Wingnuts Go Wild With White House Guest List

Legitimate journalists went out of their way today to write that White House visitors Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Jordan and Michael Moore weren't THE ones that we all know. But that didn't stop the wingnuts from raising a fuss. They know fellow wingnuts don't care about truth. What's that? They'll simply say the White House is covering up. Paranoid minds. The price of transparency.

The White House warns that many names that may appear familiar — and controversial — do not in fact refer to the most famous people to carry those names. Jeremiah Wright is on the list, but it's not the president's former pastor. This Michael Jordan is not the basketball player. This Michael Moore is not a filmmaker. The William Ayers who took a group tour of the White House isn't the former radical from Chicago who figured so prominently in the 2008 campaign. And the Angela Davis on the list has a different middle initial than the activist and former fugitive. First Read.

See the White House visitor log here.

The Vapid Year in Journalism

Salon slams Politico for its Top 10 political scoops. Oh what fun it is to ride! Salon is right. What a vapid year. Sure wish the media could have informed us of the impending meltdown. Wasn't it Judith Miller of the NYT who told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?

Salon, which writes a lot of long-form, investigative and thoughtful pieces, must feel out in the cold. The dying media hasn't yet realized that it, too, needs to rejuvenate and renew the focus that it once held of afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted. But it can't do that without proper funding.

We'll probably live without quality journalism for a while, which will eventually lead to demand and then some new model of journalism will spring up to fill the void.

Salon's sarcastic swat:

Salon: Politico's media reporter, Michael Calderone, does an unintentionally superb job of conveying the vapid, wretched soul of the American political media, with his list of what he calls -- without any irony at all -- "The Top Ten Political Scoops of 2008":
(1) Katie Couric's interview of Sarah Palin (CBS)
(2) McCain can't say how many homes he owns (Politico)
(3) Obama's "bitter" comment (Huffington Post)
(4) Sarah Palin's shopping spree (Politico)
(5) Turmoil in the Clinton camp (Washington Post and Atlantic -- "The behind-the-scenes tension was captured by the reporters in one memorable exchange: '[Expletive] you!' Ickes shouted. '[Expletive] you!' Penn replied. '[Expletive] you!' Ickes shouted again.")
(6) Jeremiah Wright tapes (ABC News)
(7) The Pentagon's military analyst program (NY Times)
(8) Bickering in the McCain camp (NY Times Magazine)
(9) John Edwards' affair (National Enquirer)
(10) Powell endorses Obama (Meet the Press)
....
Indeed. For a politically engaged person, it is truly difficult to conceive of how any year could ever be more satisfying than one marked by riveting scandals over shopping sprees, bickering among campaign operatives, and an extramarital affair of someone who, at the time of disclosure, held no political office and was running for absolutely nothing. Anyone surveying this mountain-high pile of Pulitzer-worthy investigations can do nothing more than echo the observation of Newsweek's legendary Senior White House Correspondent, Richard Wolffe, who famously gushed: "the press here does a fantastic job of adhering to journalistic standards and covering politics in general." Who could review Calderone's glorious list of the year's top "scoops" and disagree with that?
In fairness to Calderone and his comrades in the political press, our media currently covers a country that has very few substantial problems and an administration that is renowned around the world for being competent, honest, conventional and quite uncontroversial.

Obama to Hold Series of Meetings Next Week

Marc Ambinder says Obama will hold press conferences after the meetings: 

MA: Barack Obama has summoned his key national security and economic advisers for a round of policy meetings next week in Chicago.

On Monday, Obama will meet with his national security team, including Sen. Hillary Clinton and incoming national security adviser James Jones.

On Wednesday or Thursday, Obama's economic team, including Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, will meet.

Meeting of the minds at some political shindig at the Harvard Institute of Politics:

Axelrod and Plouffe credited McCain's faltering response to the economic collapse in September as being the single most decisive event of the fall campaign.

