Rev. Wright, in PBS Interview, Defends Sermons and Calls Coverage ‘Unfair’
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Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, told PBS host Bill Moyers that inflammatory statements from his sermons were taken out of context, but he said he didn’t begrudge the Democratic candidate for denouncing them.
“He’s a politician, I’m a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they’re two different worlds,” said Wright, who recently retired from Trinity United Church of Christ on the south side of Chicago, where Obama has attended services for 20 years.
Wright’s interview with Moyers, excerpted today, is scheduled for broadcast Friday night on PBS and represents his first high-profile appearance after the firestorm broke. He will speak at the National Press Club on Monday, seeking to put his remarks in context of African American religious traditions.
{snip}
Wright is a well-known preacher and theologian, but often combative at the pulpit. He has been a lightening rod for Obama since the start of the Illinois senator’s campaign, but he has kept a low profile, even as the current controversy unfolded.
{snip}
Wright defended his sermons, telling Moyers, “the persons who have heard the entire sermon understand the communication perfectly . .nbsp;. those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they want to do, which is to paint me as some sort of fanatic.”
{snip}
But he added, “They know nothing about the church. They know nothing about our prison ministry. They know nothing about our food ministry. They know nothing about our senior citizens home. They know nothing about all we try to do as a church and have tried to do.” Focusing only on the snippets, he said, “was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons.”
Wright told Moyers that he didn’t talk politics with Obama. “He goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of God about the things of God.”
(Posted on April 25, 2008)
Comments
I’m pretty sure this Wright has made many more hate-filled rants than what the videos displayed so far revealed, maybe saying much worse.
During the run up to the general election, I’m wondering if some enterprising individual will sift through every word this despicable hater uttered and find something even more damning.
Posted by Ranger at 6:21 PM on April 25
No one takes issue with the church’s prison ministry, food ministry, or senior citizens’ home.
What does any of that have to do with what Wright said in the sermons that were recorded and broadcast?
His sermon collection consists of hours and hours of vile, hate-filled rants.
The so-called snippets were symptomatic of someone who is more than a fanatic.
He is a deranged and disturbed man who has trafficked in this kind of ungodly foolishness for nearly forty years.
Posted by Linky Drake at 7:48 PM on April 25
In the liberal lexicon, quoting a leftist accurately is unfair. Not many of these people could get elected if they were all caught on tape saying what they really think.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 8:00 PM on April 25
This guy is nothing more than your typical huckster preying on his own people. He calls on blacks to reject “middle-classness”, then builds a mansion, in a white gated neighborhood, as his retirement palace.
Posted by idareya at 8:21 PM on April 25
Wright told Moyers that he didn’t talk politics with Obama.
Since Wright preaches politics, I find this incredibly hard to believe.
Posted by Kellie at 8:32 PM on April 25
Of course it is always unjust to catch a racist black in the act and expose him. For too long the media and powers that be let it go on so long that it seemed a part of nature.
Posted by Mark in LA at 8:53 PM on April 25
Dennis Miller on Fox news.
“I don’t like the fact that Moyers has been on my dime partially his entire career at NPR and he owns the production company that reaps the benefits from a lot these tapes. I don’t like the fact that somebody on my dime is speaking at something called a Take Back America thing.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,340015,00.html
Posted by at 10:21 PM on April 25
Apparently this black minister and many other black ministers have been spewing anti-white hate for decades. It appears the msn has kept many people ignorant of the huge volume of hate directed at us as the black folk get right with God on Sunday.
Posted by Drew at 11:13 PM on April 25
But he added, “They know nothing about the church. They know nothing about our prison ministry. They know nothing about our food ministry. They know nothing about our senior citizens home. They know nothing about all we try to do as a church and have tried to do.” Focusing only on the snippets, he said, “was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons.”
Filthy liar. It is not a snippet to quote you as saying whitey invented the AIDS virus to wipe out the black people. It is not a snippet to quote you as goddaming the USA. It is not God that gave you black liberation theology, nor was Jesus at all involved in that perversion of the faith. You are a liar. You are a heretic. You are a Judas goat, and you lead your own people to the slaughter.
Posted by Memphomaniac at 1:04 AM on April 26
It just occurred to me— Obama’s campaign has so much money that he could probably afford to retain a public relations firm just to work on the image of Jeremiah Wright for the next six months.
