1. Obama's Top VP Choices: Jim Webb, Ted Strickland
The two leading candidates for the vice presidential slot if Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination are Jim Webb and Ted Strickland, a Washington source close to Democratic party circles tells Newsmax.
Webb, a first-term senator from Virginia, agrees with Obama regarding the war on terror and Iraq. Like Obama, Webb opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, predicting that it would lead to a protracted guerilla war, and later called the invasion “the greatest strategic blunder in modern history.”
Webb is considered strong on foreign policy and the military, two areas in which Obama lacks experience. A highly decorated Vietnam War combat veteran, Webb served as secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan.
As a former Republican, Webb could help balance the Democratic ticket and demonstrate Obama's desire to "reach out." And he could swing Virginia — a Red state that usually votes for the GOP — into the Democratic camp.
On the downside, a ticket with two U.S. senators might be seen as undesirable. In that case, the Democrats could turn to Strickland, the popular first-term governor of Ohio.
Strickland, who served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before running for governor, won the 2006 election by garnering 60 percent of the vote against three opponents.
And a Quinnipiac University poll last year showed he had an approval rating in Ohio of 61 percent and a disapproval rating of just 15 percent.
As governor, Strickland has emphasized education and healthcare reform, two issues important to Obama supporters.
He has also been a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, and appeared in a TV ad in Ohio touting her campaign. But that could prove beneficial to the Obama ticket because it might help bridge the gap between his supporters and the Clinton machine.
Most important, Strickland could prove to be the deciding factor in determining the outcome of the presidential vote in Ohio, a crucial battleground state.
Editor's Note:
Sunday, March 30, 2008
ST MICHELL????
Michelle Obama’s halo
Submitted by John Jones on Wed, 2008-02-13 20:30.Barack Obama | Photography | politics | visual analysis
Timothy Noah at Slate has been keeping an eye out for evidence that Barack Obama is, in fact, the Son of God. In his latest post, he linked to this picture of Michelle Obama from Reuters:
Michelle Obama's halo
According to Noah, the framing and Obama’s posture suggest a passing resemblance to this woman:
Mary with halo
Despite how Ms. Obama photographs, according to Noah, she keeps her husband down to earth.
In the Feb. 13 Financial Times, Edward Luce suggests that the candidate's Sancha Panza of a wife, Michelle Obama, keeps her man from developing a Messiah complex, and scolds this column for not recognizing that. Actually, I never suggested Obama had a Messiah complex (though others have). I merely suggested that a few excitable souls in the media bear the apparant conviction that Obama is the Redeemer.
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I don't get it
Submitted by mkhaupt on Thu, 2008-02-14 11:04.
Noah at Slate draws a parallel between the Virgin Mary and Michelle Obama? So, Barack "Jesus Christ" Obama is in an incestuous relationship with his virgin mother? I smell fallacy.
reply
Fallacies
Submitted by John Jones on Fri, 2008-02-15 11:04.
Melanie,
Though I suspect your comment is a bit tongue-in-cheek, I think Noah is pointing out that some members of the media have had a tendency to depict Obama in a somewhat saintly light, not trying to build a coherent theology around the man.
Here’s my question: has anyone taken any similar photos of Clinton?
reply
That photograph is so
Submitted by timturner on Fri, 2008-02-15 11:45.
That photograph is so remarkable. I don't think they could have done a better job than if they'd staged it. Everything is so perfect...even down to the weirdly draped sleeves of her clothing (OK, otherwise they wouldn't seem weird, but this context makes them seem funny!). It may seem unfair or fallacious, but surely the person who snapped this photo was aware of its fortuitous iconographic potential. Whether this is evidence of support or detraction is more debatable.
It's also interesting to think about in terms of gender. The parallel with the Virgin Mary goes beyond the Halo: there is also the way her hands are clasped, the way her face is tilted, the look on her face. She does look like she is waiting for something to come--something from above, as indicated by her upturned face. To me it plays into a narrative about Michelle Obama exemplified in this recent NYT article about what an asset she has been on the campaign trail--and for "asset" read "supportive wife." The article is about how she is very helpful and persuasive, but also about how she retains her individuality and doesn't always tow the party line (witness her recent reluctance so say straight up whether she would support Clinton in the general).