A McCain adviser said that bringing up Rev. Wright would've pushed McCain down further:

On Rev. Jeremiah Wright and McCain's refusal to allow his campaign to bring up Obama's former preacher, McIntruff noted that when the pressure to do so was at its most intense, McCain was behind 40 points with younger voters and way behind President Bush's level of support among Hispanic voters. Bringing up Wright would have eroded McCain's standing even further, he said.

Lots more interesting tidbits.

Enough of Wright

visit the atlantic if you want to hear obama's denouncement of wright today. there are a feast of stories here and republicans are still scheming their spin-- we'll see that in days to come. but i'm convinced that most of us don't care about this anymore, so this is my final post on wright. the only way to move past this is to stop jabbering about it.
obama's comments

It's All About Wright and Miley

there's hardly a story out there that isn't about rev. wright. jeremiah wright has enabled the obama haters to make their voices louder. sharing the headlines with wright is teen star miley cyrus, hannah montana, who's in trouble for posing in vanity fair with her shoulder exposed. as you know, these are all very, very important things.

Only Anti-Obama People Hate Wright

it's a wright fest in the media today!
check out the latest headlines. here's the top 3 stories at realclearpolitics:
As Wright Speaks Out, New Problems for Obama? - Kate Phillips, NY Times
Wright Has Knocked Obama Campaign Off the Rails - Jim Geraghty, NRO
For Obama, a Voice of Doom? - Eric Pianin, Washington Post

let's face it, the only people who don't understand rev. jeremiah wright are those who don't like obama, that would be the clintons and their camp, and the republican extremists. i think there are plenty of republicans out there who are intelligent enough to know that this is merely a distraction. the rest of us, we've realized this non-issue originated with the clintons and was perpetuated by conservative republicans, in order to bring obama down. the media is merely a tool.

transcript of wright's naacp speech.
wright interview on pbs
q&a portion at the press club

Wright's Speech Called Remarkable

rev. wright spoke at an NAACP gathering tonight.
of course, people who need ammo to hate obama will always use rev. jeremiah wright, just as they'll point to a missing lapel pin. i'm glad that wright is talking because the more he stays in the dark, the more people will fear him. with this speech, perhaps the more discerning and open minded people will be able to see that exploiting wright is all part of the political game and not a real issue. we need to get beyond the banality of this election.

here's a clip. i'll post more when it's available.
wright on pbs, part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

Lesser Media Mischaracterize Wright

at truthdigg.com, there are the clips of rev. jeremiah wright's interview that will be part of the bill moyers show on pbs.

wright is going to keep popping up, which is a good thing. the more people know, the less they will be afraid. it gives voters in north carolina and indiana and the remaining states an opportunity to expand their minds and learn that wright isn't as scary as those who are on the extreme end of the political spectrum are making him out to be. it's all part of the nasty game of old-fashioned politics, folks. you either play into it or you get informed and make up your own mind.

sure, there will be plenty of people who will automatically dismiss wright. but those are the kinds of people whose minds are impenetrable.

truthdigg also offers a link to the extended videos, that put his statements in context. for the truth about the unity church of christ, visit truth about trinity.

Wright Talks as Repugnant NC Republicans Ready Attack

as north carolina republicans get set to aim an attack ad, and show just how ignorant, foolish and despicable they are, rev. jeremiah wright speaks out:

cnn: In an interview on PBS set to air Friday, Wright expressed frustration with how his sermons had been portrayed by the news media and critics of Obama's White House bid.

“I felt it was unfair,” he told PBS' Bill Moyers according to released excerpts. “I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt that those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons.”

Some of Wright's past sermons came under fire after a news report turned some of his most contentious comments into a YouTube phenomenon last month. In one, the minister said America had brought the September 11 attacks upon itself. In another, he said Clinton had an advantage over Obama because she is white. He also accused the U.S. government of adopting policies to systematically oppress African-Americans.

