Obama's Pastor: God Damn America

[theworm[$]]

Ok...
I've been thinking about this, and this probably has nothing to do with anything, but....

When I was growing up, my family were members of the same synagogue for years. We were active members and went to synagogue most weeks, and every week when we left I listened to my mother criticize the Rabbi. She disagreed with a lot of what he said from the pulpit. Still, we never quit the synagogue. We were members of that Jewish Community, and while the Rabbi was the spiritual leader of that synagogue, he didn't define the Jewish community that we were a part of.

I grew up in that synagogue. That Rabbi officiated at my Bat-Mitzvah and at my first wedding. He was neither a perfect man nor a perfect Rabbi, but he was part of our Jewish Community and we were allowed to disagree with him and still be part of that community.

Why should I assume that Obama agrees with everything that the religious leader of his church says?

[drmomentum[$]]

AuntieEmma said

First, some of his supporters are emotional.

As evidenced by that big bump he got by crying on TV.

-JP

[slick4591[$]]

I don't believe anyone has to agree 100% with their spiritual advisor. I don't agree 100% of the time with mine, but I've not found another place that is as good for me spiritually so I stay. Obama should be allowed to do the same.

[realtraveller]

The bombs just keep on dropping.

Saw another video of the "Rev." Wright. In this one he says that "Israel is a dirty word" and he blames the Jews for 9/11.

People boycotted Mel Gibson's movies for less, FTLOP. I think Obama has a huge problem and I don't think he can give a speech and have it go away.

Did Obama only go to the 'loving Gospels" sermons and just happen to miss the hateful rants? I simply don't believe that after a close, 20 year relationship with Wright as his spiritual advisor, he didn't know he was a nut and a bigot.

This isn't about religion. It's about who his friends were. My cynical take is that he joined this church when it was the politically expedient thing to do. Now he's trying to distance himself because it's the politically expedient thing to do.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

drmomentum said

As evidenced by that big bump he got by crying on TV.

-JP

Hillary wasn't crying. She just had a moment -- to borrow a phrase from an old SNL sketch -- where she was a bit verklempt.

Anyway, it's true that Obama is cool as a cucumber. But I think you'd have to admit that not all of his supporters are. And if I'm right that there's an analogy to be made between people having romantic crushes and people having political crushes, and that in both cases people over-idealize the object of their admiration, then anything that threatens the illusion could cause an overreaction in the opposite direction.

But, meanwhile, as I type, Obama is speaking about this on the News Hour, and he's very good. So, we'll see.

Editing to add: The News Hour interview is available online: Online NewsHour: Newsmaker Interview | Candidate Interview: Barack Obama | March 17, 2008 | PBS

[brian_igo]

A son remembers-

When Senator Obama's preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late father -- Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer -- denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.

Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father's footsteps) rail against America's sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the "murder of the unborn," has become "Sodom" by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, "under the judgment of God." They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama's minister's shouted "controversial" comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.

[realtraveller]

Why change the subject?

When Don Imus made his racist joke, Obama said that he should be fired. Yet Obama didn't 'fire' his own pastor by leaving his racist, anti-semitic church. For 20 years.

I really don't think there's anything he can say tomorrow to make it all better. So he'll try and change the subject too.

[jgibson2[$]]

Well, as Brian said, you weren't going to vote for Obama anyway. It really doesn't matter what his preacher says.

I'm not planning, at this point, to vote FOR Obama either, although I might eventually be persuaded to vote against his opponent should he actually make it past the Clinton scheming and win the nomination.

At this point, I really could care less what his preacher thinks -- or Hillary's, or McCain's. I want to know what the hell they plan to do about the tanking economy and the mess we're in internationally.

[erik_kosberg]

his racist, anti-semitic church

A pastor is not a church. You need an agnostic to point that out?

[rmthunter]

Actually, a less-effective candidate would flail around and address the flap (I can't call it an "issue" as I'm not convinced that this particular controversy is an issue) as framed by the opposition, which Obama doesn't do. He goes beyond the framing and turns it around -- going to the issue rather than addressing (and validating) the spin.

And he stays on message.

[hadassahchana[$]]

1. Tossing Oprah into this mess is a straw man. She's not going to be nominating people to the Supreme Court. The next president is.

2. I refuse to listen to anyone's speeches. I can hire a great sppechwriter and move y'all to tears or piss you off to the point that you'd never speak to me again. Doesn't much matter who says what at least to some extent. Actions only as far as I'm concerned.

3. My dad always said you could judge a man as much by his enemies as by his friends. I want to know who Obama won't have anything to do with, that says a lot to me. Can anyone come up with that list? I think it would be much more interesting than finding out who his pastor is, or his dry cleaner, or...

4. The only thing which worries me about any of this comes from living in Detroit for way too long. Politics here are completely polarized by race, courtesy of Coleman Young's legacy. We currently have a mayor who has cost the city millions from settling lawsuits with many more remaining. He outspent his city-funded legal fees in his first two years in office. He bought his wife a luxury car on the city credit card. He fired anyone who spoke out against him- some of the lawsuits are being settled now. Recently he took a long vacation at a kuxury spa with his mistress. And texted her cell, only accidetnally sent it to a member of city council instead. Oops. His minister has stood up at press conferences and stated that the mayor is an honest man, a good politician and is committed to rebuilding the city which the white people destroyed, for the love of MF cats on motocycles. That kind of stuff does make me cringe, the values promoted in churches like that are not my own, and in that regard I think that Kathy is correct in saying that this is going to hurt Obama in middle America. Whether that's fair or not is beyond my guess, and it won't necessarily make me vote against him- but it certainly will make me do my homework and try to dig up real info about him and not rely on columnists and headlines, and speeches, to decide who to vote for.