Oh, to be the wife of a candidate: this photograph may be an extreme example, but nonetheless there is a role waiting for her, and everyone is anxious to know whether she will play along. (The red garment she is wearing has something to do with this: click here for a series of posts about first ladies and the color red).
(And to answer John's question about Hillary: absolutely not. In fact, I suspect the photogs are looking for the opposite; witness the dustup about a very unflattering photo of her recently prominently displayed on the Drudge report. That photo, too, had everything to do with gender.)
Saturday, March 29, 2008
OBAMA THE PERFECT
Slate Magazine
chatterbox
The Clairvoyant Times
The Obama Messiah Watch, Part 11.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, March 24, 2008, at 8:12 PM ET
Is Barack Obama the Resurrection and the Life ? To answer this question, Slate has periodically gathered gratuitously adoring material from newspaper, television, and magazine coverage of the U.S. senator from Illinois, best-selling author, Harvard Law Review president, Men's Vogue cover model, two-time Grammy winner, efficient note-taker, physics wunderkind, descendent of George Washington's great-great-great-great-great grandfather, teenage jazz enthusiast, possible telepathic communicator with space aliens from distant galaxies, improvement on all civil rights gains since 1957, calmer of turbulent Iownas, bearer of photographic halos, and front-running candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In today's installment, we consider the following Page One headline in the March 23 New York Times: "Obama's Talk Fuels Easter Sermons." This headline is a miracle no less bedazzling than Christ's resurrection. Consider: In order to make this Easter Sunday edition of the Times, it had to be written, at the very latest, on Saturday evening. From this I conclude that Times reporters Laurie Goodstein and Neela Banerjee, or perhaps their assignment editor, were blessed with a holy vision of sermons yet to be recited.
But wait, you saith. Goodstein and Banerjee interviewed a number of ministers in advance about what they intended to put into their sermons. This is Reporting, not Divine Revelation. But I defy any and all unbelievers to identify a single minister quoted or paraphrased in this story, by name or even on a not-for-attribution basis, who actually says he or she intends to discuss Obama's March 18 speech on race (much-praised by commentators within the secular realm, including me). All we get is an unspecified "many pastors" who told the Times that "they felt compelled to talk about it." When an unspecified "many" is said to have said or done something in a news story, and not a single one of these "many" is cited thereafter, that sets off my miracle detector.
Let's take a closer look, shall we?
The first minister quoted is the Rev. William H. Curtis of Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Pittsburgh. He saith:
"At the end of the day, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ makes it possible for even an African-American and a female to articulate the hopes and dreams of America, and do so with the hope of becoming president. Isn't that wonderful?
"It's possible because we do believe that humanity has redeeming qualities, and the resurrection of Christ gives us that faith," said Mr. Curtis, who is president of the Hampton Ministers Conference, a national association of black ministers.
Well said. But there's nothing in that quote to indicate what the good reverend actually intends to say in his Easter sermon, much less that he will talk about Obama's speech.
Moving on to Philip L. Blackwell, senior pastor at the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple, from whom we learn that he will "weave an anecdote into his sermon about a black friend of his who had been stopped by the police, who were suspicious because he was driving an expensive car, which he owned":
"The church needs to be a community within which the pain can be shared," said Mr. Blackwell, who is white and leads an urban, racially mixed congregation. "The grievances can be aired, and the power of that can be directed toward the 'new creation' that is portrayed in the Resurrection."
Here we make a little progress. The Rev. Blackwell does tell us something that will be in his Easter sermon. Unfortunately, he doesn't say anything about Obama's speech or even more generally about the Democratic field (as the Rev. Curtis did). He just says he's going to talk about racism, as ministers often do. We hear much the same from Monsignor Patrick Bishop, of Transfiguration Catholic Church in Marietta, Ga., and from the Very Rev. Tracey Lind, dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland. Lind, at least, is willing (perhaps after a desperate plea from one of the four other Times reporters corralled into contributing to the story; they're listed at its bottom) to credit Obama with rolling away from Jesus' tomb the "pervasive stone of racism." But Lind doesn't say she's going to mention Obama in her sermon and says nothing to indicate that Obama's speech inspired her to discuss racism in the sermon.