Oprah's Mentor Supports Clinton

poet maya angelou, of all people, is a clinton supporter. oprah winfrey, who calls angelou her mentor, is very much an obama supporter. i wonder how that's been going over.

of course, angelou has loyalties to the clintons. she was invited to read her poem at bill's inauguration. and loyalties with the clintons, as we've learned, run deep. i wonder if angelou realizes that the clintons conveniently circulated pastor wright memos and everything else that has made this campaign ugly to exploit those who don't know any better.

meanwhile, rev. jeremiah wright recently went to hear angelou speak. wright apparently loves angelou, who was celebrating her 82nd birthday. (does this mean wright likes clinton? it would if you use the logic that's been going on in this nomination process).

newsweek: As the race between Clinton and Obama has sharpened in recent months, other Clinton campaign operatives have sent around negative material about Obama's relations with Israel, according to e-mails obtained by NEWSWEEK. In addition to Brzezinski, the e-mails attack Obama advisers such as Rob Malley, a former Clinton negotiator at the 2000 Camp David talks who has since written articles sympathetic to the Palestinian point of view, and they raise questions about Obama's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor at Obama's Trinity Church in Chicago.

maya in the sun times

"I promised myself that 20 years after seeing her passion and courage (as first lady of Arkansas) that if she ever runs for anything, I'm going to support her," the author, who spent part of her childhood in Arkansas, told The Associated Press during a recent interview.

here's more:

Angelou, who turns 80 on April 4, played a brief, but memorable role in Bill Clinton's first presidential run. The poem she read at his 1993 inauguration, "On the Pulse of the Morning," was an instant sensation that became a million seller when published in book form. She was already widely known as the author of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," a coming-of-age memoir that is standard reading at schools.

Although committed to Hillary Clinton, Angelou says she would be happy to see Obama become president, 'the country's first black president,' especially after the March 18 speech prompted by his former pastor's racial statements. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, called upon "the nation to break "a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years.'"

Wright Strange To White

not to belabor the issue, at least not now anyway, this article offered more insight on the black and white divide. here's another must read: Stupid Patriotism.
rcp

White Americans want to put race behind them, to move on. And many had hoped Obama was the man to make that happen. The big surprise was learning that he belongs to a church where the past is loudly present. Obama gave himself away when, in his speech, he paraphrased William Faulkner: "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past."

Black history, meanwhile, makes it possible for many to accept the theory advanced by Wright that white men invented the AIDS virus to destroy black populations. After all, the 40-year Tuskegee syphilis study, in which about 400 black men with syphilis were left untreated and uninformed as part of an experiment, was conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Public Health Service.

Given that history, the AIDS theory doesn't require much of a leap for many in the black community. The AIDS virus has hit African-Americans harder than any other group. For blacks in the United States, HIV/AIDS is a leading cause of death, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Even though blacks account for about 13 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 49 percent of those who get HIV and AIDS. Whites account for 31 percent.

A white person might view these statistics on the CDC Web site and understand that blacks suffer more in part because of barriers such as poverty, sexually transmitted disease and cultural stigmas that put blacks at higher risk. Blacks -- especially those under the spell of Wrighteousness -- might view the same information and at least wonder if something else is going on. more more more

Stupid Patriotism is the Problem

wright isn't the problem. it's the fact that we can't get over ourselves and our pitiful reliance on being the bully on the block. cheney says his sidekick bush is the one who bears the biggest burden of the war.
are we going to continue to be ignorant, to let 4,000 more people lay more foundation for peace or are we ready for a new way of moving through the world?

a very, very good story at salon that starts out like this:

Maybe we really are doomed to elect John McCain, remain in Iraq forever and nuke Iran. Nations that forget history may not be doomed to repeat it, but those that never even recognize reality in the first place definitely are. Last week's ridiculous uproar over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons proves yet again that America has still not come to terms with the most rudimentary facts about race, 9/11 -- or itself.
...........
Wright isn't the problem. Stupid patriotism is the problem.

