Posted by: Sister Toldjah on May 31, 2008 at 5:47 pm
This is huge news. The CNN news channel (via contributor Roland Martin) has the scoop, but the story is not on their website yet. I’ll post a link when I can find one.
The reason I suspect he’s doing it? The Clintons are using the Wright/Moss/Pfleger arguments with superdelegates that such controversies will make Obama unelectable in the general. That he is doing this the day the rules and bylaws committee meets is not a coincidence.
6:25 PM: There’s a little blurb at the top of the website about it but still no link.
6:27 PM: Here’s a link:
(CNN) — Barack Obama resigned Saturday from his Chicago church — where controversial sermons by his former pastor and other ministers had created repeated political headaches for the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, his campaign confirmed Saturday.
Obama plans to hold a news conference after the town hall meeting he is presntly holding in Aberdeen, South Dakota, the campaign said.
Links are starting to pile up via Memeorandum.
7:38 PM: Obama is scheduled to speak shortly to this issue. Fox News is covering it, and I guess they will have live video on their website when Obama’s presser starts.
8:01 PM: Obama is speaking, says he and Michelle Obama made the decision to leave with “some sadness.” Praises Rev. Moss and Rev. Wright and Father Pfleger. He says he’s leaving for the sake of the church, to protect it, because of the intense media scrutiny. He’s essentially defending the church.
Turns the discussion to the DNC committee vote today. Says in so many words he is eager to wrap this up so they can work on winning FL and MI in the general.
Takes questions from reporters.
Says if he were playing politics with this he would have “distanced” himself from Rev. Wright when he made his announcement that he was running for president.
Um, you did.
Obama makes clear he is not denouncing the church.
9:40 PM: Here’s the text of Obama’s letter to TUCC.
“Some sadness?” Sheesh, if I was involved with a group like that, I would be denouncing them and running away as hard as I could. I guess Mr. Hope and Change isn’t willing to change.
Once again, the Harbinger of Hope, Change, and Waffles is trying to have it both ways: he doesn’t want to be associated with TUCC anymore, but he isn’t willing to really, truly denounce the racist, anti-Semitic, and conspiracy-mongering claptrap spewed from its pulpit and that he listened to for 20 years. He tried this same tack when the Wright fiasco first broke, and it didn’t work then. I don’t think it will work here, either.
So now Obama’s thrown his whole church under the bus.
To paraphrase Roy Scheider’s great line in Jaws: I think you need to get a bigger bus.
This man is such a putz. Like I said last month, this racist church served him while he only needed Chicagoians, but now that the racism has come to light, and the country sees that BO is out of the mainstream, he decides to throw the whole thing under the bus, but it doesn’t change the fact that he has been influenced by racists for the last 20 years. – Lorica
Perhaps Obama’s tagline should be: “Change….when it’s convenient”.
More tarnishing of the brand. The hard core Obamites will laud this as further proof of his courage and ability to make tough decisions, the rest of us will wonder why the shenanigans at TUCC were fine for 20 and only became intolerable once they started showing up on YouTube. Obviously the problem is not in what is preached, the problem is when it becomes widely known.
Claiming to be a different kind of politician only works for as long as you can be seen not acting like the same old type of politician. This is much like McGovern’s expression of “One thousand percent” support for Thomas Eagleton, days before dropping him from the campaign. Obama’s not going to win by positioning himself as the Second Coming of George McGovern.
Obama is shocked…shocked that these terrible things were being said in his church….and, and, and, those people…they looked like they were enjoying it all….
Why, he had no idea that there were those kinds of things being felt, and spoken, there. After all, he only attended the church briefly…for 20 years, was married there, and, worst of all, exposed his young children to this vile hatred…..
What a pusillanimous, palavering, popinjay!!!
He knew darn well what the church’s dogma was. He knew darn well what revs. Wright and Moss and Phleger were all about. Not only was it politically expedient for him to belong to trinity; it’s warped, Marxist, form of Christianity, black liberation theology, conformed well to his red diaper baby upbringing as well as appealing to the ideals inculcated through his ultra left wing academic experience.
Oddly enough, this episode exposes Obama for the hypocritical, usurpacious, fair weathered friend type of individual he really is. His proclamation of being a new kind of politician, practicing a whole new brand of politics, is pure poppycock!
The only thing remotely revolutionary about his campaign, besides the Marxist idealism exhibit by his Che Guevara loving campaign workers, is his campaign’s brilliant use of the internet to produce at times what appear to be an Orwellian mental synergy, and an ominous cult of personality reminiscent of the former Soviet Union. Otherwise, it is the traditional, opportunistic politics of useful friendships, sordid cloakroom dealings, and vote purchasing constituent pay-offs.
Most of the mainstream media will herald this as a “bold” move that will afford Obama a “fresh” start, unencumbered by any stigma of radical racist associations. In the usual fashion, they will declare that “the debate is over” and “the matter is closed”. Any attempt to question him about his 20 years there will be dismissed as “dwelling on the past” or the perfunctory “distraction from the important issues”.
What’s really important is that if the tables were turned, and Maverick had sat idly by listening to the pontifications of the grand poo-bah of the KKK, or some other white supremacist, he would have been TOAST long ago. Not only do the mainstream media tolerate reverse racism, most outlets are actively engaged in trying to get Obama elected. I wonder if they really believe in him, or are they emulating the head of the Illinois state legislature; the man who decided he would play king maker and get Obama elected to the US senate.
Exit question; are the mainstream media wanna-be king makers or simply useful idiots; I’ll let you decide………….
