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Friday, March 14, 2008

Obama on Olbermann may have goofed

Obama said what you would expect about Rev. Wright after the uproar over the offensive remarks -- he said he disagreed with many of Wright's statements on the videos but would not "repudiate" the man entirely. But he then went a little beyond that, stating that he had not heard the reverend saying those things -- or anything like them, ever -- himself while in "the pew." And he added that he would have objected if he did hear any remarks he strongly disagreed with -- not just the ones that have surfaced -- and taken them up with Wright.

But the problem is: Obama was a fairly regular church goer in those 17 years. And even if he was not in church for the now-famous video remarks -- audio tapes or transcripts will no doubt surface of other sermons, as Jon Alter pointed out. Was Obama present for other offensive remarks and did he in fact object? Will Wright say he objected? Or perhaps there are not that many controversial remarks to worry about and we have already seen the "greatest hits" on the videos. Again: the problem is only that Obama said he had "never" heard these kinds of statements in all those years "in the pew." Not just the ones in the videos, but any truly offensive remarks. It's always a problem when you make such a categorical denial, and he didn't have to go that far at all.

To be continued, unfortunately.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you've got this wrong. The tragic, and telling, thing about Obama's Saint Peter-like denial is that much of what the Reverend said, however over-fiercely he may have put it, is commonplace and true. For example, it's simply a fact that 911 is a classic case, perhaps the classic case of blowback - and that's the best face you can put on it. Does that mean we brought 911 on ourselves? Well, what does "blowback" mean?

If progressives would just once, JUST ONCE, actually pay attention to Obama, and see past the Kumbaya group-think, they'd shudder in horror at the monster they support so enthusiastically.

Is it mean and nasty for me to call him a monster? Well, I think it's waaay beyond mean and nasty for Obama to reiterate refusal to negotiate with Hamas just after an Israeli official heinously uses the word 'holocaust' to describe what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and just before a poll comes out showing that the majority of Israelies want to negotiate with Hamas.

Obama is both a quisling and a warmonger. He's no different from what we have in the White House now.

Anonymous said...

I have watched ALL of the debates and read and watch as much news as I can. I have not seen Hillary say any of the things she is accused of saying. All of the "he said/she said" crap back and forth just detracts from the issues that really matter to Americans such as Health Care, Ending the war, energy indepence, accountability in government, social security, the economy, the environment, etc.etc etc.

The accusations in the media right now are not relevent to anything in my life. We need to force the candidates to address the issues and force the media to cover the issues.