We are now five years into a war that may outrank Vietnam as the most pointless and disastrous one in our history. George W. Bush and his neoconservative brain trust conceived that war, but they were only able to push it through because the American people, their political leaders and the mainstream media signed off on it. And they did so because they were in the grip of the fearful, vengeful, patriotic frenzy that swept the nation after 9/11. Without 9/11 and America's fateful reaction to it, there would be no Iraq war. Every day that the war drags on is yet another indictment of that self-righteous, unthinking "patriotism."

Bill Clinton's line that McCain and Hillary are "two people who love their country" may or may not have been intended to subtly denigrate Obama's patriotism. But whatever it meant, it didn't have anything to do with the actual problems facing the country. Loving America more than your opponent does is not a qualification for higher office.

In fact, the same all-American flag-wavers who called loudest for war against Iraq are now denouncing Wright as a hate-monger and a traitor, and attacking Michelle Obama for saying that only recently has she had reason to feel proud of her country. They insist that anyone who is not permanently proud of the United States, whose patriotism isn't plastered on his or her face like the frozen smile of a beauty queen waving from a Fourth of July float, is beyond the pale. Never mind that the glorious results of their debased version of patriotism -- 4,000 American troops dead, a wrecked Iraq, and a greatly strengthened terrorist enemy -- are plain for all to see.

You wouldn't expect the Republican Party, Fox News, Bill Kristol or the readers of FreeRepublic to issue any mea culpas -- they don't acknowledge that they've done anything wrong. But the mainstream media's pious tut-tutting over the Wright affair shows that it, too, has learned nothing from its disgraceful post 9/11 performance. The worst excesses of media groveling -- the flag pins, the instructions not to run anti-U.S. stories -- may be history, but the timorous mind-set remains the same.

here's another good one, america's squid heart

Live Streaming Easter Sermon at Trinity

obama's trinity united church of christ's easter sermon live stream today. rev. james forbes will be preaching at 4 pm central time. he replaced wright
check it out and happy easter!

Truth About Trinity

here's a treat. it's a debunking of the right extreme's comments on obama's speech:

Where Was Wright Wrong?

update: cnn finds text to another sermon, which gives us more insight. it is a must read.
perhaps wright is right. it's the way he said it that scared the wits out of some white folks. and come on, we have to see that the media played a big role in pushing this for more than what it is. see the truth about trinity.
from the houston chronicle:

And there it is. ... The 800-pound gorilla that is racial strife finally slings its poo against the political wall. Let me just say this: To me, the comments made by Sen. Barack Obama's spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are pretty innocuous. I say that knowing that they are offensive to white people, but the question has to be raised — why?

Wright said that Sen. Hillary Clinton does not know what it is like to be a black man in an America run by rich white people. She doesn't. If the bone of contention is that America is not run by rich white people, I will have to humbly but unequivocally disagree and ask you to see the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. Omit the entertainers and athletes. Just how many people of color are left?

According to Forbes, all you have is Oprah Winfrey at No. 165 and, based on the earlier caveat, she is disqualified because she is an entertainer. So of the 399 richest people in America, 98 percent are white. So where was Rev. Wright wrong?

Wright also offered some conspiracy theories about how the U.S. government has wronged people of color in the past. I do not believe that the government engineered AIDS, but it did engineer the Tuskegee experiments in which young African-American men infected with syphilis were denied treatment for study. This was conducted from 1932 to 1972, well-documented and acknowledged by the U.S. government. I am sure Wright remembers this and many other racial injustices in his lifetime.

In fact, let's go over the past 100 years of the United States' "stellar" race/citizen relations: Japanese interment camps, American Indian reservations, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, late women's suffrage, the immigration debate, the proposed anti-gay marriage amendment, voter irregularities of the 2000 election, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans ...

I hate to break it to Americans, but women and people of color can be a bit paranoid when it comes to actions of the U.S. government. As are, at times, white Americans. White conservatives, especially, get angry. Commentators Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter have jobs — and huge audiences — for a reason.

