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"Damage control parties, report to the Obama campaign immediately!"
A quartet of recent National Review blog entries, compiled by your humble narrator. There seems to be a common theme at work here.1. Jim Geraghty @ "Campaign Spot" (main link) Michelle Norris, of NPR, speaking on Meet the Press yesterday: You know, I should say, though, where Jeremiah Wright is concerned, it's interesting. If you—or introduced to him for the first time just based on the clips that you showed on this program and that have been in heavy rotation, particularly on cable news and on talk radio, you don't get the full measure of, of, of this man and who he is and a sort of full understanding of why Barack Obama may have been attracted to him. Barack Obama is in a difficult position because he has said repeatedly "Words count." And so he can't diminish these words or, or easily step away from them. What are you going to tell me about him that refutes the "God d*** America" line? What "full measure" am I going to see that makes me say, "oh, well, now I'm okay with his call for our nation to be damned by God." . . . It's like the line that Wright's comments are being taken out of context. Show me the context that makes that line okay, or the context that justifies the charge that the U.S. government created the AIDS virus. 2. Byron York reports on today's Obama conference call: The Obama campaign has just wrapped up a conference call with reporters. On the call, top Obama supporter Sen. Dick Durbin claimed that "many" of the controversial statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright were made before Barack Obama joined Trinity United Church of Christ. "Many of the quotes that have been disclosed publicly were made by Reverend Wright at a time before Barack Obama became part of his congregation and in places where Barack Obama was not even present," Durbin said. Later, asked about fallout from the Wright affair among Democrats, Durbin said, "Let me just say that the people I have spoken to understand, as I hope we all do, that to hold Sen. Obama accountable for speeches and sermons that were given before he joined the church is fundamentally unfair." To my knowledge, Wright's statements "God damn America," "America's-chickens-are-coming-home-to-roost," and "U.S. of KKK A" were made while Obama was part of the Trinity congregation, although the senator says he was not present in church for any of them. I don't believe Obama has claimed that they were made before he joined the church, and I'm not sure why Durbin is using that argument now. The Obama campaign quickly ended the call after the second Wright question. 3. Greg Pollowitz @ the "Media Blog": I had a really good post all ready to go. There was a video posted by the Trinity United Church of Christ, which I found on their YouTube page, of Louis Farrakhan being honored with the Jeremiah A. Wright Trumpeter award. It's gone from YouTube. And there was a video of disgraced Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick receiving a similar award. It's gone from YouTube, too. But the one I'm really mad about is the one of the church's new pastor, Otis Moss III, talking about gangster rap and crack cocaine. They pulled that one, as well. Maybe it had something to do with his blaming gangster rap on suburban white kids and big corporate media. . . . 4. Finally, this: The Obama campaign has announced that tomorrow Obama will "deliver a major address on race, politics, and how we bring our country together at this moment in our history." If he hopes to stop the bleeding, it's going to have to be one whale of a speech. Posted by: Mike 2008-03-17 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=234005 |