Obama Says “Wright Was Never My Political Council”

Bestest photoshop evah! ^^^ (She SAID we could use it).

Fox News reports:

Barack Obama said Sunday he never sought Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s counsel on political issues and would “absolutely not” seek his advice on policy if he gets to the White House.

The Democratic presidential candidate said his retiring pastor built a wonderful church that “lived out the social gospel,” but ultimately Wright’s comments about the United States “over the last several months and over the last several years … are contrary to what I stand for and who I am.”

Well huh! I’m scratching my head here, because I distinctly recall him saying in January 2007:

Obama says that rather than advising him on strategy, Wright helps keep his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated.

“What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice,” Obama said. “He’s much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I’m not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that’s involved in national politics.”

Now….when Obama says “not his day-to-day political advice”, he doesn’t mean he doesn’t get “day to day political advice” from reverend Wright. He just means it’s just not what he values most about his relationship with his pastor.

But his statement does strongly suggest some “day to day political advice”.

Now perhaps Obama didn’t/doesn’t consider Wright a political councilor because he never sought his advice, and the good reverend just offered it in an unsolicited manner….. “Day-to-day”.

Obama just never told him to can it because he’s such a nice guy, and all.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Just sayin’

UPDATE:

Alice H. reminds me of this well known example of Obama/Wright political consultation:

(From the WSJ):

The title of Mr. Obama’s bestseller “The Audacity of Hope” comes from one of Wright’s sermons. Mr. Wright is one of the first people Mr. Obama thanked after his election to the Senate in 2004. Mr. Obama consulted Mr. Wright before deciding to run for president. He prayed privately with Mr. Wright before announcing his candidacy last year.

You know what? I’ll quit playing “gotcha” when he quits lying.

Flight 93 Memorial Controversy Covered By Fox News

Crescent controversy on Fox News television and Fox News front page!

Check out the Fox News front page today, where “Crescent Outrage” alternates top billing with “Six-Legged Soldiers!” Finally, more than a handful of Americans will at least know that there is a controversy over the Flight 93 memorial.

They won’t get much more than that from Fox’s text report, which is pretty bare. There is no mention of the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent, no mention of the 44 inscribed translucent blocks on the flight path, no mention of the Islamic sundial, and no fact checking (the modern media disease). Still, this is big.

The text report DOES show the side-by-side comparison of the Crescent of Embrace and the Islamic crescent and star insignia. It also reports Tom Burnett’s condemnation of the crescent design as an insult to his murdered son, and it mentions our petition.

UPDATE: Red Lasso has the Fox News video clip (thanks to Avid Editor).

This is powerful stuff. Not only do they show the clear likeness between the original design and an Islamic crescent and star flag, but the image they show of the redesign shows pretty clearly how the giant crescent remains intact in the redesign:

From the crescent and star likeness, they cut to Tom Burnett, asking what people would think if a memorial were laid out in the shape of a swastika. If viewers hadn’t just seen the crescent and star likeness, that statement could be made to sound crazy, but Fox does right by Tom, giving viewers the information they need to see the reasonableness of the comparison. Many thanks to Fox for getting this right.

Fox has a lot more information at their disposal. They had a television crew at the Somerset County Courthouse yesterday where Colonel Harry Beam laid out a precise and devastating exposé of Islamic and terrorist memorializing design features, and they were sent extensive fact checking materials. None of this gets into their present reporting, but if they use it for an investigative feature, they can knock the crescent memorial out for good.

UPDATE II: Avid Editor found another completely different Fox News segment on Red Lasso. This one is even better, mentioning the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent!