etc., I am all for it, but this is unacceptable and IMHO disgusting. Disgusting also applies to his attitude, reactions, and many of the things he said during the Q&A. Condescending, arrogant, enjoying the limelight in an absolutely embarrassing way, me, me, me, me.... I was watching in horror and disgust and kept hearing in mind the words from O's speech "I can no more disown him than....", and the way he said it; the contrast was.... :cry:

[beachmom]

10. Now two fathers have let Obama down. First, his biological one,

and now Wright. I know it's not the same, but I hope colleagues like Kerry can provide some solace during this difficult time. And Michelle will no doubt be a shoulder to lean on.

[Inuca]

13. Solace is good

but I hope and pray that he also finds the inner strength to DO something about all this, SOON.

[ladym55]

3. Rev. Wright is not Obama

It is becoming so nuts that suddenly Obama and Wright are Siamese twins who share the same brain. No. As Rev. Wright told Moyers, he is a preacher, and Obama is a politician. They are two different people, with different sets of thoughts and beliefs. JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE IS YOUR PASTOR HE/SHE DOESN'T DECIDE ALL OF YOUR THOUGHTS!!! In a society capable of critical thinking, we'd be able to figure this out on our own, but here in Stupidland, we are unable to tell the difference.

If Rev. Wright and Obama were WHITE and Trinity was a BAPTIST church that took a healthy stand against the evils of homosexuality, abortion, and evolution, NOBODY would have gone digging through years of tapes of sermons to find those quotes.

Sorry to be so cranky, but last week I spent THREE AND ONE HALF HOURS listening to a Hillary supporter tell me how important Jeremiah Wright was in showing us Obama's "true character." (the 3-1/2 hours was because we were at a meeting and I couldn't just get up and leave as much as I wanted to)

[beachmom]

5. My sympathy to you regarding the annoying Hillary supporter.

I don't really know any Hillary supporters, thankfully. I agree with you 100% that Wright and Obama have NOTHING to do with each other, and hell -- today proved it beyond a reasonable doubt. Some on DailyKos are openly speculating that Wright doesn't much like Obama or his mainstream politics. This makes sense to me. I think at one point they were closer, but that Obama understood early on in his campaign that they were clearly going in different directions. Obama and Wright agreed on one main point: that faith alone is not enough -- you must act to help your community. Well, Obama is doing it in his way, and Wright in quite another. And, clearly, Wright is not "on board" with the Obama campaign. If played right, this issue may actually be dead. If you are stuck with annoying Hil supporter again, you may mention to her that Wright totally threw Obama under the bus this week, so it looks like they are not the same after all.

[ladym55]

22. We got a local education on Wright tonight

Our local progressive group hosted a forum on faith and social justice. One of the speakers was a local African-American pastor who did a fantastic job educating his nearly all-white audience on Black Liberation Theology, the prophetic tradition, and the experience of the Black church. We all learned quite a bit ... both Obama AND Hillary supporters.

And most importantly, he pressed home that the campaign needs to focus on issues, not on sound bytes.

[wisteria]

4. Senator Obama is trying to change the tone in Washington, not go about attacking in the same way.

This is the campaign he chose to run. You are right though, this will prove if he has what it takes to be President. His spiritual adviser of over 20 years has just sabotaged his campaign. . What will Obams's course of action be?

[sandnsea]

6. Wright is right

Uh, yeah. Sept 11 was definitely our chickens coming home to roost. I thought everybody knew that, whether they admitted it or not. We created the mess in Afghanistan. We put troops in Saudi Arabia. We stirred the pot and supported authoritarian regimes, in the ME and all over the world.

The Catholic priests supported the Sandinistas against the corrupt Somoza government. When the Sandinistas took over, the popular church remained supportive of the revolution, but the hierarchy supported the US and Contras. Remember, Kerry and Harkin went to Nicaragua to meet with Daniel Ortega and tried to negotiate with him.

As to AIDS, do you remember the 2002 report that the Navy had sprayed sailors with bio-chem weapons in the 60's? And of course there was Tuskeegee. Why shouldn't people wonder about AIDS. It's clear our government is capable of anything.

