• Barack Obama says that in 2000, he was so broke, his credit card was declined when he tried to rent a car at LAX;
• Michelle Obama (who pisses and moans constantly about how rough she had it, skipping through life from private charter school to Harvard) says she and Barry were still heavily burdened by debt (specifically, by student loans from 1988 and 1991) until Barack’s book sales took off in 2005.
Despite these facts:
• In 1993, the Obamas put a $111,000 down payment on a $277,500 condiminum;
• In 2000, the Obamas earned a combined household total of $240,000.
After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client — a longtime political supporter.
Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell’s firm that eventually totaled $112,000.
A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.
Killerspin specializes in table tennis, running tournaments nationwide and selling its own line of equipment and apparel and DVD recordings of the competitions. With support from Obama, other state officials and an Obama aide who went to work part time for Killerspin, the company eventually obtained $320,000 in state grants between 2002 and 2004 to subsidize its tournaments.
Obama’s staff said the senator advocated only for the first year’s grant — which ended up being $20,000, not $50,000. The day after Obama wrote his letter urging the awarding of the state funds, Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign received a $1,000 donation from Blackwell.
Uh, isn’t this sort of thing illegal?
Oopsy-daisy! My mistake! Apparently, this is just Chicago-style — or at least Illinois-style — politics as usual:
Business relationships between lawmakers and people with government interests are not illegal or uncommon in Illinois or other states with a part-time Legislature, where lawmakers supplement their state salaries with income from the private sector.
So, it’s not illegal. But you know what? It should be.
Now, you take this Blackwell wheeling-and-dealing (and there’s plenty more about it at the LAT link) along with Obama’s questionable dealings with Tony Rezko, and the way Obama got where he is today — plainly put, he was kicked upstairs by another close ally, the powerful Emil Jones, Jr., whom Obama rewarded with pork-barrel earmarks of “more than $300 million in pet projects for Illinois, including tens of millions for Jones’ Senate district” — and you’ve got to start asking just how “transparent” Barack Obama really is.
It shouldn’t matter a whit if Barry’s Peter-Pays-Paul dealing is legal; the question is: Is it ethical?
The Obamas often say they would still be in debt if not for his best-selling books, which began to swell the couple’s bank account in 2005. In fact, for some period of time, Michelle Obama tells audiences, the couple’s college loan payments cost them more than their monthly mortgage. …
Still, it’s hard to tell just how broke they were, when and for how long.
Public records paint only part of the financial picture. In 1993 they bought a condominium in Hyde Park for $277,500, paying about $111,000 as a down payment, according to county real estate records.
As for income, they earned a combined household total of slightly more than $240,000 in 2000, according to tax records they have since made public. (Their income fluctuated in that range until 2005, when they reported earning $1.6 million.)
But it’s unclear how much their college loan debts were, and aides to the Obama campaign said last week that they could not immediately provide records to clarify. …
Somehow, a $240,000 income doesn’t quite compute as “broke,” does it?
If Barry’s credit card was declined (maxed out, perhaps?) the year his household income was $240,000, that’s not “broke” — that’s an indication he wasn’t managing his money very well. In fact, that sounds like mismanaging his money, very, very badly.
That, or his memory is just terrible.
And as for those student loans Michelle keeps whining about, she graduated from Harvard in 1988 and Barack graduated in 1991. If they could afford to put a $111,000 down payment on a $277,500 Hyde Park condo in 1993, then why weren’t they paying off those student loans before 2005?
Barack Obama has taught me that racism — even faux outrage over nonexistent racism — is worse than the most egregious sexism or homophobia.
Always. Without exception.
I’ve also learned — from Obama supporters — that the word “urban” is racist. (And for nearly half a century, I thought “urban” meant “of or pertaining to a city,” as opposed to the country, or the suburbs. Silly me!)
I’ve also learned — from some backwater ‘burb (oops, sorry! is “‘burb” racist, too?) in Illinois called Carpentersville — that saying a couple of kids are climbing a tree “like monkeys” is racist. (That would have come as a surprise to my dearly departed grandfather, whose pet name for me was “macaca” — and not in the George Allen sense, either. As much as I detest the idea of agreeing with Tony Blankley on anything, even the weather, it’s true: “macaca” is indeed an Italian term of endearment expressing good-natured exasperation with a mischievous child; it means “clown,” or “goof.”)
Moving to nip in the bud some potential bad press, White House hopeful Barack Obama’s campaign persuaded a delegate to step down after she was ticketed for calling her neighbor’s African-American children “monkeys.”
Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski, a Carpentersville village trustee, was elected as an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention. She sports an Obama sign in her front yard.
On Saturday, two neighbor children were playing in the tree next-door to her house.
Ramirez-Sliwinski “came outside and told the children to quit playing in the tree like monkeys. The tree was not on Ramirez-Sliwinski’s property,” Carpentersville Police Commander Michael Kilbourne said.
Ramirez-Sliwinski admitted she used the word “monkeys,” but said she did not intend racism. She said she was only trying to protect them from falling out of the tree.
“Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski said she saw the kids playing in the tree and didn’t want them falling out of the tree and getting hurt. She said she calls her own grandchildren ‘monkeys,’” Kilbourne said. The mother of one of the children did not see it that way, noting she and Ramirez-Sliwinski have clashed before.
“She felt it was racist because of the fact the children were African-American,” Kilbourne said.
Told of the incident Monday by the Sun-Times, Obama’s campaign called Ramirez-Sliwinski and persuaded her to step aside as a delegate because the campaign felt her remarks were “divisive and unacceptable.”
“Given the incident, she is stepping down as a delegate and will be replaced,” said campaign spokesman Ben Labolt.
Let’s recap:
• Calling Hillary Clinton a “big f*****g whore” and Geraldine Ferraro “David Duke in drag” is not “divisive and unacceptable” enough for Obama to dress down Randi Rhodes (hey, ya think Obama returned the money raised at Randi’s Hillary-bashing event?)…
• Preaching about evil, children-killing gays is not “divisive and unacceptable” enough for Obama to fire Donnie McClurkinbefore handing him a microphone and giving him free reign to spew his hateful, “ex-gay” tripe (hey, ya think Obama returned the blood money from that fundraiser?)…
• Condemning America to hell, blasting mythical “rich white people” for all the evil in the world, making appalling cracks about “stemen-stained dresses,” and slurring Italians as “garlic noses” is not “divisive and unacceptable” enough for Obama to stand up and walk out on the bigot he calls his pastor, “spiritual mentor” and “role model” who “helps keep his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated,” Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. (ya think Obama plans to take back the tens of thousands he’s tithed over two decades?)…
• Consorting with such organizations — established for the sole purpose of demonizing and legislating gay and lesbian Americans out of existence — as Americans for Truth and Focus on the Family, calling various mayors “slave masters” and certain politicians “house n****rs,” warning “white people who believe in Jesus” that “I will stand on top of the Sears Tower and call every one of y’all racist” is not “divisive and unacceptable” enough for Obama to cut ties completely with another of his “closest religious advisors,” Rev. James Meeks…
• Expressing the desire to “rip Bill Clinton’s eyes out” is not “divisive and unacceptable” enough for Obama to take his own wife aside and tell her to chill the anti-Clinton crap, her condescending reluctance to back Hillary as the Democratic nominee, and the grim view she takes of America, at least when she’s representing him in public…
…but saying a couple of kids were climbing a tree “like monkeys” is “divisive and unacceptable” enough for Obama to kick Ramirez-Sliwinski to the curb?
So, now what? If you call playground equipment “monkey bars,” are you a racist? I guess so, since anything and everything — as long as it suits a pro-Obama agenda — can and will be deemed racist.
(It’s also not lost on us that Ramirez-Sliwinski was an elected delegate, more beholden to the wil of the people than to the will of any candidate.)
What’s more, you read that first line in the story right: Ramirez-Sliwinski was ticketed — cited and fined — under the stupidest ordinance we’ve heard of in a long time. From the Chicago Tribune:
Carpentersville Trustee Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski vowed Monday to fight a citation she received over the weekend for a comment that apparently offended her African-American neighbors. …
Ramirez-Sliwinski, who is Hispanic, was issued a citation alleging that she violated a village ordinance prohibiting disorderly conduct. The ordinance bans conduct that disturbs or alarms people, and one of the boys told police he was scared by Ramirez-Sliwinski’s comment, Police Cmdr. Michael Kilbourne said.
The citation carries a fine of $75.
“She was not arrested. She was not fingerprinted. It is a local ordinance violation,” Kilbourne said.
“Conduct that disturbs or alarms people”? Remind me to stay the hell out of Carpentersville then. The way this stupid law is worded, I could be cited if my “Christian Right is Neither” T-shirt “disturbed or alarmed” somebody.
(On the other hand, I could go to Carpentersville and lodge a criminal complaint against every right-wing church that preaches anti-gay rhetoric from the pulpit. Now that would be fun. And it would also trigger an emergency meeting of the town council to repeal that stupid law, quick-smart.)
The Trib piece also provides more detail on the “monkeys” incident, in Ramirez-Sliwinski’s own words:
[Ramirez-Sliwinski] said the parents were outside, but she intervened because she was concerned about the boys’ safety and because the small magnolia tree was being damaged.
“I went over to the kids and told them to get out of the tree,” Ramirez-Sliwinski said.
The father of one of the boys told her it was none of her business, she said, and “I calmly said the tree is not there for them to be climbing in there like monkeys.”
There has been friction between Ramirez-Sliwinski and her neighbors in the past. She said she has told them to turn down loud music and has instructed them on how to properly use the village’s new garbage bins.
Ramirez-Sliwinski said she intends to contest the citation in an effort to force the neighbors to talk to her. …
Attempts to reach the neighbors for comment were unsuccessful.