"Many ministers," we learn a few paragraphs down, "said they would preach without explicitly mentioning Mr. Obama because they wanted to avoid alienating politically diverse congregations. They are also aware that some churches accused of making political endorsements have seen their tax-exempt status investigated by the Internal Revenue Service."
Would that be the same "many pastors" who "felt compelled to talk about" Obama's speech? If so, then what we've learned is that a lot of ministers would like to ("feel compelled to") talk about Obama's speech but aren't going to, except elliptically. But the Times doesn't cite any individual ministers saying even that.
The tone of the story grows ever-more desperate: "The Wright controversy is a natural topic for those in the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white denomination that includes Mr. Obama's and Mr. Wright's church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago (the largest church in the denomination)." But not even the minister slotted to preach Trinity's Easter sermon—the Rev. James A. Forbes—will supply the Times' desperately sought confirmation that he intends to talk about Obama's speech. And this is where the whole controversy started! Talk about ingratitude!
In the entire Times piece, the only minister to be found addressing head-on the question of whether he'll preach about Obama's speech is the Rev. Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and lead pastor at Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minn. Unfortunately, Anderson's definitive answer is that he won't mention it, because Easter is about Jesus, not politics, and he doubts other evangelicals will, either. Rats.
A small breakthrough near the story's end: The Rev. Kenneth L. Samuel, pastor of Victory Church in Stone Mountain, Ga., says he might discuss … the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose controversial utterances supplied the occasion for Obama's speech. "The basic thrust of much of my preaching resonates with Dr. Wright," Samuel tells the Times. "I don't think I'm necessarily trying to preach people into anger, but I am trying to help people become conscious, become aware, to realize our power to make change in society." I interpret this to mean that if the Rev. Samuel mentions Wright, it will be to do precisely what Obama didn't do, i.e., defend Wright's angry and divisive statements.
In sum, we have an intensively reported Page One story that fails utterly to provide any evidence of its very appealing premise. Hence, divination. Perhaps the angel Gabriel came down from heaven to tell New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller that the nation's ministers would discuss Obama's speech. Or maybe the Times just figured that with all the Christian houses of worship that dot this great and good land, surely some of them would end up devoting some of their Easter sermons to Obama's speech. One man's "some" is another man's "many." If examples couldn't be scared up until after the fact, so be it.
Obama Messiah Watch archive:
Jan. 29, 2007: Took very few notes in class!
Feb. 5, 2007: Mastered laws governing universe!
Feb. 7, 2007: Shares ancestor with George Washington!
Feb. 9, 2007: Dug jazz when he was still a middle-schooler!
Feb. 13, 2007: Communicates (possibly) with space aliens!
Feb. 14, 2007: Better than civil rights!
April 4, 2007: Accept no substitutes.
Sept. 12, 2007: Calms turbulent Iowans!
Feb. 13, 2008: Michelle Obama's halo!
March 2, 2008: Reuters Claps Horns on Hillary
Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2187289/
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
chatterbox
The Clairvoyant Times
The Obama Messiah Watch, Part 11.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, March 24, 2008, at 8:12 PM ET
Is Barack Obama the Resurrection and the Life ? To answer this question, Slate has periodically gathered gratuitously adoring material from newspaper, television, and magazine coverage of the U.S. senator from Illinois, best-selling author, Harvard Law Review president, Men's Vogue cover model, two-time Grammy winner, efficient note-taker, physics wunderkind, descendent of George Washington's great-great-great-great-great grandfather, teenage jazz enthusiast, possible telepathic communicator with space aliens from distant galaxies, improvement on all civil rights gains since 1957, calmer of turbulent Iownas, bearer of photographic halos, and front-running candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In today's installment, we consider the following Page One headline in the March 23 New York Times: "Obama's Talk Fuels Easter Sermons." This headline is a miracle no less bedazzling than Christ's resurrection. Consider: In order to make this Easter Sunday edition of the Times, it had to be written, at the very latest, on Saturday evening. From this I conclude that Times reporters Laurie Goodstein and Neela Banerjee, or perhaps their assignment editor, were blessed with a holy vision of sermons yet to be recited.
