Rev. Jeremiah Wright: Obama's Mentor for 20 years

eggcream wrote: [quote=queencallipygos]...Kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel, there, Eicreme.

Boygabriel wrote: eggcream doesn't respond to comparisons.

eggcream wrote: Here's to Hillary kicking barry and his bitter wife back to Ill.

eggcream wrote: [quote=queencallipygos][quote=eggcream][quote=queencallipygos]...Kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel, there, Eicreme.

SevenOneEighty wrote: Obama, quit that friggin' albatross of a church already.

daver wrote: [quote=jeffrey][quote=SevenOneEighty]Obama, quit that friggin' albatross of a church already.

CAMPAIGN 2008
Something Wasn’t Wright

Why Oprah Winfrey left Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church.
By Allison Samuels | NEWSWEEK
May 12, 2008 Issue

For any spiritually minded, up-wardly mobile African-American living in Chicago in the mid-1980s, the Trinity United Church of Christ was—and still is—the place to be. That's what drew Oprah Winfrey, a recent Chicago transplant, to the church in 1984. She was eager to bond with the movers and shakers in her new hometown's black community. But she also admired Trinity United's ambitious outreach work with the poor, and she took pride in upholding her Southern grandmother's legacy of involvement with traditional African-American houses of worship. Winfrey was a member of Trinity United from 1984 to 1986, and she continued to attend off and on into the early to the mid-1990s. But then she stopped. A major reason—but by no means the only reason—was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

According to two sources, Winfrey was never comfortable with the tone of Wright's more incendiary sermons, which she knew had the power to damage her standing as America's favorite daytime talk-show host. "Oprah is a businesswoman, first and foremost," said one longtime friend, who requested anonymity when discussing Winfrey's personal sentiments. "She's always been aware that her audience is very mainstream, and doing anything to offend them just wouldn't be smart. She's been around black churches all her life, so Reverend Wright's anger-filled message didn't surprise her. But it just wasn't what she was looking for in a church." Oprah's decision to distance herself came as a surprise to Wright, who told Christianity Today in 2002 that when he would "run into her socially … she would say, 'Here's my pastor!' " (Winfrey declined to comment. A Harpo Productions spokesperson would not confirm her reasons for leaving the church.)

But Winfrey also had spiritual reasons for the parting. In conversations at the time with a former business associate, who also asked for anonymity, Winfrey cited her fatigue with organized religion and a desire to be involved with a more inclusive ministry. In time, she found one: her own. "There is the Church of Oprah now," said her longtime friend, with a laugh. "She has her own following."

Friends of Sen. Barack Obama, whose relationship with Wright has rocked his bid for the White House, insist that it would be unfair to compare Winfrey's decision to leave Trinity United with his own decision to stay. "[His] reasons for attending Trinity were totally different,'' said one campaign adviser, who declined to be named discussing the Illinois senator's sentiments. "Early on, he was in search of his identity as an African-American and, more importantly, as an African-American man. Reverend Wright and other male members of the church were instrumental in helping him understand the black experience in America. Winfrey wasn't going for that. She's secure in her blackness, so that didn't have a hold on her.'' And while Winfrey, who has endorsed Obama and campaigned on his behalf, had long understood the perils of a close association with Wright, friends say she was blindsided by the pastor's personal assault on Obama. "She felt that Wright would never do anything to hurt a man who looked up to him as a father figure," said her close friend. "She also never thought he'd intentionally hurt someone trying to make history and change the lives of so many people.''

SevenOneEighty wrote: I think Obama's church is still going to be a problem for him in the Fall.
Srsly.

I really think this church may spell the end for Mr. Obama even if he barely wins the nomination this weekend.

daver wrote: Too little, too late?

18 wrote: I have to vent, Clinton supporters[/size]
by altruista
Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 05:19:50 PM PDT

I'm a 55-year-old white woman. Our greatest matter of urgency in America is to be sure a Democrat becomes President in November, and to get as many Democrats as possible elected to both houses of Congress. We need to do the same thing at state and local levels.

altruista's diary :: ::


I've never supported any political candidate enough to campaign or canvass for them. I've never felt that any candidate would be able to keep their campaign promises once they got into power and went up against the machinery that's occupying this country today. I've never felt strongly enough about a candidate to feel moved to be an activist for them. No candidate can ever be all things to everyone. And until now I've been able to keep a respectful silence while others with very strong feelings for either of the Democratic candidates for President have public melt-downs when their candidate has a political setback.

