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15 Responses to “Jon Stewart Takes On Wright Coverage: “The Reverending Story””

1. JohnKonop Says:
   April 29th, 2008 at 7:07 pm

   Obama expresses outrage at Rev. Wright ’spectacle’

   Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Tuesday he was outraged and appalled by the latest comments from his former pastor, who asserted that criticism of his fiery sermons is an attack on the black church and the U.S. government was responsible for the creation of the AIDS virus.

   The presidential candidate is seeking to tamp down the growing fury over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his incendiary remarks that threaten to undermine his campaign.

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2. JohnKonop Says:
   April 29th, 2008 at 7:39 pm

   Obama breaks with former pastor

   POLITICO-Sen. Barack Obama coolly denounced the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for his “appalling” words and for his personal and political betrayal Tuesday, a day after Wright seized center stage in the race for the White House and six weeks after Obama said he could no more “disown” his former pastor than he could his own grandmother.

   Obama’s remarks were a second attempt to end perhaps the most damaging chapter of his political career — and strategists raised significant doubts about whether even Obama’s blistering words could immediately quell the crisis Wright has created for the Illinois senator’s campaign.

   In the weeks since the Wright controversy first emerged, Obama has receded in the public eye, and his Hyde Park, Chicago, milieu — Wright, former Weather Underground bomber William Ayers and the San Francisco comments that made Obama seem distant from working-class Americans — has come to dominate his image and seemed to energize the flagging nomination hopes of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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3. bb Says:
   April 29th, 2008 at 11:00 pm

   It only took B. Hussein Obama 20 years to divorce himself from Jeremiah Wright…how long will it take John Konop?

4. JohnKonop Says:
   April 30th, 2008 at 6:47 am

   Bart

   I am all for free speech!

5. JohnKonop Says:
   April 30th, 2008 at 7:18 am

   Obama’s quandary over preacher reflects supporters’ divide

   NPR-Thirteen hours after his former pastor startled some with a defiant performance that was televised nationwide, Barack Obama urged 18,000 supporters to stay calm and shrug off such “distractions.”

   By the next afternoon, however, his tone was dramatically different.

   The Illinois senator summoned reporters Tuesday to say he was outraged by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “divisive and destructive” remarks, scrambling to contain the flare-up in a controversy that has dogged him since clips of some of Wright’s most objectionable remarks began circulating on TV and the Internet.

   Obama said he belatedly condemned Wright’s remarks because he did not see a transcript or video of Monday’s appearance until the next day.

   Doubtless, too, campaign aides were inundated with calls and messages Tuesday urging a stronger reaction.

   But Obama’s struggle to find the right tone — six weeks ago he said he couldn’t disown the pastor he’s known for 20 years — also reflects a striking difference in how Democratic voters view the controversy and its proper handling, a point made clear in interviews in North Carolina this week, ahead of the May 6 primary.

   Black voters, in particular, urge Obama to rise above campaign attacks and dustups, saying he is not responsible for what Wright says. Many white voters say they were deeply troubled and baffled by Obama’s association with Wright, even before the preacher reiterated some of his most incendiary comments on Monday.

   At the heart of this divide is a fundamental disagreement about Obama’s strengths and weaknesses in his battle against Hillary Rodham Clinton for the party’s presidential nomination.

   “I’m not so concerned” about Wright’s comments, said Aliki Martin, of Bahama. A compliance officer at Duke University Medical Center, she was among 18,000 people who awaited Obama’s arrival late Monday night at the University of North Carolina’s basketball arena in Chapel Hill.

   “I hope he keeps things positive,” she said.

   Obama seemed to follow that advice in his 45-minute speech. “I know we’re being goaded into stuff,” he said, referring vaguely to disputes with Clinton and her supporters. “Don’t get distracted,” he told the crowd.

   He gently mocked his critics: “They say, ‘We don’t know enough about him. He doesn’t always wear a flag pin. His pastor once said something. He’s got a funny name, sounds Muslim.’”

   By Tuesday afternoon in Winston-Salem, Obama wasn’t laughing it off any more.

   Wright’s comments — including the suggestion that the U.S. government invented the AIDS virus to destroy “people of color” — “end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate,” Obama told reporters, “and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church.”

   It was the kind of comment Tom Lipsky, a record company owner in Raleigh, expected to hear earlier.

   “It bothers me that he would take his two daughters” to a church headed by “a man who says those kinds of things,” said Lipsky, who is white, as he waited to see Clinton Tuesday morning at North Carolina State University. Lipsky, 53, said he’s a committed Democrat, but is not sure he could vote for Obama if he becomes the nominee.

   John Overton, of Chapel Hill, also attending the Clinton event, had similar misgivings. “I’m afraid of his radical connections,” which include Wright, the 39-year-old software developer said.

   “I was the only white person” for about a year at a black church in Beaufort, Overton said. “I never heard anybody talk like that.”

   In interview after interview, black and white Democrats seemed to talk past each other on the issue of religion and campaigns, even though all said they deeply dislike President Bush and want a change in Washington.

   “Obama is not responsible for what his preacher says,” said Copeland Richard, of Knightdale, who attended the Chapel Hill rally. “As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t have to answer that,” said Richard, 66, who is black. “He’s above that, he’s dignified.”