But wait, you saith. Goodstein and Banerjee interviewed a number of ministers in advance about what they intended to put into their sermons. This is Reporting, not Divine Revelation. But I defy any and all unbelievers to identify a single minister quoted or paraphrased in this story, by name or even on a not-for-attribution basis, who actually says he or she intends to discuss Obama's March 18 speech on race (much-praised by commentators within the secular realm, including me). All we get is an unspecified "many pastors" who told the Times that "they felt compelled to talk about it." When an unspecified "many" is said to have said or done something in a news story, and not a single one of these "many" is cited thereafter, that sets off my miracle detector.
Let's take a closer look, shall we?
The first minister quoted is the Rev. William H. Curtis of Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Pittsburgh. He saith:
"At the end of the day, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ makes it possible for even an African-American and a female to articulate the hopes and dreams of America, and do so with the hope of becoming president. Isn't that wonderful?
"It's possible because we do believe that humanity has redeeming qualities, and the resurrection of Christ gives us that faith," said Mr. Curtis, who is president of the Hampton Ministers Conference, a national association of black ministers.
Well said. But there's nothing in that quote to indicate what the good reverend actually intends to say in his Easter sermon, much less that he will talk about Obama's speech.
Moving on to Philip L. Blackwell, senior pastor at the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple, from whom we learn that he will "weave an anecdote into his sermon about a black friend of his who had been stopped by the police, who were suspicious because he was driving an expensive car, which he owned":
"The church needs to be a community within which the pain can be shared," said Mr. Blackwell, who is white and leads an urban, racially mixed congregation. "The grievances can be aired, and the power of that can be directed toward the 'new creation' that is portrayed in the Resurrection."
Here we make a little progress. The Rev. Blackwell does tell us something that will be in his Easter sermon. Unfortunately, he doesn't say anything about Obama's speech or even more generally about the Democratic field (as the Rev. Curtis did). He just says he's going to talk about racism, as ministers often do. We hear much the same from Monsignor Patrick Bishop, of Transfiguration Catholic Church in Marietta, Ga., and from the Very Rev. Tracey Lind, dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland. Lind, at least, is willing (perhaps after a desperate plea from one of the four other Times reporters corralled into contributing to the story; they're listed at its bottom) to credit Obama with rolling away from Jesus' tomb the "pervasive stone of racism." But Lind doesn't say she's going to mention Obama in her sermon and says nothing to indicate that Obama's speech inspired her to discuss racism in the sermon.
"Many ministers," we learn a few paragraphs down, "said they would preach without explicitly mentioning Mr. Obama because they wanted to avoid alienating politically diverse congregations. They are also aware that some churches accused of making political endorsements have seen their tax-exempt status investigated by the Internal Revenue Service."
Would that be the same "many pastors" who "felt compelled to talk about" Obama's speech? If so, then what we've learned is that a lot of ministers would like to ("feel compelled to") talk about Obama's speech but aren't going to, except elliptically. But the Times doesn't cite any individual ministers saying even that.
The tone of the story grows ever-more desperate: "The Wright controversy is a natural topic for those in the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white denomination that includes Mr. Obama's and Mr. Wright's church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago (the largest church in the denomination)." But not even the minister slotted to preach Trinity's Easter sermon—the Rev. James A. Forbes—will supply the Times' desperately sought confirmation that he intends to talk about Obama's speech. And this is where the whole controversy started! Talk about ingratitude!
In the entire Times piece, the only minister to be found addressing head-on the question of whether he'll preach about Obama's speech is the Rev. Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and lead pastor at Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minn. Unfortunately, Anderson's definitive answer is that he won't mention it, because Easter is about Jesus, not politics, and he doubts other evangelicals will, either. Rats.
A small breakthrough near the story's end: The Rev. Kenneth L. Samuel, pastor of Victory Church in Stone Mountain, Ga., says he might discuss … the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose controversial utterances supplied the occasion for Obama's speech. "The basic thrust of much of my preaching resonates with Dr. Wright," Samuel tells the Times. "I don't think I'm necessarily trying to preach people into anger, but I am trying to help people become conscious, become aware, to realize our power to make change in society." I interpret this to mean that if the Rev. Samuel mentions Wright, it will be to do precisely what Obama didn't do, i.e., defend Wright's angry and divisive statements.
