Team Obama Can't Neutralize Its Rev. Wright Problem
Bottom line: Obama is an extremist who was inspired and promoted by Rev. Wright and publicly stood by Rev. Wright as long as it was politically possible and McCain is not anti-Catholic or pro-genocide and does not share all of the views of all of the people who find him significantly preferable to Obama.
Rev. Jeremiah A. "God damn America" Wright, Jr. is a huge problem for rookie United States Senator and current 2008 presidential prospect Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.
That's because the politically ambitious Obama picked the crazed proponent of Black Liberation Theology as his pastor and stayed with him for so many years.
Barack's parents did not bring him to Christ. They were atheists. (His father originally was a Muslim.)
Obama claims that Rev. Wright brought him to Christ.
As a politically astute adult, Obama joined Rev. Wright's church, Trinity United Church of Christ, which was politically very helpful to him.
Rev. Wright eventually married Obama and his wife Michelle and baptized their two daughters.
Trinity United Church of Christ was the church the Obamas chose, obviously because they believed it suited them best.
Michelle is a graduate of Princeton College and Harvard Law School who considers America a "mean country" and became proud of America for the first time in her adult life when her husband's presidential candidacy was well received.
As a senior at Princeton, Michelle wrote in a thesis that she put "the Black Community first and foremost" and therefore it is unsurprising that she and her husband have been members of Rev. Wright's church for so many years and still are.
Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System, written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee, chaired by the late Vallmer Jordan in 1981, and sets its forth on its website (www.tucc.org/black_value_system.html).
The twelfth and final commitment reads as follows: "Personal Commitment to Embracement of the Black Value System. To measure the worth and validity of all activity in terms of positive contributions to the general welfare of the Black Community and the Advancement of Black People towards freedom."
No wonder Michelle Obama has been comfortable in that church!
When some of Rev. Wright's hateful, anti-white, anti-American statements became public knowledge, Obama pled ignorance, disagreed with the statements, but declined to "disown" Rev. Wright, equating that with disowning the Black Community or his white grandmother.
Rev. Wright made it imperative for Obama to disassociate himself from Rev. Wright, by suggesting at a nationally televised appearance of the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. that Obama had criticized his statements because he was a politician and had to do what was politically needed and Obama finally did so.
But the Obamas are still members of Trinity United Church of Christ and Obama promptly described Rev. Wright's chosen successor, Rev. Otis Moss, as "wonderful," even though Rev. Moss is an ardent Rev. Wright disciple and apologist.
Either Obama was completely oblivious or Obama knew what kind of person Rev. Wright really is.
Obama demonstrated great naivety in saying during a presidential debate that if he won he would meet in his first year of office with several notorious dictators and without preconditions, but Obama was NOT oblivious to what Rev. Wright had said in his sermons.
Obama "disinvited" Rev. Wright to the public announcement of the Obama presidential campaign because he knew that Rev. Wright's sermons could be "rough."
The deplorable pro-Obama media dutifully stayed away from that "roughness" until after Obama became the frontrunner for the 2008 Democrat presidential nomination. (If President Bush had "disinvited" his pastor under similar circumstances, would The New York Timeshave failed to investigate what "rough" meant?)
Obamamaniacs realize that the Obama's long devotion to Rev. Wright is politically deadly, so they have been desperately trying to neutralize it by pointing to controversial statements by a couple of reverends who support Senator John Sidney McCain: Rev. John Hagee and Rev. Rod Parsley.
Neither of these reverends ever has been McCain's reverend. much less the person who led him to Christ.
Neither of them is even based in McCain's Arizona: Rev. Hagee is based in Texas and Rev. Parsley in Ohio.
McCain has not mentioned either of them in any book of his, while Obama delivered a glowing tribute to Rev. Wright in his first book, Dreams From My Father, and even took the title to his second book, The Audacity of Hope, from the title of a Rev. Wright sermon that he had written in his first book had inspired him greatly.
Rev. Hagee apologized for his anti-Catholic remarks to the satisfaction of William Donohue, President of the Catholic League. but McCain still reconsidered Rev. Hagee's endorsement and rejected it (and Rev. Hagee then withdrew it).
Some Obamamaniacs are trying to make political hay from McCain once having called Rev. Parsley a "spiritual guide."
No way!
McCain acknowledging Rev. Parsley as a spiritual guide did not signify that McCain accepted ALL of Rev. Parsley's "guidance."
McCain did not leave his own church to join the church of either Rev. Hagee or Rev. Parsley.
One Obamaite emailed: "I guess, in the mind twisted minds of HATERS like you, it's OK to advocate for genocide against Muslims AND as long as it is done in the name of Christ? With all due respect, even the worst of HATERS should see a problem with the views of madman Rev Rod Parsley, don't you? This mad man is calling for elimination of 1.8 billion Muslims & you don't see a problem? Why are you quiet? I am amazed at your SILENT height of hypocrisy!"
Of course, neither McCain, nor President Bush, nor I, have advocated genocide against any groups, including Muslims.
On the other hand, Obama, as an Illinois state senator, promoted infanticide (in the case of babies born alive as a result of botched abortions).
Also, Rev. Parsley happens to be a good guide on a number of important issues.
Wikipedia:
"On October 3, 2004, Parsley preached a sermon titled "Uncensored: While Freedom Still Rings", which was in many ways the mission statement for the Center for Moral Clarity. In the two-part sermon, Parsley expressed opposition to the view that there is a separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution; to same-sex marriage; to partial-birth abortion; to hate-speech legislation in California, Canada, and Sweden; to sexual orientation themes in children's books; to racism; and to poverty. Parsley has said that the U.S. Government, by funding Planned Parenthood, is complicit in genocide against African Americans, because Planned Parenthood performs abortions in the black community.
"A few weeks before the 2004 elections in U.S., Parsley encouraged his congregation and television audience to vote for Ohio's state constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The amendment passed by a wide margin of voters from both political parties. Parsley has also encouraged citizens of other states with similar marriage amendments on their ballots to vote similarly, and headlined the 'Silent No More' tour to register Christian voters."
Bottom line: Obama is an extremist who was inspired and promoted by Rev. Wright and publicly stood by Rev. Wright as long as it was politically possible and McCain is not anti-Catholic or pro-genocide and does not share all of the views of all of the people who find him significantly preferable to Obama.
Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.
Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.
The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.
Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.