Let's face facts. Put the proverbial cards on the table. read more

Context to Wright's Sermon

in this video, rev. wright compliments bill clinton and speaks of the history of government back to the days of lincoln to when bush was elected, when he begins to get angry. we see a much calmer wright in contrast to the media's endless looping. his message: where governments fail god does not fail. those infamous words come in the last few seconds of the video. see more wright sermons at truth about trinity. here's another thing i didn't know about wright. he served six years in the marine corps and the navy.



wright's bio:

Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He completed his elementary education in that city and then went to Virginia Union University. After three and a half years at Virginia Union, Pastor Wright left school and entered the United States Marine Corps. He transferred from the USMC into the United States Navy where he served as a cardiopulmonary technician.

After six years in the military, Pastor Wright transferred to Howard University where he completed his undergraduate studies and received his first Master’s Degree. His second Master’s Degree was from the University of Chicago Divinity School. His Doctorate was received from the United Theological Seminary under Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor. In addition to Pastor Wright’s four earned degrees, he has been the recipient of eight honorary doctorates.

Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. became Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC) on March 1, 1972. Within a matter of months he demonstrated an understanding and deep commitment to help TUCC achieve its motto and vision. The motto, "Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian", was a phrase coined by his predecessor, the Reverend Dr. Reuben Sheares, and was officially adopted by the congregation shortly after Pastor Wright began his ministry.

Since 1972, under Dr. Wright’s leadership, the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ grew from 87 members; and currently exceeds 6,000! The membership continues to grow numerically and spiritually with large numbers of members tithing, studying in bible classes and serving in over 70 ministries offered to enhance the Christian journey.

Dr. Wright has lectured at seminaries and universities across the United States and has represented TUCC and The United Church of Christ around the world. He is recognized as a leading theologian and pastor and has published four books and numerous articles.

a more subdued wright



to learn more about trinity united church of christ, visit truth about trinity.

Obama's Speech Sparks Venemous Attacks

you'd like to think that everyone could see things for what they are (but that's always up for debate). yesterday, obama tried to get people, many different groups of people, to understand. i don't know how much clearer he could've been. he could've spoken for a few more hours and answered questions. but you know what, it would never be enough. if you aren't open to understanding then there is none.

obama's love of his former pastor but the rejection of his political views, is precisely what makes obama the president that we need.

yet the extreme forces are in full force this morning. what else are they to do? most of the writers of the attacks have got their very being wrapped up in opposing the "democrats" or the "liberals." therefore, they must be right at all costs and they have to keep their followers energized.

what the negative forces fail to understand is the depth of the anger in the black community. they don't know the impact of the "original sin" of slavery has on people. they suffer what obama calls an empathy deficit. they don't understand the daily oppression of the black community, the problems in the black community. they don't understand the dynamics of the black church. they don't understand that white supremacy is outrageously wrong but there is room for empathy for the black community who still today are fighting the forces of hate. they don't understand that some of us can see why there is so much hatred in the world for the u.s. they don't understand that we can love our country yet be critical. they don't understand that there is a middle ground.
they don't understand the nature of wright's religious sermons. they haven't even seen those. all they've seen is a constant rerun of a few seconds of a few clips sequenced together. the media is relentless.

they can't separate rev. wright's political views from obama. it's incredibly obvious with the way obama has carried himself, his actions, his words, that he's never been hateful. just the opposite. he knows what it takes to bring people together because he understands both sides. he is a man of integrity and character.

i'm convinced that there isn't necessarily a lack of understanding. there isn't even an attempt at understanding because the people in power would do anything to stay in power. that's what this is about. they are rallying the ignorant, striking fear in their hearts that obama is an angry black man who is going to somehow crush white people once he's president. again, it's an exploitation. i do think republicans actually know better but they use the people who don't know better for their gain. it's the easiest way to accomplish their goal: get mccain in the whitehouse, keep the wars, start new ones and continue the "march of freedom."

some of their arguments this morning are quite amusing. there's a lot to choose from but i'll post a couple.

He responded by giving a speech yesterday on the problem of race in America. Unfortunately, it was a good speech--a very good speech, in fact. Obama's delivery, I thought, was a little flat; he sounded too much like a man reading a script, rather than someone opening up about his deepest convictions.