In sum, we have an intensively reported Page One story that fails utterly to provide any evidence of its very appealing premise. Hence, divination. Perhaps the angel Gabriel came down from heaven to tell New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller that the nation's ministers would discuss Obama's speech. Or maybe the Times just figured that with all the Christian houses of worship that dot this great and good land, surely some of them would end up devoting some of their Easter sermons to Obama's speech. One man's "some" is another man's "many." If examples couldn't be scared up until after the fact, so be it.
Obama Messiah Watch archive:
Jan. 29, 2007: Took very few notes in class!
Feb. 5, 2007: Mastered laws governing universe!
Feb. 7, 2007: Shares ancestor with George Washington!
Feb. 9, 2007: Dug jazz when he was still a middle-schooler!
Feb. 13, 2007: Communicates (possibly) with space aliens!
Feb. 14, 2007: Better than civil rights!
April 4, 2007: Accept no substitutes.
Sept. 12, 2007: Calms turbulent Iowans!
Feb. 13, 2008: Michelle Obama's halo!
March 2, 2008: Reuters Claps Horns on Hillary
Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2187289/
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
It has been said that you are known by the company you keep..what then does this say about a man who would be president. And don't even try to tell me that the good senator didn't know about this. The FIRST thing any candidate to do should be aware of is there ANYTHING hiding in closets and back alleys that might come back to bite in the posterior.
March 26, 2008
(CNSNews.com) - Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago where Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been a member for two decades, slurred Italians in a piece published in the most recent issue of Trumpet Newsmagazine.
Rev. Jeremiah Wright writes of Jesus' enemies: "(Jesus') enemies had their opinion about Him," Wright wrote in a eulogy of the late scholar Asa Hilliard in the November/December 2007 issue. "The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans."
Wright continued, "From the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth (in a barn in a township that was under the Apartheid Roman government that said his daddy had to be in), up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on a cross, a Roman cross, public lynching Italian style. ...
"He refused to be defined by others and Dr. Asa Hilliard also refused to be defined by others. The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge, but Asa, like Jesus, refused to be defined by an oppressive government because Asa got his identity from an Omnipotent God."
Every issue of the magazine published last year included Wright's column, "The Message," in which he covered a range of subjects, including his views on other African-American churches as expressed in his April 2007 commentary "Facing the Rising Sun."
"In a world that is controlled by white supremacy, in a country that is on its way to hell in a hand basket because of lying politicians, in a culture that still thinks 'white is right' and with young people who do not have a clue as to our story, our history, our legacy or our destiny, we still have African-American Christians who are more concerned about 'bling bling' than about freeing our minds," Wright wrote.
In a nationally broadcast speech on March 18, Obama distanced himself from Wright by saying he "condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy." But Obama also said, "I could no more disown him than I could disown the black community."
According to his federal income tax return for 2006, Obama gave the Trinity United church that year $22,500 in contributions.
The Clinton campaign has not commented on the controversy, but in an interview Tuesday with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) said actions speak louder than words.
"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.
"You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (a radio talk show host who was fired for making racially insensitive remarks about black female basketball players at Rutgers University), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton said.
"I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving," she added.
Trumpet Newsmagazine started publication in the 1980s in Chicago and distribution expanded in March 2006 to several other cities, with broader circulation through subscriptions. On the magazine's masthead, Wright is named as the magazine's CEO and Wright's daughter, Jeri Wright, is the publisher.
Requests for comments from Jeri Wright, the magazine's marketing staff, and the Obama campaign were not answered by press time.
The last Trumpet to be published was the November/December edition, a double issue that featured a remembrance of "Pan-Africanist" Hilliard and a profile of Louis Farrakhan, who was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement "Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter" award at the magazine's 25th anniversary gala late last year.
Farrakhan has called Judaism a "gutter religion" and said Jews are "bloodsuckers," as reported in The New York Times.
Trumpet Newsmagazine also included myriad articles and regular features geared toward the black community, ranging from health, parenting, music and the arts, to profiles of successful members of the community and tips on everything from dating to spiritual well-being.
Many political observers have said that Obama's speech last week limited the damage of the ongoing Wright controversy, but others say the issue is continuing to hamper his campaign.
"I don't think it's going to go away," Ralph Reed, a long-time conservative activist and political strategist who now runs Century Strategies based in Duluth, Ga., told Cybercast News Service.
