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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Oral Roberts who wrote (26761)	3/16/2008 10:40:09 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

Wright is offensive. The fact that Obama listened to him for twenty years and found nothing so offensive that he would not rely on Pastor Wright as his closest confidant and pray with him say more about Obama than he wanted us to know. Why Michelle Obama would say that this is the first time she has been proud of America is explained very well by the fact that she allowed Wright to marry her and to baptise her children while never being offended by his hate speech. Team Clinton pulled coup de gras with this one.

To: Oral Roberts who wrote (26761)	3/16/2008 11:07:27 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

Obama Gets Renewed Scrutiny About His Past Candidate Dogged By Fallout Around Pastor, Ex-Patron By CHRISTOPHER COOPER and NICK TIMIRAOS March 17, 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is entering a phase of scrutiny as he grapples with the fallout from statements by his longtime spiritual adviser and the indictment of a former political patron. Sen. Obama said Friday that his past political campaigns had accepted more money raised from Chicago developer Antoin Rezko, on trial on influence peddling charges, than he had previously said. Meanwhile, Sen. Obama denounced remarks by Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. as "inflammatory and appalling" when videos of Rev. Wright's sermons surfaced last week. Rev. Wright retired this month as pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where Sen. Obama has been a member for nearly 20 years. Sen. Obama was married by Rev. Wright and had his two children baptized by the pastor, who resigned as an unpaid adviser to the campaign on Friday night. In one of the sermons, the prominent minister urged congregants to sing "God D--- America" instead of "God Bless America" for its poor treatment of black citizens, while in another he blamed American foreign policy for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The weekend offered some good news for Sen. Obama: He won a majority of votes to seat delegates at Iowa's spring convention, adding nine delegates to his tally. Sen. Obama led Sen. Hillary Clinton with 1,617 to 1,498 delegates yesterday, according to the Associated Press; 2,025 are needed to secure the nomination. Kirk Wagar, Florida finance chairman for Sen. Obama and a born-again Christian who was deeply involved with the 2004 John Kerry presidential campaign, said the Wright issue doesn't necessarily hurt Sen. Obama's general-election prospects. He said the straightforward way Sen. Obama dealt with the issue over the weekend should make some difference. The fallout from the Wright controversy could largely be determined by Sen. Obama's response, and whether voters see it as sincere. "Being a voice of unity is a part of Obama's brand, and anything that injures that is a serious blow," says Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster. Throughout the campaign, Sen. Obama has touted his ability to reach out to independents and Republicans and his prospects for delivering a state that has traditionally voted Republican, such as Virginia. The fallout could be most closely seen among these voters in the general election if he is the Democratic nominee. "It does hurt his appeal," says Bill George, an uncommitted Pennsylvania superdelegate and the head of the state chapter of the AFL-CIO. "He may have lost those people who have some racial inner doubts about him." But Mr. George says he thinks that Sen. Obama has responded well to the controversy and that the episode won't affect his vote as a superdelegate. Underscoring the potential for damage, Sen. Obama posted a three-and-a-half minute video outlining his rejection of the remarks. He asked his supporters to forward the video "as the emails and accusations about this continue to swirl ...in the coming weeks and months." Rev. Wright's inflammatory language seemed to stir little apprehension at Iowa's county conventions, where Sen. Obama picked up strength in the second stage of the state's multistep delegate-selection process Saturday. The Illinois senator won 52% of the delegate seats to this spring's district and state conventions where Iowa's 45 delegates to the national convention will be chosen. He took more than half of the delegates that had been committed to former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. At the Carroll County convention in Western Iowa, Tim Tracy, elected as one of 10 Obama delegates to the next stage of conventions, called the Wright issue a distraction. "If it didn't come out of [Sen. Obama's] mouth, I don't care about it," said Mr. Tracy. He said issues like the Wright sermons "don't matter. They die a natural death in a week." The controversy over the minister's sermons erupted just as Sen. Obama answered anew questions about his relationship with Mr. Rezko, a Chicago developer and former Obama fund-raiser who is on trial in federal court, accused of soliciting kickbacks in return for Illinois state contracts. In interviews with two Chicago newspapers on Friday, Sen. Obama said that Mr. Rezko's political patronage for all of his past political campaigns totaled around $250,000. The campaign had previously estimated the figure at $150,000 and said it had donated that amount to charity. The Obama campaign says it will donate to charity the other money from Mr. Rezko and associates. Mr. Rezko hasn't donated to Sen. Obama's presidential campaign. A 2005 land purchase involving the two men has been the subject of intense scrutiny, since Sen. Obama has said that he knew Mr. Rezko was under federal investigation at the time. In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Sen. Obama gave an explanation for his new willingness to discuss Mr. Rezko: "We want to put the sense that we're not being forthcoming behind us as quickly as possible," he said. --June Kronholz contributed to this article. Write to Christopher Cooper at christopher.cooper@wsj.com and Nick Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com online.wsj.com

To: Oral Roberts who wrote (26761)	4/11/2008 8:33:55 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

Notable & Quotable April 11, 2008 National Journal columnist Stuart Taylor Jr., on the controversial remarks of Michelle Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright: Also disturbing is the bleak picture of America painted by Obama's closest adviser, his wife, Michelle, in highly newsworthy comments, most of which the media have chosen to ignore . . . All this from a woman whose own life doesn't seem so rough: She went from a working-class background to Princeton, Harvard Law School, and a $1.65 million mansion in Chicago. That's the mansion that the Obamas bought with a little help from their friend Tony Rezko, now on trial on unrelated corruption charges, months after Obama's 2004 election to the Senate. Meanwhile, Michelle's salary at the University of Chicago hospitals soared from $122,000 to $317,000. . . . But it also appears that [husband Barack] Obama shares the unfortunate tendency of many liberals to see far-left extremists (and of many conservatives to see far-right extremists) as kindred spirits. And there may be some resonance between [Obama pastor Jeremiah] Wright's angry vitriol and Michelle Obama's bleak vision of America. online.wsj.com