Why are people still feeling the need to defend Jeremiah Wright? Obama spent thirty-seven minutes trying to do it, and his supporters have been doing it ever since. That in itself says there is something very wrong with Jeremiah Wright and his philosophies. I would think Obama supporters would just like the issue to go away. My suggestion is that you leave it for the Republicans in the Fall. Talking about it now just gives away your damage control strategies.

Excellent sermon.

There are two issues with Wright. One is whether what he says is correct, the other is whether people will be able to comprehend it.

I think Wright is right, but he may be hard on the stomachs of those who have been living on pablum.

To me, he seemed to be a very caring, concerned person (in the two sermons I watched), saying things like: don't attack people out of a need for revenge.
That should be played over and over too.

Otto - Wrights comments cut to the very core of the divide. It is a difficult place because no one is square in the middle. Either you accept and/or understand what he said or you are completely intolerant of and reject it. It opens the conversation with a jolt and it's sometimes uncomfortable but it's also urgent because we are one country and we need to stand together. This is not about damage control strategies, it's about continuing a poignant and necessary conversation, about not putting your head in the sand.

oh man, patriots like Nat Turner, a nutcase who led a murderous and pointless so called rebellion_, or MLK, a good enough speaker and organizer I suppose, but also a guy who obtained a doctorate by fraud, these are your heroes. and wright, a true fruitcake who blathers on with idiotic conspiracy theories and oozes dignitude. ugh. I cannot tell you how glad I am to work in an environment where my colleagues are chosen on the basis of competence, and not after some hand wringing diversity committee decides that x perentage of affirmative action babies must be hired so the corporate brochure can exhibit their shining faces. In my firm, which has 40 pecent women at the highest levels and a wide range of people from different ethnic backgrounds, I can presume my colleagues to be competent. In the US, I would preseme any african american doctor, lawyer or other professional to be incompetent, merely based on what I observed in law skool and business skool. And based on what friends of mine who are doctors and lawyers tell me. Incidentally, these friends are all Democrats.

I LOVE the Rev. Wright, the Willie Horton of 2008.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/

Obama advance: 'Get me more white people'

From the account in Carnegie Mellon's paper, the Tartan, of a Michelle Obama event in Pittsburgh:

While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama’s event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama.

The Tartan’s correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, “Get me more white people, we need more white people.” To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, “We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.”

“I didn’t know they would say, ‘We need a white person here,’ ” said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. “I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn’t know it would be so outright.”

I'm not sure there's any real reason for outrage here; every campaign, at least implicitly, includes race in the staging of events like this -- even a campaign whose supporters chant "race doesn't matter." But they don't usually get caught doing it this explicitly.

And (if you didn't pick it up from the bowling) it does give you a sense of the community Obama's trying to reach in Pennsylvania: whitefolks.

This was a very disappointing sermon. I was hoping to get some insight into why so many liberals defended Wright. Unfortunately, he talked all around Wright's words without ever bothering to examine them and explain how they were anything other than evidence of his a) hatred of America and black Republicans and b) paranoia.

Look at this second paragraph. He tells us that Wright's words were taken out of context (a claim he repeats twice more) and that we need to understand the prophets and the role of the black church in America. Fine.

He then goes on to explain a) how the Biblical and modern prophets said some outrageous things and even stretched the truth to make their point and b) the many obstacles the black church overcame and the great value it offers all of us. Again, fine.

He never bothers, though, to tie this back to Wright and his claims that a) the govt invented AIDS to kill blacks, b) that 9/11 was just the chickens coming home to roost, c) that it should be "God Damn America," not "God Bless America, d) that we are the US of KKK A, and e) that Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice are basically Uncle Toms.

Come on, Reverend. You understand logic. If you tell us these quotes were taken out of context, give us the context in which those are not paranoid and virulently anti-American comments. I understand that ancient and modern prophets angered their peers, but it does not logically follow that everyone who says outrageous things is a prophet. I have no reason to doubt that the black church has a proud tradition, but have no idea how that tradition should change our interpretation of Wright's rants.

It also appears that Lavanhar isn't too crazy about America himself. He says, "Imagine a society that exploits and neglects the poor and immigrant. And doesit under an illusion that they are teh righteous of the world. (I guess that's not too hard for us to imagine either, is it?)" I don't know why he is so down on America, but he ought to get his facts straight. If America treated its immigrants so poorly, we wouldn't have 12-20M million of them here illegally, and we wouldn't have 100+ year tradition of immigration. As the grandson of 4 immigrants, I can assure him that we treat immigrants.