"Because while Obama's speech was thoughtful and eloquent, it didn't address the central issue, and that's why he would have someone as such a close spiritual advisor with such extreme views," Reed added.
"Let me be clear," Reed added. "I don't think any candidate should have to answer for the theological views of their pastor, church or denomination. But (Wright's) were not theological views, but political statements."
"I think it's more likely to be a serious issue in the general election, more than in the primaries," Reed said.
March 26, 2008
(CNSNews.com) - Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago where Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been a member for two decades, slurred Italians in a piece published in the most recent issue of Trumpet Newsmagazine.
Rev. Jeremiah Wright writes of Jesus' enemies: "(Jesus') enemies had their opinion about Him," Wright wrote in a eulogy of the late scholar Asa Hilliard in the November/December 2007 issue. "The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans."
Wright continued, "From the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth (in a barn in a township that was under the Apartheid Roman government that said his daddy had to be in), up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on a cross, a Roman cross, public lynching Italian style. ...
"He refused to be defined by others and Dr. Asa Hilliard also refused to be defined by others. The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge, but Asa, like Jesus, refused to be defined by an oppressive government because Asa got his identity from an Omnipotent God."
Every issue of the magazine published last year included Wright's column, "The Message," in which he covered a range of subjects, including his views on other African-American churches as expressed in his April 2007 commentary "Facing the Rising Sun."
"In a world that is controlled by white supremacy, in a country that is on its way to hell in a hand basket because of lying politicians, in a culture that still thinks 'white is right' and with young people who do not have a clue as to our story, our history, our legacy or our destiny, we still have African-American Christians who are more concerned about 'bling bling' than about freeing our minds," Wright wrote.
In a nationally broadcast speech on March 18, Obama distanced himself from Wright by saying he "condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy." But Obama also said, "I could no more disown him than I could disown the black community."
According to his federal income tax return for 2006, Obama gave the Trinity United church that year $22,500 in contributions.
The Clinton campaign has not commented on the controversy, but in an interview Tuesday with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) said actions speak louder than words.
"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.
"You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (a radio talk show host who was fired for making racially insensitive remarks about black female basketball players at Rutgers University), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton said.
"I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving," she added.
Trumpet Newsmagazine started publication in the 1980s in Chicago and distribution expanded in March 2006 to several other cities, with broader circulation through subscriptions. On the magazine's masthead, Wright is named as the magazine's CEO and Wright's daughter, Jeri Wright, is the publisher.
Requests for comments from Jeri Wright, the magazine's marketing staff, and the Obama campaign were not answered by press time.
The last Trumpet to be published was the November/December edition, a double issue that featured a remembrance of "Pan-Africanist" Hilliard and a profile of Louis Farrakhan, who was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement "Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter" award at the magazine's 25th anniversary gala late last year.
Farrakhan has called Judaism a "gutter religion" and said Jews are "bloodsuckers," as reported in The New York Times.
Trumpet Newsmagazine also included myriad articles and regular features geared toward the black community, ranging from health, parenting, music and the arts, to profiles of successful members of the community and tips on everything from dating to spiritual well-being.
Many political observers have said that Obama's speech last week limited the damage of the ongoing Wright controversy, but others say the issue is continuing to hamper his campaign.
"I don't think it's going to go away," Ralph Reed, a long-time conservative activist and political strategist who now runs Century Strategies based in Duluth, Ga., told Cybercast News Service.
"Because while Obama's speech was thoughtful and eloquent, it didn't address the central issue, and that's why he would have someone as such a close spiritual advisor with such extreme views," Reed added.
"Let me be clear," Reed added. "I don't think any candidate should have to answer for the theological views of their pastor, church or denomination. But (Wright's) were not theological views, but political statements."
"I think it's more likely to be a serious issue in the general election, more than in the primaries," Reed said.
OBAMA SLAMBAMA
I really don't like democrats in general and really don't liberals in particular. I do not like Senator Obama because he is black but because he stands against every thing I believe in. There are two 'slick Willies' in this contest: Senator Obama and Bill 'Willy' Clinton. Two slick, silver tongued snake oil salesmen.
I will post items I come across with, or without, comment. The articles come from news service sites.
I will post items I come across with, or without, comment. The articles come from news service sites.
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