Yes there are those who wear the black robe Sunday morning and the white robe the rest of the time, whether they recognize it or not.

But we can't talk about any of this because it's offensive to the good and true Christians - who say the same damn thing when they aren't defending some stupid notion of US honor.

[beachmom]

9. No, Wright is not right. It's not just the subjects he addressed, but

how he talked about it. As it is, I know Jewish people who think Obama is an antisemite because of Wright's links to Farrakhan. Yesterday, made it all much, much worse because Wright repeated what Farrakhan said, that it was no big deal. This makes Wright, in their minds, the antisemite. That takes the link one step closer to Obama.

To me, what is clear is that Wright doesn't give a damn what happens to Obama. In fact, it is clear to me that he is sabotaging Obama's campaign.

And you know, when Wright was on Moyers, he spoke intelligently on subjects like 9/11 and talking about theology. This was fine. That is not what went down yesterday. Yesterday, he threw Obama under the bus.

[Inuca]

12. 100% agree

I saw the Moyers interview, and my main reaction was positive, and being ad at the media and the whole political circus that made a caricature out of a thoughtful, intelligent, and well-intentioned man. Even the things he said that I do not agree with, I could understand and seemed coherent and acceptable when seen from a perspective and experience that is not mine nor in my DNA, figuratively speaking. Had he stopped there, it would have been OK, in spite of the media getting there teeth already into the couple of statements ("he is a politician...") that they could turn into "news". What he did the last couple of days OTOH is despicable. And I shudder to think what may still happen in the near and more distant future; e.g., book scheduled to come out just before the election!!!!

[sandnsea]

16. I disagree

I think he said what he thought. But oh we can't have that in this country. Do you know Farrakhan has been misquoted on his Israeli statement since the day he made his remarks, and it's never been corrected? But you can't criticize how the Israeli's treat the Palestinians in this country. You can't treat the Palestinians like humans. He said the Israeli's were using a dirty religion to defend what they were doing to the Palestinians. Just like the KKK used a dirty religion to justify lynching blacks. But we're just too childish to have those discussions in this country. A bunch of five year olds. Today is a sad day for the country, even though it's a good day for Obama.

Frankly, I think Wright went as wacko as he could so Obama could say exactly what he said today, so this could be ended once and for all. Obama has a way of letting a problem bubble up to the peak point, and then knocking it out of the way permanently.

[beachmom]

17. Did you watch the press conference? I only could view live bloggers.

How was it?

Thread here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/29/135626/450/730/505746#c497

[sandnsea]

19. No

It's not important to me.

Do you know what "liberation theology" is? Do you know where it originated?

I have been talking about "bottom up" economies for a while now. Periodically, when the issues of economic justice come up. The idea of market economies in every country is a good one. Ultimately, it is true the only way we will left everybody out of poverty is for every region of the world to participate in the global marketplace. I agree with that. But we're doing it top down, so that the only ones who really make money are the corporations and investors, and we're seeing that doesn't work. We have to have "bottom up", like the microlenders nourish, like Obama's mother nourished. Do you know where that idea originated? In Latin America, with many who supported the Sandinista's, with "liberation theology".

Obama wouldn't be who he is if he hadn't associated with people who were educated in different ways of looking at the world.

[MBS]

20. I did. I thought Obama was excellent.

Clearly a difficult moment for him. But he handled it with thoughtfulness, clarity, and class.

[marlakay]

7. I feel bad for Obama because he is in a lose/lose

place. When all this first happened I thought he tried to handle it in the best way possible and if wright would have kept his mouth shut, it would have come up but Obama could have deflected it.

Wright just managed to bring it all up and worse today, every show spent the whole time almost talking non stop about how bad it was for obama and that was after almost a solid week of will Hillary win, she won by double digits, obama hasn't won in 7 weeks, he is a loser...my god you wouldn't know he was ahead in all counts at all except the 1 or 2 min they give to that on a very few shows.

I am to the point now where I think the only way to get out of it and still win is for Obama to say that he tried to stay with the guy but he crossed the line in trying to stir things up and that goes opposite to what he is trying to do which is bring people together and say that while he appreciates all he and the church have done for him he has to draw the line said with sincerity people will understand. I left a church i was in for 10 yrs because it got weird a long time ago the problem for him is he has to do it while running for pres.