........

I spent much of last week suggesting that only a sharp repudiation of Mr. Wright's legacy of venom would solve this problem; Mr. Obama did indeed deliver weekend remarks intended to distance him from that rhetorical cesspool. Yesterday, he did it again.

But those reassuring remarks lose some value when attached to flimsy attempts to excuse that legacy. It is proper to identify righteous anger as the historic source for black evangelical rants. But there can be no room in 2008 for that anger to take the shape of poisonous references to an America where "rich white people" infect blacks with AIDS and bring on 9/11.


now for some good:

And that may have been the most significant aspect of the speech: The fact that Obama proposes a conversation, not a monologue. He not only laid out the reasons why some African-Americans might feel alienated or resentful, but also the reasons why some white Americans might feel the same way......
Obama called on African-Americans to embrace "the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past," and to take "full responsibility for our own lives." And he's absolutely right.

This amounts to a new set of talking points for a discussion about race: Don't be paralyzed by history, but acknowledge its effects. Recognize that whites have legitimate grievances that are not racist. Don't cling to victimhood as an all-purpose excuse. Accept personal responsibility.

Obama told me afterward that he doesn't intend to make race a major theme of his campaign. "I don't think that we are going to be gnawing on this bone at every stop," he said. But I believe he might have pulled off something that seemed almost impossible: He not only ventured into the minefield of race and made it back alive, but also marked a path for the rest of us to follow.

..........

Will the Gospel According to Jeremiah Wright sink the Obama candidacy? Not very likely.
Let's start with two basic facts:

(a) Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) has already won the Democratic nomination. It's over. Regardless of how the remaining primaries and caucuses go, including Michigan and even Florida, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) can never catch Obama in elected delegates. His current lead of 170 pledged delegates will not be overcome no matter what happens. Even if Clinton beats him by 10 points in each of these primaries, he will still lead among elected delegates by over 100. The superdelegates will not override the will of the voters unless Obama is in jail. They will not let themselves in for a civil war by overruling a black man who is beloved by the young by going over the heads of the electorate and naming the candidate that lost the primaries as the nominee. Regardless of how damaged Obama may be by the Wright tapes, it will not provide sufficient cover or cause for them to do so.

.....

Presidential politics usually requires candidates to either wholly adopt or reject positions and people. Mr. Obama did neither with his pastor, rejecting his most divisive statements but also filling in the picture of Mr. Wright and his church.

“The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and, yes, the bitterness and biases that make up the black experience in America,” Mr. Obama said.

It was one of several times that Mr. Obama seemed to be quite purposefully arguing two ideas at once — another dangerous tactic in presidential politics, in which statements are sifted for hints of contradiction and every speech is an attack ad waiting to happen. He admitted that his pastor is both a divisive figure and an inspiring one. He said that his candidacy should not be viewed through a merely racial lens, though racial reconciliation is one of the reasons he ran.

In interviews, Democratic and Republican strategists, scholars, and voters all agreed that Mr. Obama had given a brave, incisive speech about one of the topics most difficult to address in American life. But nearly all of them expressed doubt that his address will fully put to rest the firestorm over Mr. Wright’s statements.
.......

Black America has yet to come to grips with its responsibility to tackle head on the problems that plague our communities. White America has yet to acknowledge the fact that here in the "home of the free," true liberty has evaded many for far too long.

Too often these conversations are ended before they've truly begun, due to the ignorance, intransigence or simple unwillingness of people to acknowledge the validity of what the other side has to say.

Who can honestly argue that black America is not today contributing mightily to its own social, cultural and economic decline?

Who can honestly argue that white America has not been willfully blind and too often complicit in the injustices that continue to be visited upon people born with darker hue or stranger accent?

Who will have both the courage and the commitment to the promise of universal justice and equity that undergirds our country, to call upon the nation to move beyond the divisive rhetoric of racial "one-upmanship" and to embrace the challenge of fulfilling that promise?

