First, I need to say...I don't care how often a Presidential candidiate goes to church..I don't care if he or she claims to pray daily...short of some cult that endorses human sacrifice, I don't care what religion our candidates endorse or belong to. I am concerned when a candidiate exercises bad judgement...when a candidate seems to endorse clearly racist, ignorant, hate-speech..when a candidate's "religious advisor" is video taped saying "god damn America" in a sermon...and when a candidate dismisses thoses concerns as being like when your crazy uncle says things that they shouldn't...so, in the hope that Obama will actually do the right thing while assuming that he won't...here if the latest on Obama's bad judgement from Larry Johnson' NoQuarterUSA.net/blog: "Imagine for a moment Hillary had for two decades embraced a minister and a church that preached racism or hatred for America as Wright’s has done. Imagine that she had embraced a minister who claims that America “started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty.”
Hillary Clinton not only would not be running for president, she wouldn’t be in the Senate, she probably would not be employable in public life anywhere. The question is after how many such speeches was Mr. Obama’s response to draw the man closer, to elevate him higher?
What if Hillary’s response to Ferraro’s outburst (which was not in the slightest bit racist) was to say, “Aw, shucks, don’t mind her, she’s like a batty old aunt who sometimes says things she shouldn’t?”
Do you think CNN’s Anderson Cooper, as he did last night about Obama’s pastor, would have asked, “I mean, does it matter?”
Or that Gloria Borger would have replied, “I think, honestly, it depends on how much the Clinton [Obama] campaign decides to make of this …”?
Or that Ms. Borger would have offered Clinton this reassurance? “If he feels the need to distance himself even more, I bet he will.” Ahhhh.
No. Jack Cafferty, Wolf Blitzer, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews et al. would be hammering the $22,500 donation to Jeremiah Wright’s racist church — more than twice what the Obamas gave to any other charitable group — at the TOP of their newscasts. That is if this were Clinton’s tax form:
Obama’s 2006 Tax Form. It is shown on page 21 of 23 of the pdf file. The amount is $22,500 to Trinity United Church of Christ.
Hillary Clinton knows this. She knows how the media will fixate on the most trivial or the most meaningful parts of her tax returns. She has complied fully, and yearly, with the Senate Ethics Committee’s requirements for financial disclosure, but she has to have trepidation about releasing all to the media in the midst of a highly contested race because she knows what the media will do.
The media are couching all criticisms of Obama’s 20-year association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who married him and Michelle and baptized both of their daughters with remarks like Ms. Borger’s — “If he feels the need to distance himself even more, I bet he will.”
The media are not reporting, clearly, that the Obamas give Wright’s church more than they give to any other charitable group.
The media are not — in light of the anti-American views of his minister — re-scrutinizing the infamous photograph of Obama standing next to Bill Richardson — with Obama’s hands at his side, while Richardson’s right hand is over his heart during the pledge of allegiance.
The media are ignoring the now-obvious (to anyone with common sense) ties between Michelle’s negative statements about America and the views held by her pastor, who she’s listened to for decades.
[She won’t even commit to supporting the Democratic nominee if it’s not her Barack? Astonishing. IMAGINE IF BILL OR CHELSEA CLINTON HAD SAID THIS.]
[The Seattle Times op-ed adds: “And Michelle Obama didn’t help with her comment about finally, in her 40s, “being proud of my country for the first time,” and suggesting to a young audience in a working-class Ohio town that they should sidestep “corporate America” and instead seek out more rewarding, lower-paying jobs in teaching and social work. Whom did she think she was talking to, the senior class at Vassar?”]
I’ll stick my neck out and ask this:
Do we want a president and First Lady who have been inculcated for 20+ years with the racist propaganda that America is AmeriKKKa, that America had it coming on 9/11, that AIDS was given to black people by white people, and that rich white men run America and therefore America deserves nothing but their contempt and incendiary hatred?
Do we?"