[realtraveller]

I heard the speech. He admitted what he had denied in the past; that he had heard Wright's 'controversial' (I would say bigoted, anti-American) comments. He said he would not renounce Wright even though he disagreed with his comments.

But he didn't say that he'd ever talked to Wright about those comments. If his pitch is to tone down the racial rhetoric and be a uniter, did he ever try to do this with Wright? Did he ever say to Wright "your words are racist, bigoted and wrong and you are doing a disservice to racial harmony" Did he ever tell Wright how 'profoundly' he disagreed with his sermons?

How can he 'change' this country, if he didn't even try to 'change' his close friend and pastor?

[theworm[$]]

He disagrees with Wright.
Our country believes in freedom of speech. Wright has the right to show the world he's a bigot.


And how do we know whether or not he told Wright if he disagreed with his sermons? You're assuming he didn't.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

Video of the speech:

Crooks and Liars » Barack Obama’s Speech on Race…

[realtraveller]

theworm said

He disagrees with Wright.
Our country believes in freedom of speech. Wright has the right to show the world he's a bigot.


And how do we know whether or not he told Wright if he disagreed with his sermons? You're assuming he didn't.

If he ever attempted to persuade Wright that his comments were racist and anti-Semitic, he didn't say that in his speech. Did he ever speak out against Wright's comments before all these sermons hit TV? There's no evidence that he did.

So apparently (we have nothing from Obama to dispel this) he sat quietly and let a racist promote more racism.

That's not courage. That's not 'change'. That's not promoting 'racial unity'.

[rmthunter]

hadassahchana said

1. Tossing Oprah into this mess is a straw man.

I threw Oprah in because I'm convinced the whole brouhaha is a red herring. Wright is not Obama. Granted, Oprah's not running for office, but then, neither were the Dixie Chicks. Why don't we treat them the same?

We're just seeing another variation of the swiftboating of McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary and Kerry in the 2004 election. The only reason this has any traction is that the right-wing noise machine, with its enablers in the mainstream media, keeps repeating it. It's a basic tactic: if you repeat it often enough, it becomes part of the public perception, and therefore, it's true. (If you think I'm dragging in the media just for show, note that William Kristol, uber-neocon and now a regular columnist for NYT, published the same -- shall we say "mistake"? -- that Kathy tries to propagate [see below] in a column this weekend without ever checking. His source? Newsmax, which is about as reliable a source as Bill "Gun-Toting Lesbian Gangs" O'Reilly.)

Sounds to me like the Republicans are running scared. Already.

realtraveler said

I heard the speech. He admitted what he had denied in the past; that he had heard Wright's 'controversial' (I would say bigoted, anti-American) comments. He said he would not renounce Wright even though he disagreed with his comments.

Excuse me -- I just watched the video. Obama said he has heard Wright make controversial comments. That's not the same as being in the church for "that" sermon (at which time, according to his campaign, he was in Miami). In fact, it's rather a significant difference. Your own comments show that you're reading a lot into it that wasn't there.

On belonging to churches, to echo Wormie: My family stayed in a Baptist church for years, even though my parents disagreed with a lot of what the pastor preached. They finally left when he started scaring my baby sister. (He was a real fire-and-brimstone type; she started getting hysterical during sermons. End of story.)

Which is merely to illustrate, as a number of commentators have pointed out, that it's not necessarily, or even primarily the pastor that brings people into a church or keeps them there -- it is the church community, which isn't the same thing at all. I suspect that those of you who are church members know this already, and perhaps that's why some of you could care less about Wright's remarks and how they reflect on Obama -- because they don't.

[realtraveller]

It was much more than one sermon. There were multiple sermons.

1. AIDS was a government plot to kill black people.

2. Israel is a dirty word and the Jews caused 9/11.

3. 9/11 caused by America "the chickens coming home to roost."

4. Because blacks are in prison and there are three-strikes laws blacks should say "God Damn America".

5. Bill Clinton did to America what he did to Monica, the 'riding dirty' sermon.

You can see the tapes and see that Wright is dressed differently. And these are just the sermons that have been aired.

We'll see how the speech plays in Pennsylvania and the primaries to come. And in the opinion polls.

But I don't see how he could say in the speech that his close relationship with a man like Wright is a 'distraction'. It goes to the very heart of who he is.

[rmthunter]

realtraveller said

If he ever attempted to persuade Wright that his comments were racist and anti-Semitic, he didn't say that in his speech. Did he ever speak out against Wright's comments before all these sermons hit TV? There's no evidence that he did.

So apparently (we have nothing from Obama to dispel this) he sat quietly and let a racist promote more racism.

That's not courage. That's not 'change'. That's not promoting 'racial unity'.

Lord. Love. A. Duck.

That's about as far off point as you can get and still put it in this thread. Have you been listening to anything Obama's been saying on his own behalf? Apparently not.

[rmthunter]

realtraveller said

But I don't see how he could say in the speech that his close relationship with a man like Wright is a 'distraction'. It goes to the very heart of who he is.

That's another BS statement. I've had very close personal relationships with people with whom I had some fundamental disagreements. Y'know what? We didn't let that determine the relationship, but instead built on the areas in which we were sympathetic.

They certainly didn't determine who I am. That's just crap.

[theworm[$]]

Worm turns to leave without making any disparaging remarks about anyone sitting quietly and not being courageous.