Obama’s Whack-a-Doo Pastor

It was only a matter of time before Barack Obama’s association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of The Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, became a problem for him. His wacky afro-centric sermons are now on wide display all over the internet, and it’s a fair question to ask, “What kind of man attends a church in which the pastor says, ‘God Damn America’ over and over?” What kind of father brings his children to such a church? Is it fair to wonder if this is the place where Michelle Obama is getting some of her America hating ideas?

Liberals, Like Alan Colmes last night on H&C, try to poo poo the connection between Obama and his pastor. Obama can’t be held responsible for everything that comes out of his pastor’s mouth, they simper.

It would be one thing, if this were a church he was only nominally involved with, and let’s say, only attended on Christmas and Easter, but he’s been a member for twenty years:

Since the 1980s, Obama has not only remained a regular attendee at Wright’s services in his inner city mega church, Trinity United Church of Christ, along with its other 8,500 members, he’s been a close disciple and personal friend of Wright. Wright conducted Obama’s marriage to his wife Michelle, baptized his two daughters, and blessed Obama’s Chicago home. Obama’s best-selling book, “The Audacity of Hope,” takes its title from one of Wright’s sermons.

So to describe Wright’s connection to Obama as just someone he knows “informally”, with whom Obama “disagrees at times”, “a kind of cranky uncle”…is not terribly honest.

I’ve left churches over much, much less than what Reverend Wright has said. For Obama to say, years after these race-baiting, America-hating sermons, that he doesn’t approve, doesn’t pass muster with me. Why did he continue going there?

Additionally:

Wright is a member of Obama’s African American Religious Leadership Committee — the sort of largely honorary, advisory body that in recent days has recently been used mostly to throw people off who say controversial things.

This is what Obama had to say about his longtime Pastor, last summer:

“It was … at Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago that I met Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who took me on another journey and introduced me to a man named Jesus Christ. It was the best education I ever had,” Obama described his spiritual pilgrimage to a group of church ministers this past June.

Here’s what the good Reverend himself has said on a number of subjects:

Wright on 9/11: “White America got their wake-up call after 9/11. White America and the Western world came to realize people of color had not gone away, faded in the woodwork, or just disappeared as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.” On the Sunday after the attacks, Dr. Wright blamed America.

Wright on the disappearance of Natalee Holloway: “Black women are being raped daily in Africa. One white girl from Alabama gets drunk at a graduation trip to Aruba, goes off and gives it up while in a foreign country and that stays in the news for months.”

Wright on Israel: “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.”

Wright on America: He has used the term “middleclassness” in a derogatory manner; frequently mentions “white arrogance” and the “oppression” of African-Americans today; and has referred to “this racist United States of America.

Cranky old uncle, indeed.

This story isn’t going away any time soon.

UPDATE:

The American Spectator is reporting that Obama at one point considered changing church affiliation, as advisers sought to distance their man from what was considered to be a potential problem.

UPDATE:

Mona Charen at the Corner on Obama’s true beliefs:

I am coming to believe that Barack Obama is one of the greatest con artists we’ve seen.

His entire campaign has been about “coming together,” a post-racial consensus, etc. Any mention of his middle name was immediately condemned as ignorant fear-mongering. He has played the role of racial unifier with great skill and finesse. But there is a great deal of evidence out there that he is anything but.

I’ve been thinking the same exact thing….the guy’s a con artist. One hesitates to accuse someone of such a thing…but what other conclusion can there be? After listening to only a few of the sermons he’s been privy to for lo these past 20 years, and considering the other associations he’s had over the years, it’s rather hard to take him seriously as a “post racial” uniter. His whole campaign appears to be a gigantic sham.

UPDATE:

Here’s LGF on the media coverage of Obama and his pastor. Or I should say, non-media coverage.

The Nose On Your Face has The Top 9 Obama Campaign Slogans As Suggested By Reverend Jeremiah Wright.