“My take on this is that it is really being blown out of proportion,” Village President Bill Sarto said. “To a great extent, you have to take the remarks and put them in proper context. The trustee saw children playing in a tree, and she made an observation that they should be careful because they are acting like monkeys. Had they not been in a tree, it could be inappropriate.”
Hey, but what do I know? In Obama’s book, I’m just another “typical white person.”
Here’s the last word, from Village President Bill Sarto, quoted in the Sun-Times piece):
“Frankly, I don’t see a law that was broken here,” [Village President Bill Sarto] said. “I think this entire thing has been blown out of proportion. She’s a good neighor. She went over to caution the children to be careful not to fall out of a tree.
She has never indicated to me any prejudice whatsoever. We have a trustee who has been convicted on four counts of domestic battery and refuses to resign from the board. He beat his wife with a baseball bat. This seems far less egregious to me.”
Last October, Barack Obama attempted to defuse the Donnie McClurkin debacle by issuing a statement (actually, burying it deep within his campaign Web site) that affirmed his “belief that gays and lesbians are our brothers and sisters and should be provided the respect, dignity, and rights of all other citizens.”
While Obama supporters screamed, “What else do you want him to do?!” I explained that Obama could say whatever he wanted, but if he didn’t back up his words with actions, his words were meaningless.
As it turned out, his words were meaningless. Obama refused to dump McClurkin (or any of the rest of the anti-gay bigots) from his “Embrace the Homophobia Change” Gospel Tour, despite the widespread outcry from gay and lesbian Americans pleading with Obama not to allow a homophobic, “ex-gay” bigot to speak on his behalf, and especially not to exploit the deeply-ingrained homophobia endemic to conservative Southern black churches as a means of gaining a few political points.
But Obama didn’t listen to us, and “after the tour when asked why the campaign would seemingly reject gay voters for far-right leaning blacks a campaign insider replied, ‘We got what we needed to get out of it.’”
It’s not as if Obama wasn’t aware of McClurkin’s virulently anti-gay views and vile rhetoric before the concert tour; even if Obama could feign ignorance prior to the announcement of the concert, he couldn’t once the news hit the blogosphere, and certainly not after Human Rights Campaign head Joe Solmonese spoke directly with Obama to express (albeit with the HRC’s usual cloying spinelessness) “our community’s disappointment for his decision to continue to remain associated with Rev. McClurkin, an anti-gay preacher who states the need to ‘break the curse of homosexuality.’”
Why am I rehashing this old news? Because Barack Obama just used the exact same, ineffectual game plan (with one variation; this time, he dumped his human albatross, posthaste) in his attempt Friday to distance himself from the inflammatory, racist, and anti-American sermons of his church pastor, “spiritual mentor” and “role model” who “helps keep his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated“: Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.
In response to the nuclear explosion that finally hit the MSM over the past 48 hours, Obama issued a statement, “On My Faith and My Church“. Let’s look at his dodge-and-weave points one at a time:
The pastor of my church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who recently preached his last sermon and is in the process of retiring,
And you mention his imminent retirement, why? As if to suggest he’s old, past it, and won’t be saying these outrageous things anymore? Or to imply that he just started pulling these ideas out of the air only recently, and it’s time he be put out to pasture?
Wright has been preaching his Gospel of Hate for a long time — we suspect since day one, but at least for the past seven years. His “God Damn America” screed (in response to the 9/11 attacks) dates to September 16, 2001.
And his retirement has nothing to do with anything. His upcoming retirement was common knowledge well over a year ago.
What’s important is what you, Barack, have been absorbing at the feet of your spiritual advisor for two decades.
…has touched off a firestorm over the last few days.
A firestorm in the MSM, yes, but then the MSM usually lags far behind the Internet. Wright has been on our radar since well before you decided to run for President.
He’s drawn attention as the result of some inflammatory and appalling remarks he made about our country, our politics, and my political opponents.
Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy.
With which statements, specifically, do you disagree?
I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies.
How about his anti-white statements?
I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit.
Then why did you refuse to fire Donnie McClurkin from your gospel tour?
And if you believe that “words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit,” why, after “strongly disagreeing” with McClurkin’s views, did you refuse to “exclude from [your] campaign the many Americans including many in the African American community who believe the same as Pastor McClurkin”?
In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.
Again, which statements? It sounds like what you’re really saying is this: “I don’t want to to be pinned down to anything specific, because if I reject Wright’s anti-white remarks, I’ll piss off Black Liberation Theology believers, and if I don’t, I’ll alienate a vast swath of my white base. So I’ll just say that whatever you disagree with, I disagree with. Just think of my statement as part of the ‘blank screen’ concept, where you project whatever you want onto it.”
Because these particular statements by Rev. Wright
Which “particular statements” were those again?
are so contrary to my own life and beliefs,
Are they? How do we know that if you won’t tell us exactly which statements you disagree with?
And if you “reject outright” all of Rev. Wright’s racist, anti-American remarks, then why did you continue to attend his church for twenty years, and donate a healthy chunk of money ($22,500 in 2006 alone) to a church whose pastor who has been “disparag[ing] our great country” and “degrad[ing] individuals” from the pulpit for years?
But issuing vague statements of condemnation without addressing specifics is just par for the course for you, Barry. As Ronald Kessler re-caps in Friday’s Wall Street Journal (emphasis mine):
Considering this view of America, it’s not surprising that in December Mr. Wright’s church gave an award to Louis Farrakhan for lifetime achievement. In the church magazine, Trumpet, Mr. Wright spoke glowingly of the Nation of Islam leader. “His depth on analysis [sic] when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye-opening,” Mr. Wright said of Mr. Farrakhan. “He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest.”
After Newsmax broke the story of the award to Farrakhan on Jan. 14, Mr. Obama issued a statement. However, Mr. Obama ignored the main point: that his minister and friend had spoken adoringly of Mr. Farrakhan, and that Mr. Wright’s church was behind the award to the Nation of Islam leader.
Instead, Mr. Obama said, “I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan. I assume that Trumpet magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree.” Trumpet is owned and produced by Mr. Wright’s church out of the church’s offices, and Mr. Wright’s daughters serve as publisher and executive editor.
Meeting with Jewish leaders in Cleveland on Feb. 24, Mr. Obama described Mr. Wright as being like “an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don’t agree with.” He rarely mentions the points of disagreement.
In fact, you’ve been forced to “clarify” the remarks of so many of your closest supporters (your wife Michelleamong them), you have your standard condemnation speech nearly down pat.
In addition to your deliberate vagueness, there’s another big problem with the way you deal — or don’t deal — with the stunning gaffes of the people you surround yourself with, Barack: You ignore the problem — and ignore it, and ignore it, and ignore it — until you are wedged so far into a corner, you are forced to deal with it.
During the Cleveland debate (February, 2008), Tim Russert asked you a simple yes-or-no question, and you, in your usual indirect manner, dodged and weaved until you were pinned to the mat:
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Obama, one of the things in a campaign is that you have to react to unexpected developments.
On Sunday, the headline in your hometown paper, Chicago Tribune: “Louis Farrakhan Backs Obama for President at Nation of Islam Convention in Chicago.” Do you accept the support of Louis Farrakhan?
SEN. OBAMA: You know, I have been very clear in my denunciation of Minister Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic comments. I think that they are unacceptable and reprehensible. I did not solicit this support. He expressed pride in an African-American who seems to be bringing the country together. I obviously can’t censor him, but it is not support that I sought. And we’re not doing anything, I assure you, formally or informally with Minister Farrakhan.
RUSSERT: Do you reject his support?
OBAMA: Well, Tim, you know, I can’t say to somebody that he can’t say that he thinks I’m a good guy. (Laughter.) You know, I — you know, I — I have been very clear in my denunciations of him and his past statements, and I think that indicates to the American people what my stance is on those comments.
RUSSERT: The problem some voters may have is, as you know, Reverend Farrakhan called Judaism “gutter religion.”
OBAMA: Tim, I think — I am very familiar with his record, as are the American people. That’s why I have consistently denounced it.
This is not something new. This is something that — I live in Chicago. He lives in Chicago. I’ve been very clear, in terms of me believing that what he has said is reprehensible and inappropriate. And I have consistently distanced myself from him.
RUSSERT: The title of one of your books, “Audacity of Hope,” you acknowledge you got from a sermon from Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the head of the Trinity United Church. He said that Louis Farrakhan “epitomizes greatness.”
He said that he went to Libya in 1984 with Louis Farrakhan to visit with Moammar Gadhafi and that, when your political opponents found out about that, quote, “your Jewish support would dry up quicker than a snowball in Hell.”
What do you do to assure Jewish-Americans that, whether it’s Farrakhan’s support or the activities of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, your pastor, you are consistent with issues regarding Israel and not in any way suggesting that Farrakhan epitomizes greatness?
OBAMA: Tim, I have some of the strongest support from the Jewish community in my hometown of Chicago and in this presidential campaign. And the reason is because I have been a stalwart friend of Israel’s. I think they are one of our most important allies in the region, and I think that their security is sacrosanct, and that the United States is in a special relationship with them, as is true with my relationship with the Jewish community.
And the reason that I have such strong support is because they know that not only would I not tolerate anti-Semitism in any form, but also because of the fact that what I want to do is rebuild what I consider to be a historic relationship between the African-American community and the Jewish community.
You know, I would not be sitting here were it not for a whole host of Jewish Americans, who supported the civil rights movement and helped to ensure that justice was served in the South. And that coalition has frayed over time around a whole host of issues, and part of my task in this process is making sure that those lines of communication and understanding are reopened.
But, you know, the reason that I have such strong support in the Jewish community and have historically — it was true in my U.S. Senate campaign and it’s true in this presidency — is because the people who know me best know that I consistently have not only befriended the Jewish community, not only have I been strong on Israel, but, more importantly, I’ve been willing to speak out even when it is not comfortable.
When I was — just last point I would make — when I was giving — had the honor of giving a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in conjunction with Martin Luther King’s birthday in front of a large African-American audience, I specifically spoke out against anti- Semitism within the African-American community. And that’s what gives people confidence that I will continue to do that when I’m president of the United States.
