Just a video-recap from What's-His-Name's show, in case you haven't heard any of Jeremiah Wright's controversial remarks:

That's Jeremiah Wright, the "preacher" who has been a close adviser of Barack Obama's. This is the "preacher" who presided at Obama's church, who married Barack and his wife, who baptized their children. I'm qualifying the word "preacher" because it sounds to me like he's more of a politician and a troublemaker than an actual "preacher." He sounds like the flaming-leftist version of Pat Robertson.

Obama has claimed to denounce "Reverend" Wright's ugliest examples of hate-speech, and he's claimed that he wasn't in the pews when those remarks were made. But evidence is coming to light that indicates that Obama is lying about that:

Contrary to Senator Barack Obama’s claim that he never heard his pastor Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. preach hatred of America, Obama was in the pews last July 22 when the minister blamed the “white arrogance” of America’s Caucasian majority for the world’s suffering, especially the oppression of blacks...

If Obama’s claims are true that he was completely unaware that Wright’s trademark preaching style at the Trinity United Church of Christ has targeted “white” America and Israel, he would have been one of the few people in Chicago to be so uninformed. Wright’s reputation for spewing hate is well known.

In fact, Obama was present in the South Side Chicago church on July 22 last year when Jim Davis, a freelance correspondent for Newsmax, attended services along with Obama.

Oprah Winfrey is often sited as another member of Wright's congregation... but it turns out that Oprah had sense enough to get out of that scene some years ago:

Obama’s most famous celebrity backer, Oprah Winfrey began attending Wright’s church in 1984. Last year, Newsmax magazine reported that Winfrey abruptly stopped attending years ago, and suggested that she did so to distance herself from Wright’s inflammatory rhetoric. She soon found herself a target of Wright, who excoriated her for having broken with “traditional faith.”

It's not surprising that Obama lied about sitting in the pews and quietly taking in Wright's hate-speech. But it was a mistake. He could have said something like "Reverend Wright has often made me uncomfortable and I'm glad for this chance to do what I should have done long ago..." It would have been a great opportunity to make a clean public break from this hate-monger. Obama chose not to take it.

It's no wonder that this scandal has really been the first thing to damage Obama's standing in the polls. Obama has even gone as far as claiming that Wright's views don't even fairly represent the views of the average church member. As though we can't see all those people screaming with excitement in those videos.

And, hey, God knows I'm conservative when it comes to Church services. I'm Catholic. I like classic liturgy, classical music, restraint, submission, contemplation. So maybe it's simply a matter of personal taste that makes me wonder how in the world you can call that romper-room scene a "church service" anyway. You got a preacher screaming and cursing and a bunch of people jumping around like lunatics? Come on. That's church? And don't tell me it's a race thing, either, because I've sat in Mass with blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, etc, and I've never once seen anyone jumping around like a crackhead. It's a matter of reverence. Reverence just isn't a factor when "Reverend" Wright "preaches."

Obama keeps referring to Wright as something like an "old uncle" who often says things that he doesn't agree with. That makes sense, too. We all know what it's like to have family members that say crazy stuff. But we're stuck with them; they're family. Obama wants us to feel some empathy for his situation. There's a problem here, though: Wright is not a member of Obama's family. He is not an old uncle. He's an associate, a guy Obama chose to have a close relationship with. That doesn't display very good judgment on the candidate's part.

Obama is planning to deal with this crisis by doing what he does best: making a speech. I'll be interested to see how well he can talk his way out of this. This is a PR nightmare. His whole campaign is about PR and nothing else. Wow, what a mess.

---

I suppose Hillary is sick of being out of the headlines. These past few days of Obama/Wright mania have to have been hard on her. So she's back to saying dogmatic stuff like that the Iraq war is a war that America "cannot win."

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton is going out of his way to make it clear that he hasn't said anything bad about Barack Obama. And of course he hasn't. The only person Bill Clinton ever talks about is himself:

Meanwhile, John McCain hasn't been in the news much lately. Which is fine. With Jeremiah Wright and Bill Clinton out there giving us all reasons to vote for the Arizona Senator, McCain can afford to lay low for a while.

Labels: Media, News, Obama Watch, Politics, You Tube