Apparently a junior senator from Illinois by the name of Barack Obama.

Obama's Speech on Race and Religion

brilliant message of hope.
how many politicians could communicate this message? it's not just words. it's a powerful message not to be dismissed as just words. but people will see the speech as they see fit, through their own prejudices and life experience. the hate mongers will continue to hate but perhaps there are a few people out there whose minds will be opened. read reactions to his speech.
obama's speech as prepared (video below):

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories tha t we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicia ns, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committ ed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

The Good and Bad In All of Us

the full video

Obama's Church Stands Up

what's being spread around in the tv, newspapers and blogs are the most despicable and hateful comments and coverage condemning a whole congregation based on a few seconds of a few sequenced clips of one man's sermon. it's as if all the stupid people came out of the woodwork. (we seriously need to improve our education system and we need to start with history):

CNN:

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright's former church sharply criticized the media Sunday for recent coverage of his past controversial sermons, saying in a statement that Wright's "character is being assassinated in the public sphere."

The statement comes two days after Barack Obama, a longtime friend of Wright and attendee of the Trinity United Church of Christ, formally denounced the sermons that have recently become the subject of controversy, calling them "inflammatory and appalling."

"It is an indictment on Dr. Wright’s ministerial legacy to present his global ministry within a 15- or 30-second sound bite,” the Rev. Otis Moss III, the current pastor of the church said in the statement.

“The African American Church was born out of the crucible of slavery and the legacy of prophetic African American preachers since slavery has been and continues to heal broken marginalized victims of social and economic injustices," Moss also said. "This is an attack on the legacy of the African American Church which led and continues to lead the fight for human rights in America and around the world.”

In the same statement, the Rev. John H. Thomas, the general minister and president of the United Church of Christ — the denomination to which Wright's church belongs — said the media was creating a "caricature" of his congregation.

“It’s time for us to say ‘No’ to these attacks and declare that we will not allow anyone to undermine or destroy the ministries of any of our congregations in order to serve their own narrow political or ideological ends," Thomas said.

hallelujah and amen to that.

david kuo, at beliefnet.org, on obama's church:

Some have said Obama needs to give a Checkers Speech. He doesn't. He has done nothing wrong. His pastor holds extreme views. He has clarified and distinguished his views from his pastor's. Done. The speech he should give is a speech about the nature of faith and politics - a speech that reminds us all about the dangers of confusing the political and the spiritual. We need that speech.

kuo, by the way, was special assistant to bush.

from a pastor at the united church of christ:

In any event, we're not all radical fire-breathers like Jeremiah Wright, but we do take a familial protectiveness toward him. Even when we can't live up to the preaching of the prophets, we pride ourselves in being goaded by the best.

And we are certainly not a gang of haters. Nor is Jeremiah Wright. To mention one example I'm familiar with, the Conference Minister of the very white Wisconsin Conference went to Wright to ask for his help in establishing a black congregation in Milwaukee. The Conference Minister thought he was going to get some advice and perhaps a commitment to help in the future. Instead, after a one hour meeting, Wright declared that one of his associates would plant the church, with one year's full financial support from Trinity, since extended to two or three. Does that sound like the actions of a hater to you? It doesn't to me.

I am likewise proud of Jeremiah Wright (and yes, Barack Obama), even if I can't always go where he does in his Afrocentrism. I have enjoyed the company of more than one black congregation, and know how vibrant their faith is, how deeply held it is and how deeply connected to the plight of their people. And make no mistake: they are still in plight. Perhaps the very richest African-Americans no longer know poor folks or the sting of continued discrimination. I've never met any who didn't.

In that, for all their other faults, black Christians live close to the gospel, where white folks should be but seldom can push themselves. It stings to see a political ally dragged through the mud, but it hurts, deep, to watch as someone who actually tries to live the message of redemption and liberation in Jesus Christ is pilloried as a hater, a racist, and a purveyor of violent rhetoric.

newsweek's story on trinity

more on the church's current pastor's response at NYT