MR. WILLIAMS: Senator…
CLINTON: I just want to add something here, because I faced a similar situation when I ran for the Senate in 2000 in New York. And in New York, there are more than the two parties, Democratic and Republican. And one of the parties at that time, the Independence Party, was under the control of people who were anti-Semitic, anti- Israel. And I made it very clear that I did not want their support. I rejected it. I said that it would not be anything I would be comfortable with. And it looked as though I might pay a price for that. But I would not be associated with people who said such inflammatory and untrue charges against either Israel or Jewish people in our country.
And, you know, I was willing to take that stand, and, you know, fortunately the people of New York supported me and I won. But at the time, I thought it was more important to stand on principle and to reject the kind of conditions that went with support like that.
RUSSERT: Are you suggesting Senator Obama is not standing on principle?
CLINTON: No. I’m just saying that you asked specifically if he would reject it. And there’s a difference between denouncing and rejecting. And I think when it comes to this sort of, you know, inflammatory — I have no doubt that everything that Barack just said is absolutely sincere. But I just think, we’ve got to be even stronger. We cannot let anyone in any way say these things because of the implications that they have, which can be so far reaching.
OBAMA: Tim, I have to say I don’t see a difference between denouncing and rejecting. There’s no formal offer of help from Minister Farrakhan that would involve me rejecting it. But if the word “reject” Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word “denounce,” then I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.
CLINTON: Good. Good. Excellent.
(APPLAUSE)
Is getting a straight answer out of you always like pulling hen’s teeth?
Back to your statement on Wright:
…a number of people have legitimately raised questions about the nature of my relationship with Rev. Wright
You mean how Wright is “like an old uncle who sometimes will say things that [you] don’t agree with”?
I’m not sure you want to go there, Barry; after all, you can’t choose your relatives, but you do choose your pastor, and you do choose to spend two decades listening to and learning from a racist.
As Ben Wallace-Wells wrote in Rolling Stone (more than a year ago, mind you): “Obama wasn’t born into Wright’s world. His parents were atheists, an African bureaucrat and a white grad student, Jerry Falwell’s nightmare vision of secular liberals come to life. Obama could have picked any church — the spare, spiritual places in Hyde Park, the awesome pomp and procession of the cathedrals downtown. He could have picked a mosque, for that matter, or even a synagogue. Obama chose Trinity United. He picked Jeremiah Wright. Obama writes in his autobiography that on the day he chose this church, he felt the spirit of black memory and history moving through Wright, and ‘felt for the first time how that spirit carried within it, nascent, incomplete, the possibility of moving beyond our narrow dreams.’”
Barry, in my culture, there’s an old saying about people who claim to be straight after having gay sex: “Once is an accident. Twice is a phase. Three times — they like it.”
…and my membership in the church.
Let me therefore provide some context.
As I have written about in my books, I first joined Trinity United Church of Christ nearly twenty years ago. I knew Rev. Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago. He also led a diverse congregation that was and still is a pillar of the South Side and the entire city of Chicago. It’s a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those with HIV/AIDS.
It’s probably not a good idea to mention HIV/AIDS right now, as you’ve just reminded the reader of Wright’s belief in the tinfoil-hat theory that “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color.”
Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life.
Oh, you didn’t just say that. You did, didn’t you?
No matter how carefully your writers crafted that sentence, you just said that 1) Wright preaches the gospel of Jesus (if so, that’s a different gospel, and certainly a different Jesus, that the one I was raised on); and 2) you “base your life” on the teachings of a man who hates whites.
Fire your speechwriters, Barry.
In other words, he has never been my political advisor;
Well, he was one of your political advisors, until yesterday — although the African American Religious Leadership Committee on which he served has been dismissed as, among other things, “the sort of largely honorary, advisory body that in recent days has recently been used mostly to throw people off who say controversial things.”
But where you’ve really backed yourself into a corner, Barry, is in saying Wright “has never been my political advisor.”
“Though Wright and Obama do not often talk one-on-one often, the senator does check with his pastor before making any bold political moves.
“Last fall, Obama approached Wright to broach the possibility of running for president.”
If that’s not political advice, then what is it?
(You also said: “What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice.” Does that mean you do get political advice from Wright — just not on a “day-to-day” basis?)
…he’s been my pastor.
He’s a heckuva lot more than just your pastor.
You said Wright is your “sounding board” who helps you keep your “priorities straight and [your] moral compass calibrated.”
He’s the pastor who brought you to Jesus. He’s the pastor who married you, baptized both your daughters, and blessed your home.
He’s the pastor whose sermon — the first sermon you ever heard him preach — served as the basis for your keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and inspired the title of your second book, The Audacity of Hope.
“If you want to understand where Barack gets his feeling and rhetoric from,” your good friend, the Rev. Jim Wallis, told Rolling Stone, “just look at Jeremiah Wright.”
Wright is a lot more than just your pastor. A lot more.