So . . . look for more interviews featuring a reasonable, sober, “white-friendly” Reverend Wright on the coming months.
Posted by Reader-1 at 5:24 AM on April 26
“the persons who have heard the entire sermon understand the communication perfectly”
I’m sure they do. It’s the same ol blame white people for stupid black behavior rant and it is still quite popular in the black community.
Posted by Robert at 7:34 AM on April 26
And we are certain most Lincolnite GOPs like Bush and McCain would agree with Rev Wright although we know Rev Wright and his famous mulatto Obama were made possible by the neoconned Dubya and his party if Lincoln.
McCain like Bush proudly proclaim themselves as the party of neocon Marxist King Abe over and over.
Posted by at 8:03 AM on April 26
The fact of the matter is Rev Wright’s views are very mainstream in the Afro community. You don’t find much patriotism there, just a lot of white guilt and black rage.
Posted by S & GS at 8:27 AM on April 26
Let’s face it, Moyers never laid a glove on the preacher.
The evidence is overwhelming concerning Wright’s hatred of America. All Wright does is condemn America saying things that it was America fault for the 9/11 attacks. He talks about America’s conspiracy against blacks, “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ God Damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. etc, etc, etc.
Posted by at 11:21 AM on April 26
I think it’s funny! Every time the racist bigot America hater liar con artist Rev. Jeremiah Wright opens his foolish mouth he buries Obama further and further, keep up the good work Rev. Jeremiah Wright, I will be looking forward to seeing Barack Obama dropping out of the race. Please do some more interviews. I’m sure there are many more tapes out there of Rev. Wrights filthy hate speech that are yet to be heard.
Posted by Gerry at 12:32 PM on April 26
Nothing Wright said had anything odd, or unique about it.
It was standard Black radical preaching. You can hear the same
opinions ie. “CIA imports cocaine to cripple blacks”, “AIDS virus created by Govt to destroy Black race”..on dozens of
Black radio stations, and in all sorts of print media. These werent slip-ups on the part of Wright…they were part of an elaborate, if insane, philosophy. Neither were any of Wrights
auditors shocked by what they heard, including Obama. In fact Obama went to that church and nodded in agreement for 20 years because doing so gave him huge political cache. And thats whats scary…there are vast numbers of people waiting for Obama to be elected so they can reshape the world and this country on the basis of what Wright was saying. And that, my friends, will be the end of the United States as a force for sanity, reason, and true justice.
Posted by at 1:04 PM on April 26
“Wright’s views are very mainstream in the Afro community. You don’t find much patriotism there, just a lot of white guilt and black rage.”
Because that’s what pays.
Posted by voter at 2:49 PM on April 26
How many remember that Moyers first made his bones by producing the anti-Goldwater 64 ad “counting down” the petals of a daisy picked by a child, tranforming to a countdown to a nuclear fireball?
For Moyers to join a liberal whine-fest about “unfair attack ads” is beyond rich.
Posted by at 7:34 PM on April 26
How unreasonable for white people to get the wrong idea when Wright said that government run be white people invented AIDS to kill black people. How racist of us to take such a comment out of context. Now, sir, please inform us of how such a outrageously paranoid and delusional comment like that could ever have a positive context? What is it with these black “leaders” and their need to keep all blacks ignorant, paranoid and fearful of whites? I guess all their power comes from keeping blacks clueless, isolated, and beligerant.
Posted by AvgDude at 8:52 PM on April 26
What else was this jerk going to say? Besides Bill Moyers is a moron that gets our tax dollars and is a left-wing useful idiot(redundant - I know).
Anybody who belives that B. Hussein Obama sat in that church for 20 years and donated exorbitant amounts of money to the church, was married by this guy and had this guy baptize his daughters but never heard of these racist rants - is living in la la land or on another planet.
The real problem is that blacks really do think the way Wright preaches. Black churches, while some are really christians, are preaching this hate stuff week after week.
The even bigger problem is that a guy who listened to this stuff and obviously believes every word of it, is practically a heart beat away from the White House. Now that’s scary.
Posted by Gayle Sollenberger at 11:24 AM on April 27
“And we are certain most Lincolnite GOPs like Bush and McCain would agree with Rev Wright although we know Rev Wright and his famous mulatto Obama were made possible by the neoconned Dubya and his party if Lincoln.