If he doesn't handle this right people are going to wonder how he will deal with other crisis facing the country and we some pretty big ones coming up.

[beachmom]

11. Oh, and it gets better: Clinton supporter organized the damned thing:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5730776#5730822

[MBS]

14. good analysis in NYT today. .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/us/politics/29watc.html?ref=politics

. . .His rehabilitation tour has done no favors to the Obama campaign, which has expressed distress over Mr. Wright’s timing and intemperance. “He does not speak for me; he does not speak for the campaign,” Mr. Obama said Monday.

But Mr. Wright’s monomania over the last three days has helped prove the point Mr. Obama made about his former pastor last month in his speech on race, in which he described Mr. Wright as “imperfect” but having also been “like family to me.” Mr. Wright revealed himself to be the compelling but slightly wacky uncle who unsettles strangers but really just craves attention.

Viewers who had seen the Chicago preacher only in brief cable news clips or campaign attack ads finally saw the unexpurgated version, and it was an illuminating display.

Followers of Fox News may have been appalled by the sound bites, but so were members of Mr. Wright’s congregation, including Mr. Obama, who complained that the inflammatory snippets were reductive and unfair.

Now it turns out that Mr. Wright doesn’t hate America, he loves the sound of his own voice. He is not out of touch with the American culture, he is the avatar of the American celebrity principle: he grabbed his 30-second spots of infamy and turned them into 15 minutes of fame.

. . .
While MSNBC was waiting to go live to the event, an anchor asked Mr. Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, why the campaign had allowed Mr. Wright to refocus attention upon himself. “He is doing his own thing,” Mr. Axelrod said wearily by telephone. “There’s not a thing we can do about it.”

By the time Mr. Wright had finished speaking, he had proved Mr. Axelrod’s point. And also one made by Chuck Todd, the NBC political director who summed up Mr. Wright’s apologia by paraphrasing a Carly Simon song: “You’re so vain, I bet you think this campaign is about you.”

[ginnyinWI]

15. the NYT has got it right.

There isn't a thing the Obama camp can do about it--it's just like the crazy uncle who comes to the family reunion--you just have to let him talk but try not to let him spoil it for the rest. Intelligent people will understand this. The other ones were going to vote for McCain anyway.

The silver lining is this: people will see the difference between Wright's old school AA identity and Obama's new school. They'll see that the two are not joined at the hip, that Wright is from a particular generation. Sure, he probably does resent Obama for his distinct lack of Black Anger. He probably doesn't really get it, because he's from that generation. "kids these days just don't understand..." And I do think he loves media attention, to Obama's harm.

But all Obama has to do now is ride on top of the wave until the media gets good and sick of the name Reverend Wright and moves on to other stuff. Maybe if the media had been super-super saturated with Swiftboat stuff in the Spring of 2004 they would have finally given it up by August. If you can't make them ignore something, I suppose this is the next best thing.

[beachmom]

18. Obama did what needed to be done. Transcript:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/29/142621/821/690/505770

"I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people. That’s in my DNA, trying to promote mutual understanding to insist that we all share common hopes and common dreams as Americans and as human beings. That’s who I am, that’s what I believe, and that’s what this campaign has been about," Obama said.

"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday," he said.

Obama also distanced himself from the man in a way he has been reluctant to in the past.

"The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago," he said. "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."

"They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs," he said.

"If Reverend Wright thinks that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well and based on his remarks yesterday, I may not know him as well as I thought either."

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church," he said. "But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS; when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century; when he equates the U.S. wartime efforts with terrorism – then there are no exuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced, and that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today."

"It is antithetical to my campaign. It is antithetical to what I’m about. It is not what I think America stands for," he said.

...

Wright's words, he said, had been "a show of disrespect to me an insult to what we're trying to do in this campaign."

Obama said twice that the remarks made him "angry," and he suggested Wright was grandstanding.

"What mattered was him commanding center stage," he said.

[Inuca]

21. Yes, he did n/t