And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.
The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation.
Twenty years, and you never heard him say anything as inflammatory as we’ve heard over the past few days?
Or are you saying you didn’t hear these specific statements that have gotten so much airplay?
Even when you aren’t attending “the 11 a.m. Sunday service at Trinity in the Brainerd neighborhood every week,” don’t you think, especially if you’re so deeply involved in the fellowship of your church, you would have heard about something so controversial as your pastor damning America to Hell from the pulpit? Or blaming Italians for killing Jesus?
Nothing? You never heard him say anything like that?
Guess what, Barry? I don’t buy that for a second. And neither do a lot ofother people.
When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments.
When “these statements” — meaning these specific statements we’ve been watching on every news channel?
There you go choosing your words a little too carefully, Barry — as if to suggest you were blissfully unaware of Wright’s radicalism until just over a year ago, when in truth:
“In his 1993 memoir ‘Dreams from My Father,’ Obama recounts in vivid detail his first meeting with Wright in 1985. The pastor warned the community activist that getting involved with Trinity might turn off other black clergy because of the church’s radical reputation.”
And in February, 2007, you personally “disinvited” Wright from delivering the invocation for the announcement of your presidential campaign. Reported the New York Times:
“Some black leaders are questioning Mr. Obama’s decision to distance his campaign from Mr. Wright because of the campaign’s apparent fear of criticism over Mr. Wright’s teachings, which some say are overly Afrocentric to the point of excluding whites.
“Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said the campaign disinvited Mr. Wright because it did not want the church to face negative attention. …
“‘Senator Obama is proud of his pastor and his church, but because of the type of attention it was receiving on blogs and conservative talk shows, he decided to avoid having statements and beliefs being used out of context and forcing the entire church to defend itself,’ Mr. Burton said. …
“‘When his enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli’ to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, Mr. Wright recalled, ‘with Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.’ Mr. Wright added that his trip implied no endorsement of either Louis Farrakhan’s views or Qaddafi’s.
“Mr. Wright said that in the phone conversation in which Mr. Obama disinvited him from a role in the announcement, Mr. Obama cited an article in Rolling Stone, ‘The Radical Roots of Barack Obama.’
“According to the pastor, Mr. Obama then told him, ‘You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.’”
Tell us again, Barry, how you didn’t hear any of Wright’s trash talk over the course of twenty years.
But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.
Not even at the cost of exposing your two little girls to anti-white hate? Is that the “gospel” you want them to live by?
Let me repeat what I’ve said earlier. All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn. They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country.
You don’t “vehemently condemn” anything until you’re forced to.
With Rev. Wright’s retirement and the ascension of my new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss, III, Michelle and I look forward to continuing a relationship with a church that has done so much good. And while Rev. Wright’s statements have pained and angered me,
Not half as much as they’ve pained and angered me as an Italian-American whose people didn’t arrive in this country until 1901, were scorned as non-white for a generation, and who never had a college graduate in the family until 1974.
To have this filth thrown in my face by your spiritual mentor and role model, when it’s you preaching such empty platitudes of “unity” and “transcending race,” is the ultimate insult to my intelligence, and the ultimate self-assassination of your character and integrity.
I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in;
Barack, you own this. You were the one who made your faith just a gigantic issue in the first place. You’re constantly on about how faith informs your politics. Your faith is integral to your life; you’ve made that clear in almost every speech you’ve ever made.
How you choose to worship, and who you choose as your teacher in your walk through this life (and the next) goes right to the heart of who you are.
… on my values, judgment and experience to be President of the United States.
That is exactly how I judge you, Barack. Sadly, you have only proved once again that your judgment is not to be trusted — any more than your empty words.
Obama’s Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11
Sen. Barack Obama’s pastor says blacks should not sing “God Bless America” but “God damn America.”
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s south side, has a long history of what even Obama’s campaign aides concede is “inflammatory rhetoric,” including the assertion that the United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own “terrorism.”
In a campaign appearance earlier this month, Sen. Obama said, “I don’t think my church is actually particularly controversial.” He said Rev. Wright “is like an old uncle who says things I don’t always agree with,” telling a Jewish group that everyone has someone like that in their family.
Rev. Wright married Obama and his wife Michelle, baptized their two daughters and is credited by Obama for the title of his book, “The Audacity of Hope.”
An ABC News review of dozens of Rev. Wright’s sermons, offered for sale by the church, found repeated denunciations of the U.S. based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans.
“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”
In addition to damning America, he told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda’s attacks because of its own terrorism.
“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.
“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost,” he told his congregation.
. . .
“He has impacted the life of Barack Obama so much so that he wants to portray that feeling he got from Rev. Wright onto the country because we all need something positive,” said another member of the congregation.
. . .
Obama has praised at least one aspect of Rev. Wright’s approach, referring to his “social gospel” and his focus on Africa, “and I agree with him on that.”
Sen. Obama declined to comment on Rev. Wright’s denunciations of the United States, but a campaign religious adviser, Shaun Casey, appearing on “Good Morning America” Thursday, said Obama “had repudiated” those comments. …
No, we’re not done discussing Jeremiah Wright.