McCain like Bush proudly proclaim themselves as the party of neocon Marxist King Abe over and over. “
Posted by at 8:03 AM on April 26
I think you are wrong. Politicians like Bush, the Clintons and McCain are to blame but people like Wright and Obama were created during the Kennedy/Johnson era who pushed for and won the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and every white politician who came after has jumped on that band wagon of blame whitey. There hasn’t been a politician elected to any office in the last 45 years who has had the guts to stand up for the white race. Not only have we had to listen to black race hustlers and racist black politicians tell us how we have oppressed them for years, we have to hear from white politicians as well.
Believe me it made me sick to hear Bush, speaking in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, make that ridiculous remark that the riots and looting were symptoms of past oppressions and injustices commited against minorities. It made me want to puke when I heard him say that.
Long ago, the Communist Party learned that they couldn’t sink the United States from outside, so they changed their game plan. They seized high offices and positions within where they could really make changes to the country. Everybody knows that the Communist Party well funded the riots, sit-ins and protests of the 60’s. Who can dispute that 99% of our schools and colleges and universities are now being run by a bunch of communist/socialist thinking/believing individuals. Obama’s mother was a product of that upbringing and schooling and he is the product of his surroundings. A liberal,communist/socialist mother who married 2 men of color and produced 2 communist/socialist thinking and believing children -one of whom could be sitting in the White House next January, along with his ill-mannered “I’ve never been proud of my country until now” wife.
Posted by Gayle Sollenberger at 11:39 AM on April 27
“Taken out of context?” What exactly is the proper context to take vitriolic, hate-filled paranoid rant? If the Reverend Wrights of the nation and their followers dislike the US so much, why don’t they leave? There isn’t anyone forcing them to stay.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 6:34 PM on April 27
The convenience is beyond coincidence. Reverend Wright preaches against whites, but he lives in a white neighborhood. Why does he not live in black neighborhood?
Posted by at 9:06 PM on April 27
Just like Sharpton, Jackson, and all the others, Wright is hust another flim-flam man living well off the blind stupidity of those people who follow his teachings. For someone to attend this “church”, with his family, young children and wife, for 20 years, tells me a lot about his character, and I just don’t feel he is the person to lead this country.
Posted by abc at 5:12 AM on April 28
Fine, here is the entire context [WARNING: Possibly NSFW]
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352661,00.html
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/34fedc25-b630-48e8-b2f4-326c5d9d5314
Posted by at 10:10 AM on April 28
Look,Reverend Wright, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton have never workded a day in their lives. They live a life of chauffered cars, sky boxes at the ball games, free travel, lots of
“workshops” and “dialogs”. They never sweat, never do thankless jobs, never risk money, In real life they couldnt hold a middle management job, why would they ever change or think honestly about their racket?
Posted by at 10:58 AM on April 28
“The convenience is beyond coincidence. Reverend Wright preaches against whites, but he lives in a white neighborhood. Why does he not live in black neighborhood?”
Too much crime.
Posted by Unemployed WASP at 12:32 PM on April 28
Wright’s simple-minded efforts to defend himself, that anti-White thesis by Obama’s wife, the fact Obama was not bothered by sitting through many years of Wright’s ani-White racist rhetoric — pretty well argue AGAINST trusting Obama with the presidency.
Obama has pretty well shown himself a liar by his actions and belated effort to distance himself from Wright.
Posted by Fed Up at 1:37 PM on April 28
They know nothing about the church. They know nothing about our prison ministry. They know nothing about our food ministry. They know nothing about our senior citizens home
Yes,this type of behaviour is in the true Leftist agenda. Like the drug cartels, gun runners and Marxist organisations who build hospitals and feed the natives in third world countries, Hey, these guys do such good work, don’t knock them for drug running when they’re doing so much for ‘the people’. The trouble is that the time will eventually come when they call for their pound of flesh.
Posted by at 1:59 PM on April 28
I hope Farrakhan fan Jeremiah Wright gets as much exposure as possible. It’s the only way to ensure Obama loses. Of course I wish there was some way Obama, Clinton, and McCain could all lose.
Posted by WR the elder at 12:41 AM on April 29
“Of course I wish there was some way Obama, Clinton and McCain could all lose.”
— WR the elder
If it helps any, no matter which of these oxygen-wasters is elected, *we* will all lose.
Posted by Michael C. Scot at 4:18 PM on April 29
African American religious traditions? Like rippin’ on Whitey?
Posted by at 10:52 PM on April 29