I can't keep quiet now. I've just been watching a white woman in my age group on CNN going radioactive to the cameras about how she's going to vote for McCain if Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn't get the Democratic nomination. She gave as her rationale for this chop-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face tactic that the Democratic party has turned on its women supporters.

To this woman, if you and others like you are reading this: and you'd like the proven record of Republican conservatives for their all-out war on women's rights? We're now paying the price for three decades of conservative domination in America---what it's done to the American character; the fact of American commerce now as morally bankrupt as it is; the abuses of Wall Street; the abuse of the environment; the poisonous cynicism and corruption of this administration---I could go on for pages.

Back to the issue of women's rights. You, woman screaming into the cameras: you are old enough to remember the pre-Roe v. Wade days in America. Remeber coat hangers, Drano, women hurling themselves down steps, women dying and left unable to bear children from illegal botched abortions? Remember birth control outlawed? Remember the early 1970s, when a woman could not get a credit card or bank loan in her own name---when a woman needed an adult male co-signer's permission for them because we were deemed incompetent to manage our own financial affairs? Remember when sexual harassment and open sex discrimination were legal? Remember when we didn't have rape shield laws, when marital rape wasn't illegal? Remember when a woman being used as a punching bag by her husband had no recourse---had no earning power, no options, when the police she turned to often were abusers themselves and sympathized with the husband, when domestic violence shelters weren't even a twinkle in anyone's eye?

If I remember all of that---and I do---then you do, too, Screaming Woman. Republicans fought the changes that spare today's women those infringements of basic human rights. Give the Republican Party platform a close reading. They want to return us to those days. And because the Democratic Party enacts a decision you (and maybe I) don't agree with, you're really going to show them, and vote for McCain? The same McCain who, in front of a group of people and in a mouth-frothing rage, called his wife a cunt? The same McCain who mocked Chelsea Clinton, a child at the time, as ugly? The same McCain who vows to appoint Supreme Court justices who will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade? The same McCain who simply laughed when a Republican woman asked him, on camera, "How do we beat the bitch?"---referring to Clinton, your candidate of choice? The Democratic Party's decision was worse than this?

Please. Get things in perspective. I do not consent to watching Republicans---the American Taliban---imposing their misogynistic policies on my nieces. Grow up. I seldom use language this strong, and I understand your anger. But remember who our adversaries are. Rememeber what they're made of, remember the damage they've done already and the worse damage they surely will do if we vote them back into power. Truly, Screaming Woman, I cannot wrap my brain around any woman willing to hand all America's women over to these American Taliban if Clinton doesn't get the nomination.

You implied in your meltdown that the Democratic Party is making a calculated effort to prevent a woman from winning the nomination because she's a woman. News flash: it's possible to support Obama and not be a misogynistic goon.

I had to get that out of my system. Now please, calm down, get your emotions in check, and do this. Think critically, interpret what the candidates say and do, reach informed decisions based on their judgment, character, track record, and positions on the issues, and don't abuse the vote that women fought so courageously for so long to win.

alafairnadia wrote: I think the large majority of clinton supporters plan to vote obama if he gets the nod. similarly, I'd expect the same from a large majority of obama supporters if by some miracle clinton got the nod.

can we move on?

Carnivore wrote: [quote=alafairnadia]I think the large majority of clinton supporters plan to vote obama if he gets the nod. similarly, I'd expect the same from a large majority of obama supporters if by some miracle clinton got the nod.

can we move on?

jeffrey wrote: Here's a link to the video.

The DK article was merely in response to the belligerent behavior and claims present in the video. Without the video as context, the intent and tone of the DK article is completely lost (as a reaction piece).

jeffrey wrote: Yeah, good point. Major blanket statement error there, not fair to the rest of everyone that are playin' nice.

Should have been directed just at Clinton No-Bama holdouts or something like that.