The media and public have once again gotten sucked up by the rhetoric of Barack Obama. He made an eloquent speech on race relations in today's society and everyone seems willing and ready to let him off the hook for his relationship with Jeremiah Wright. It's a red herring, people!
The issue is not specifically what inflammatory things Wright said. I think Obama's point about a different era makes a lot of sense, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that our senator and potential President did not have the common sense and judgment to reject Wright's words the moment he heard them.
I'm a religious guy. If my priest started saying the things Wright did, I might walk out. I certainly would not go back to that church year after year. I would find another place to worship. I don't care if that priest brought me into the faith. Unless I agreed with him, or believed what he was preaching from the pulpit, there is no reason to stay.
Of course, I'm not running for elected office. I don't need the overwhelming support of a community on the South Side of Chicago. I also am not out of town enough where I can just drop in for a service here and there and not worry about it.
Who do we want answering the phone at 3am? Who do we want sitting down with Castro and Kim Jong-Il? Obama has told us time and time again that the American people need someone with sound judgment and the ability to assess situations as they present themselves. Yet he could not do that for his own church or his pastor.
Twenty years Obama belonged to that church. We know Wright's been saying these things since at least 2001 (five days after September 11th, in fact, he blamed the attack on the U.S.). And we know Obama's heard these sermons thanks to previous reports and his admission Tuesday (which, by the way, went back on what he originally said, that he had not heard anything like that. But don't expect the media to call him on these lies).
AND, Wright was a member of Obama's campaign. He was an adviser. It wasn't until the crap hit the fan that he was removed from the post.
What fantastic judgment, Barack. Way to take a stand.
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