Jeremiah Wright

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Bill Clinton Welcomed Wright
 Bill Clinton Welcomed Wright 

Bill Clinton Welcomed Wright

Photo from 1998 shows controversial pastor no fringe character

(Newser) - Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor was twice invited to the Clinton White House with groups of influential clergy, Politico reports, demonstrating that he is not the fringe figure he's been made out to be in the recent flap over his views. A photograph of Jeremiah Wright with Bill Clinton...

Clinton Pulls Ahead in Polls
 Clinton Pulls Ahead in Polls 

Clinton Pulls Ahead in Polls

White, working-class voters dismayed by Obama pastor's remarks

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton has scored her first statistically significant national lead over Barack Obama in several weeks—49% to 42%—in a Gallup poll taken early this week, Reuters reports. And her edge in Pennsylvania has doubled since February, two new polls show. They put her lead at 51%-35% and 53%-41%,...

Clinton Must Catch Perfect Wave, Aides Say

Path to nomination needs big win in Pa., popular-vote majority, Obama rough patch

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton’s aides say their candidate’s chances of winning the Democratic nomination grow ever slimmer, the New York Times reports, and she will need victories in Pennsylvania and the national popular vote—as well as a confidence-shaking event in Barack Obama's camp—to succeed. She can't likely overtake...

Huckabee: Lay Off Obama Pastor
 Huckabee: Lay Off
Obama Pastor 

Huckabee: Lay Off Obama Pastor

Former minister goes to bat for controversial figure

(Newser) - Barack Obama got some unexpected help yesterday from Mike Huckabee, of all people. The former candidate called Obama’s speech “historic” and said it wasn’t fair to hold candidates accountable for everything the people near them say, ABC News reports. Huckabee, once a pastor himself, said he understood...

Wright Sermons Weren't 'Black Equivalent of a Klan Rally'

Parishioner decries focus on Obama pastor

(Newser) - Barack Obama’s pastor is a good man, says a fellow churchgoer, and though his “going off on white America” kept T. Shawn Taylor—a black woman—from inviting white friends to worship, it didn’t stop her from marrying a white man. Taylor writes in the Chicago Tribune...

Speech on Race Won Hearts and Minds, if Not Votes

Columnists impressed that Obama took the high and long road

(Newser) - The day after Barack Obama tackled the race issue head-on, journalists are weighing its lasting effects:
  •  Eugene Robinson credits Obama with reframing the dialogue on race, moving it beyond "the sour stasis of grievance and countergrievance.” Its most significant aspect: laying out the reasons some in both
...

GOP Sees Pastor as Route to Nov. Win

'It’s not the Obama you thought,' strategist says of tie to vocal Wright

(Newser) - After scrounging for ways to combat Barack Obama's appeal, Republican strategists now believe Rev. Jeremiah Wright is the perfect play to drag the Democrat through the mud in the general election. Said one of the inflammatory Wright clips making the rounds, “You start getting some sense of who he...

Obama Speech Doesn't Sway Pundits
Obama Speech Doesn't
Sway Pundits
OPINION

Obama Speech Doesn't Sway Pundits

Supporters see glorious moment; detractor isn't too impressed

(Newser) - Barack Obama’s milestone speech on race today covered a lot of ground, and first reactions vary from laudatory on the left to unsatisfied on the right:
  • Greg Sargent of Talking Points Memo says the candidate went “big big big” by making his story a “realization of American
...

Obama Calls for Racial Unity
 Obama Calls for Racial Unity 

Obama Calls for Racial Unity

(Newser) - Barack Obama tackled the issue of race in a candid and risky speech this morning, recounting America’s racial history and acknowledging both black anger and white resentment “we’ve never really worked through.” He denounced the divisive statements of his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, saying they...

Obama Pastor Being 'Lynched,' Faithful Say

Clerics defend 'righteous rage' of inflammatory preacher

(Newser) - Black pastors and parishioners—including the 3,000 who packed Trinity Church in Chicago Sunday—are leaping to the defense of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who's drawn a firestorm of criticism for his incendiary rhetoric on racism, the Washington Post reports. A pamphlet circulating the pews decried Wright’s treatment in...

Obama Readies Major Speech on Race
Obama Readies Major Speech
on Race

Obama Readies Major Speech on Race

Will respond today to furor over Wright's inflammatory remarks

(Newser) - Barack Obama will deliver a major speech on race and politics in America in Philadelphia this morning. The candidate will address the racial issues that have dominated the campaign in recent days, fueled by the firestorm over the divisive remarks of Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor. An aide told the...

Firebrand Pastor Worried Obama Campaign Early

Aides uninvited Wright from Barack candidacy announcement

(Newser) - Barack Obama’s campaign uninvited his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright from speaking at his candidacy announcement last year, reports the Los Angeles Times. The campaign didn’t want to "make him the target and a distraction on a day when Senator Obama was going to announce his candidacy,...

Obama, Clinton Camps Spar on Records

'What is Sen. Clinton hiding?' asks spokesman

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama took the day off, but their campaigns took time today to exchange fire on issues of disclosure and statements by disgraced staffers. In a conference call with reporters, the Obama campaign called on Clinton to release documents from her years in the Senate and from...

Obama Campaign Drops Rev. Wright

Minister prone to provocative statements will no longer advise the Illinois senator

(Newser) - Jeremiah Wright, the militant Chicago minister and spiritual adviser to Barack Obama, is off the senator’s campaign, CNN reports. Wright will no longer sit on the senator’s African-American Religious Leadership Committee, the campaign announced. Obama has often said he rejects the reverend’s more incendiary opinions, especially his...

Obama Preacher's Words Keep Resurfacing

Inflammatory comments from past may haunt candidate

(Newser) - In the latest campaign preacher flap, TV networks are airing clips from sermons in which the former pastor of Barack Obama's church condemns "racist" US society and compares the candidate's experiences to Jesus' struggles, the Guardian reports. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human,...

Obama's Church Flouts Tax Law
Obama's Church Flouts Tax Law

Obama's Church Flouts Tax Law

Candidate's church offers praise from the pulpit, pans opponent

(Newser) - Barack Obama's home church in Chicago may be risking its tax-exempt status by promoting the candidate in sermons. Churches are allowed to support specific causes, but not candidates, and some experts say the praise—and attacks on Hillary Clinton— violate IRS laws. "There does seem to be a pattern...

Obama Pastor Faulted for Farrakhan Rave
Obama Pastor
Faulted for
Farrakhan Rave
OPINION

Obama Pastor Faulted for Farrakhan Rave

Incensed scribe cries racism; candidate deplores same

(Newser) - Barack Obama’s controversial pastor is back in the press—and the blogosphere—this time for praising Louis Farrakhan in an issue of the church's magazine, calling him "an unforgettable force, a catalyst for change and a religious leader who is sincere about his faith and his purpose."...

How Barack Found Jesus
How Barack Found Jesus

How Barack Found Jesus

Candidate chose Christianity over mom's humanism, dad's Islam

(Newser) - The Times retraces Barack Obama's peripatetic path to the Christianity he embraced 20 years ago and now invokes as he presents his presidential campaign in nothing short of biblical terms. Obama's mother was an anthropologist who schooled her son in the variety of religious experiences; his father's family in Kenya...

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