   The differences dismay many North Carolina Democratic officials, who saw the excitement over the Obama-Clinton contest as virtually unprecedented, possibly leading to huge gains for the party in November.

   “I see a permanent fissure developing now” between black and white Democrats, said state Rep. Dan Blue, of Raleigh, who was North Carolina’s first black House speaker.

   With the Wright controversy hot again, and former President Clinton recently saying Obama’s campaign “played the race card” against him, Blue said a great opportunity may turn to tragedy.

   “I don’t know how you repair it,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

6. bb Says:
   April 30th, 2008 at 9:11 am

   No John, you said you supported Wright in the other thread. When will you join with B. Hussein Obama to denounce hate America aholes like the good reverend?

7. JohnKonop Says:
   April 30th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

   This is what I said.

   The truth is Wright made some valid arguments even if I disagree. The truth is he does represent a view in the black community and why not have an open honest dialogue? In business and life you learn perception is reality to the other person. And if you do not walk in the other person shoes you never find a long term solution.

8. Aubrey Says:
   April 30th, 2008 at 12:45 pm

   What kind of “honest dialog” do you expect to have with a man who uses his pulpit to spread blatant lies such as his AIDS claims?

9. JohnKonop Says:
   April 30th, 2008 at 12:57 pm

   Aubrey

   Perception is reality. That is why Reagan had dialogue with the Russians during the cold war.

10. JohnKonop Says:
    April 30th, 2008 at 1:08 pm

    A Gentle Appeal to the Russian Bear

    Less than six weeks after his Inauguration, Reagan received a letter from the U.S.S.R.’s leader, Leonid Brezhnev, bluntly reiterating Soviet policy. Reagan wanted to begin a thaw by responding with a calmer, more personal appeal to common purpose.

    In April 1981, a week after being released from the hospital and still recovering from an assassination attempt, Reagan sat in the White House solarium and drafted a letter to Brezhnev on a yellow legal pad. Although the final form of the letter was published in 1990, this first draft, in Reagan’s handwriting, was only recently discovered.

    My Dear Mr. President:

    I regret and yet can understand the somewhat intemperate tone of your recent letter. After all we approach the problems confronting us from opposite philosophical points of view.

    Is it possible that we have let ideology, political and economical philosophy and governmental policies keep us from considering the very real, everyday problems of the people we represent? Will the average Russian family be better off or even aware that his government has imposed a government of its liking on the people of Afghanistan? . . .

    In your letter you imply that such things have been made necessary because of territorial ambitions of the United States; that we have imperialistic designs and thus constitute a threat to your own security and that of the newly emerging nations. There not only is no evidence to support such a charge, there is solid evidence that the United States when it could have dominated the world with no risk to itself made no effort whatsoever to do so.

    When WWII ended the United States had the only undamaged industrial power in the world. Its military might was at its peak—and we alone had the ultimate weapon, the nuclear bomb with the unquestioned ability to deliver it anywhere in the world. If we had sought world domination who could have opposed us? But the United States followed a different course—one unique in all the history of mankind. We used our power and wealth to rebuild the war-ravaged economies of all the world including those nations who had been our enemies.

    A decade or so ago, Mr. President, you and I met in San Clemente, California. I was governor of California at the time and you were concluding a series of meetings with President Nixon. Those meetings had captured the imagination of all the world. Never had peace and good will among men seemed closer at hand. When we met I asked if you were aware that the hopes and aspirations of millions and millions of people throughout the world were dependent on the decisions that would be reached in your meetings.

    You took my hand in both of yours and assured me that you were aware of that and that you were dedicated with all your heart and mind to fulfilling those hopes and dreams.

    The people of the world still share that hope. Indeed the peoples of the world despite differences in racial and ethnic origin have very much in common. They want the dignity of having some control over their individual destiny. They want to work at the craft or trade of their own choosing and to be fairly rewarded. They want to raise their families in peace without harming anyone or suffering harm themselves. Government exists for their convenience not the other way around.

    . . . Mr. President should we not be concerned with eliminating the obstacles which prevent our people from achieving these simple goals? And isn’t it possible some of those obstacles are born of government aims and goals which have little to do with the real needs and wants of our people? . . .

    —Ronald Reagan

11. bb Says:
    April 30th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

    What does Ronald Reagan ending the cold war have to do with a bonafide nutcase preacher blaming AIDS and terrorist attacks on America?

12. JohnKonop Says:
    April 30th, 2008 at 4:06 pm

    Bart

    Reagan engaged people he disagreed with!

13. Aubrey Says:
    April 30th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

    John

    Then you must also agree with Jimmy Carter and Barry Obama that we should sit down with our enemies and have a cup of coffee with them.

14. bb Says:
    April 30th, 2008 at 6:03 pm

    So you’re saying that Reagan would have “engaged” in conversation with a hate America preacher from the southside of Chicago who blames Reagan’s administration for the introduction of AIDS to kill off black people?

15. JohnKonop Says:
    April 30th, 2008 at 6:37 pm

    Look at the letter he wrote Leonid Brezhnev.