Toronto Star : Obama 'outraged' by Rev. Wright

Obama 'outraged' by Rev. Wright

Tim Harper | WASHINGTON BUREAU | April 30, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama, facing the biggest crisis of his 16-month campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, forcefully and angrily repudiated his former pastor yesterday, saying he was appalled and outraged by a performance by Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Monday.

The Illinois senator's press conference, called on the campaign trail in North Carolina, came after aides showed him Wright's theatrical spectacle at The National Press Club in Washington.

It was also a tacit acknowledgement by Obama of the damage done to his White House aspirations by the man who had been his pastor at Chicago Trinity United Church of Christ for 16 years, and an associate for two decades.

Obama would not say whether Wright's comments had rattled Democratic superdelegates or had hurt his support in Indiana and North Carolina, which hold primaries Tuesday, but the very public divorce may have come a day too late.

Wright's comments Monday dominated television news coverage all day and were front-page news in most major American newspapers.

Obama seemed particularly angered that Wright had implied the Illinois senator had distanced himself from the pastor's previous controversial words only for political reasons.

"At a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that's enough," Obama said.

"That's a show of disrespect to me. It is also, I think, an insult to what we've been trying to do in this campaign.''

He said Wright caricatured himself at Monday's "spectacle'' and said that was not the man he got to know at the Chicago church.

Yesterday's condemnation was much more forceful than his rather tepid response Monday as Wright's words played endlessly on cable news networks in the U.S.

"I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people,'' Obama said in Winston-Salem, N.C.

"That's in my DNA, trying to promote mutual understanding, to insist that we all share common hopes and common dreams as Americans and as human beings.

"That's who I am.

"(Monday), we saw a very different vision of America.

"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw.''

He called Wright's answers to written questions from reporters "a bunch of rants.''

Wright had injected himself into the middle of the Democratic presidential race with a PBS interview, a major speech in Detroit and, then, his tour de force at the National Press Club Monday.

There, in an extraordinary question-and-answer session, he quoted the Bible to suggest the U.S. deserved to be attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, he said the government was capable of genocide by creating the HIV virus to kill African-Americans and defended Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Sunday at a NAACP speech in Detroit, which was also nationally televised, he mocked the accents of former Democratic presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

Many analysts thought that Monday's performance, rather than an attempt at personal redemption by Wright, or an attempt, as he put it, to defend the black church under attack, it was a bid to sabotage Obama's presidential bid.

Many Obama supporters were outraged at the sight of a black man undermining another black man with the first legitimate shot at the White House.

Wright's performance came just as Obama was seeking the elusive support of white, industrial workers in Indiana and North Carolina, where twin victories next Tuesday could essentially knock Hillary Clinton out of the Democratic race.

Obama received another setback yesterday.

As some polls showed his lead over Clinton in North Carolina already narrowing, the New York senator picked up the endorsement of the state's governor, Mike Easley.

"Whatever relationship I had with Rev. Wright has changed,'' Obama said. "He didn't show much regard for me or, more importantly, what we are trying to do for American people.

"The insensitivity and the outrageousness and his performance in the question-and-answer period (Monday) shocked me. It surprised me."

He said Wright offended him and, quite understandably, offended all Americans.

"He caricatured himself,'' Obama said. "And that made me angry, but that also made me sad.''

By his own admission, Obama gave Wright the benefit of the doubt in mid-March in a widely praised speech on race in America he delivered in Philadelphia.

He also cut Wright some considerable slack when asked about him at a Philadelphia debate before Clinton beat him in the Democratic primary by almost 10 points.

Obama said he believed Wright had shown a complete disregard for the need of Americans to rally together to solve problems.

"What mattered to Rev. Wright,'' Obama said, "was commanding centre stage.''

His relations with the church are now strained, he said, because this has become such a spectacle.

"When I go to church, it's not for spectacle,'' Obama said.

"It's to pray and to find a stronger sense of faith.''