I guess they just couldn't resist. The prudent thing would be to give your Philadelphia speech on Wright and race, receive the applause, drop the subject and walk quickly away. Instead, for the sake of counter-punching the Clinton campaign, the Obama people released this photograph of President Bill Clinton greeting Rev. Jeremiah Wright at a 1998 prayer breakfast. It was at this particular prayer breakfast that the President confessed, regarding his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, "I have sinned." By the way, if those three words had been the substance of Obama's Great Speech, the matter would be largely laid to rest by now.
The picture is entirely unremarkable and, even with the invitation and letter that Obama made available with the picture, proves nothing regarding the Clintons' relationship with the infamous religious leader. Two comments on the New York Times website summarize the matter well. The first one refers to the following thank you letter that Wright received from the President.
The picture is entirely unremarkable and, even with the invitation and letter that Obama made available with the picture, proves nothing regarding the Clintons' relationship with the infamous religious leader. Two comments on the New York Times website summarize the matter well. The first one refers to the following thank you letter that Wright received from the President.
Dear Pastor Wright:
Thank you so much for your kind message.
I am touched by your prayers and by the many expressions of encouragement and support I have received from friends across our country.
You have my best wishes.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton
"Michelle" writes:
It’s a nice form letter that obviously went to all the clerics in attendance….c’mon!
Obama dedicated his book…20 years of his church going life…and about 2,000$ a week to a hate spewing bigot….he calls “like a uncle to me”….
And I am supposed to be worried about Clinton's judgement?
NOBAMA 2008 Hypocrisy Tour. Featuring his #1 Hit, “Words Matter”
"Blah Blah …Hope (hate)…Blah Blah …Change ( same old thing)…Blah Blah ..Hope and Change ( just another politician)…Blah."
Also "Jay" said this:
Who cares? Obama knew Wright intimately as his minister for 22 years and listened to his tapes at Harvard before then. Wright spews racial hatred with utter and complete passion and his church is a cauldron of racial hatred. And Obama is his intimate friend. Obama lied that he didn’t know about such incendiary racist views and isn’t to be trusted. He is very attracted to this man’s views and is a racist. There is no way he’ll win a general election. No way.
(I didn't read far to get these. Time is precious.)
Jay is right. Just as Obama did not understand that his grandmother's indiscreet private comments and Geraldine Ferraro's overly candid musings in comparison to Jeremiah Wrights pulpiteering tirades were vastly disproportionate to one another, so here he does not see that his 2o year, pew sitting, CD buying, donation giving, soul forming relationship with Wright bears no resemblance to Bill Clinton inviting Wright, a prominent black church leader, to prayer breakfast.
Another interpretation of this photo release is that this issue is bigger than the Philadelphia speech canonizers imagined, and that it is getting bigger all the time. The speech itself raised more questions than it laid to rest. (By the way, that is the mark of a bad "crisis response" speech.) Thus, the Obama campaign is having to deflect attention and spread the blame, but in so doing they are directing further attention to this issue instead of to the candidate's divine glow where it has been up until now.
The New York Sun has come up with information on the closest thing Hillary Clinton has to pastors in "Hillary’s Pastor, in Interview, Sympathizes With Jeremiah Wright" (April 2, 2008). But these men are not radicals. They are just standard, left wing, mainline United Methodists. Furthermore, I see no evidence that HRC has been influenced by religion anywhere near as much as Barack Obama has been.
Jay is right. Just as Obama did not understand that his grandmother's indiscreet private comments and Geraldine Ferraro's overly candid musings in comparison to Jeremiah Wrights pulpiteering tirades were vastly disproportionate to one another, so here he does not see that his 2o year, pew sitting, CD buying, donation giving, soul forming relationship with Wright bears no resemblance to Bill Clinton inviting Wright, a prominent black church leader, to prayer breakfast.
Another interpretation of this photo release is that this issue is bigger than the Philadelphia speech canonizers imagined, and that it is getting bigger all the time. The speech itself raised more questions than it laid to rest. (By the way, that is the mark of a bad "crisis response" speech.) Thus, the Obama campaign is having to deflect attention and spread the blame, but in so doing they are directing further attention to this issue instead of to the candidate's divine glow where it has been up until now.
The New York Sun has come up with information on the closest thing Hillary Clinton has to pastors in "Hillary’s Pastor, in Interview, Sympathizes With Jeremiah Wright" (April 2, 2008). But these men are not radicals. They are just standard, left wing, mainline United Methodists. Furthermore, I see no evidence that HRC has been influenced by religion anywhere near as much as Barack Obama has been.
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