Provoked by an Obama supporter’s remark that white people can’t possibly understand what goes on in a black church, I’ve spent a good deal of time over the past 24 hours trying to understand the particular brand of theology that fuels much of Wright’s rhetoric.
I think I have a handle on it. While my opinion of Wright’s methods is even dimmer than it was yesterday, I think I have a better understanding of its origins, and even of some of the code phrases he employs.
I want to give myself some more time to gather my thoughts — or revelations, actually, as what I’ve discovered explains a lot of things, such as Barack’s refusal to do the right thing with regard to the Donnie McClurkin imbroglio, and Michelle Obama’s ongoing disparagement of America, among other things (and how all of this plays into a fascinating perspective of religious identity) — before I attempt to explain where I think this is all coming from… and the insight it provides into the real Barack Obama.
Judging from the astronomical number of hits yesterday’s Wright entry received, I know there are many, many people as simultaneously interested in and outraged by the Wrong Reverend Wright as I am.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., senior pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, March 2005. Credit: Trinity United Church of Christ/Religion News Service
The senator “affirmed” his Christian faith in this church; he uses Wright as a “sounding board” to “make sure I’m not losing myself in the hype and hoopla.” Both the title of Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope, and the theme for his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 come from Wright’s sermons. “If you want to understand where Barack gets his feeling and rhetoric from,” says the Rev. Jim Wallis, a leader of the religious left, “just look at Jeremiah Wright.”
This following video is, according to Fox News, from Wright’s Christmas sermon. (Gee whiz, what a message of peace and unity for Christmas, eh?)
My transcript (free to use, with attribution/link, please) is below.
On edit: YouTube keeps pulling the video, but a lot of people keep re-posting it — so if you get the “We’re sorry, this video is no longer available” message, check back later, as I’ll do my best to find a new copy every time I see it’s gone missing again.
Who cares about what I’m going through? Who cares about what poor people have to put up with? Who cares about what a poor black man has to face every day in a country and a culture controlled by rich white people?
Somebody missed that — you got nervous, because we got some white members here. I’m still in bible country. I am still in [unintelligible].
Jesus was a poor, black man who lived in a country and who lived in a culture that was controlled by rich white people. The Romans were rich, the Romans were Italian — which means they were European, which means they were white — and the Romans ran everything in Jesus’ country.
It just came to me with— with— with— within the past few weeks, y’all, why so many folks are hatin’ on Barack Obama. He doesn’t fit the mold. He ain’t white. He ain’t rich. And he ain’t privileged.
Hillary fits the mold. Europeans fit the mold. Giuliani fits the mold. Rich white men fit the mold.
Hillary never had a cab whizz past her and not pick her up because her skin was the wrong color. Hillary never had to worry about being pulled over in her car as a black man driving in the wrong…
I am sick of Negroes who just do not get it!
Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single-parent home. Barack was! Barack knows what it means to be a black man livin’ in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people! Hillary can never know that!
Hillary ain’t never been called a n*****! Hillary has never had her people defined as non-persons! Hillary ain’t had to work twice as hard just to get accepted by the rich white folks who [unintelligible] everything, or to get a passing grade when you know you are smarter than that C student sittin’ in the White House!
Ohhh, I am so glad that I got a god who knows what it is to be a poor black man, and in a country and a culture that is controlled and run by rich white people!
He taught me, Jesus did, how to love my enemies. Jesus taught me how to love the hell outta my enemies! And not be reduced to their level of hatred, bigotry, and smallmindedness.
Hillary ain’t never had her own people say she wasn’t white enough!
Jesus had his own people sidin’ with the enemy!
That’s why I love Jesus, y’all. He never let their hatred dampen his hope. …
I’m biting my tongue to refrain from saying what I’d like to say regarding your “level of hatred, bigotry, and smallmindedness,” Mr. Wright, as my Italian blood (which ain’t half so white as you’d like to think) is a little hot right now.
No, actually, it’s very hot.
Here’s something I can say with complete impunity, Mr. Wright: You are outright lying about Barack Obama growing up poor, underprivileged, and “raised in a single-parent home.”
And Barack himself “admitted in his book, Dreams from My Father, that he had no clue what it meant ‘to be a black man in America.’ And with precious few African-Americans around him in Hawaii, he learned how to ‘be black’ from ‘TV, movies, the radio; those were places to start. Pop culture was color-coded, after all, an arcade of images from which you could cop a walk, a talk, a step, a style.’”
Oh, wait, one more thing: Mr. Wright, I hope the Internal Revenue Service is already investigating your church, and preparing to strip it of its tax-exempt status.
But then, the IRS is already interested in the United Church of Christ — a shame, really, as the UCC is the most Christ-like Christian denomination this side of the Quakers, far more colorblind than you are, and far more liberal than Obama himself — due to your unabashedly racist, one-sided politicking, and to Barack’s own shortsightedness.
What am I talking about? I’m talking about this letter from the IRS to the United Church of Christ, regarding Obama’s use of your pulpit for campaign purposes:
Because a reasonable belief exists that the United Church of Christ (”church”) has engaged in political activities that could jeopardize its tax-exempt status as a church described in section 501(c)(3) and exempt under section 501(a), this letter is notice of the beginning of a church tax inquiry described in IRC section 7611(a). We are sending it because we believe it is necessary to resolve questions concerning your tax-exempt status as a church described in section 501(c)(3) and in section 170(b)(1)(A)(i) of the Code.
Our concerns are based on articles posted on several websites including the church’s which state that United States Presidential Candidate Senator Barack Obama addressed nearly 10,000 church members gathered at the United Church of Christ’s biennial General Synod at the Hartford Civic Center, on June 23, 2007. In addition, 40 Obama volunteers staffed campaign tables outside the center to promote his campaign.
All 501(c)(3) organizations, including churches, their integrated auxiliaries, conventions or associations of churches, are prohibited from participating in, or intervening in (including the publication or distribution of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office. This is an absolute prohibition, violation of which results in denial or revocation of exempt status and/or the imposition of certain excise taxes, if applicable.
The prohibition against political campaign activity does not prevent candidates from being invited to speak at an event of an organization described in section 501(c)(3). If a candidate is invited to speak in his or her capcity as a candidate, then other candidates running for the same office must also be invited to speak and there should be no indication of support for, or opposition to, any candidate by the organization. Alsom the prohibition does not prevent an orgnization’s officials from being involved in a political campaign, so long as those officials do not in any way utilize the organization’s financial resources, facilities, or personnel and clearly indicate that the actions taken or the statements made are those of the individuals and not of the organizations.
… not the first time Wright appeared to endorse Obama, who was baptized at Trinity United, has been an active member of the church for two decades and receives spiritual mentorship from Wright.
The title of Obama’s second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” was taken from a sermon by Wright.
. . .
In his Jan. 13 sermon, Wright said:
“Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us. No he ain’t! Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty.”
FOX News purchased the video recordings of Wright’s sermons from the church.
“It’s pretty clear an indirect endorsement of Barack Obama — that’s not something you’re supposed to do according to the tax code,” said Andrew Walsh, a professor at Trinity College who specializes in religion in politics.
“Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty.”
You need help, Rev. Wright. Your soul is poisoned by hate. If you’re hearing any “voices” guiding you, they don’t belong to angels.
It’s sad that your “hatred, bigotry, and smallmindedness” may be the thing to bring down one of the few genuinely liberal Christian churches in the modern world.
It’s sad that the IRS wouldn’t think of narrowing its focus to a single, rogue church within an otherwise upstanding denomination.
It’s sad that the entire UCC body may become collateral damage in your crusade against those of us who don’t buy Obama’s lies — or yours.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you can’t comprehend how Michelle Obama’s remark, “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback,” could possibly be perceived as a dismissal of every American achievement of the past 25 years.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you wonder, as Sasha Issenberg put it, “So what did Michelle Obama think of the United States before her husband decided he wanted to run the place?”
Now, thanks to Lauren Collins in the March 10, 2008, issue of The New Yorker, we know what Michelle Obama thought — and thinks — of the United States.
It isn’t pretty.
Collins’ article, “The Other Obama: Michelle Obama and the politics of candor,” depicts Michelle Obama in a generally positive light, both praising her “lack of pretense” and attempting to explain why Michelle says the things she does.
Problem is, Michelle comes across as angry and bitter — especially at the lousy hand she’s been dealt (never mind her superior private education and income, both personal and household, which is more than most Americans could ever dream of grossing) — angry at everyone and everything. This is not a role her husband’s campaign advisers want her to portray. (”‘Occasionally, it gives campaign people heartburn,’ David Axelrod, the Obama campaign’s chief strategist, admits.”)
She also just can’t seem to shut the hell up. While we’re all for outspokenness, especially from a woman (and especially from a woman belonging to a minority group; remember, yours truly is an outspoken woman who belongs to a minority group, too), she is the spouse of a presidential candidate, who, every time she opens her mouth, manages to insult a wide swath of the electorate.
It’s not difficult to envision the way her tendency — no, her compulsion — to shoot from the hip would play in her role as First Lady, especially when the precarious art of international diplomacy demands discretion.
Unfortunately, Michelle Obama hasn’t the first clue about discretion.
Beyond the cringe-making spectre of Michelle’s tactlessness offending some less-than-understanding head of state (can you say “international incident”?), the United States cannot afford to be represented by a First Lady (the official “hostess of the nation”) who repeatedly denigrates her own country. Our standing in the international community is on life support as it is; we do not need a First Lady who agrees with our detractors that the United States is a hellhole of greed and hate.
It doesn’t matter what Michelle thinks she means, or how her nebbish husband (who, notes Collins, has been “working the hapless-hubby routine for a long time”) or his campaign advisers try to “clarify,” explain, spin, or dismiss her words; it’s how her words come across. Anyone who thinks the American public is goin
