The Battle for America 2008 by Johnson Haynes

Author:Johnson, Haynes [Johnson, Haynes]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781101132517
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Then Reverend Wright reappeared. He was interviewed by Bill Moyers on PBS on April 25, feted at an NAACP dinner in Detroit two days later, and on Monday, April 28, spoke to a breakfast gathering at the National Press Club, where he declined to take back his most controversial comments about how the United States brought the 9/11 attacks on itself, praised the Nation of Islam leader the Reverend Louis Farrakhan, saying, “He didn’t put me in chains,” and, in a final thrust, dismissed Obama as a typical politician. Even though Wright’s performance reinforced his image as a self-obsessed minister determined to salve his own damaged ego, his latest appearance could not have been worse for Obama. Yet Obama was slow to react. He was campaigning when he learned of Wright’s latest barrage. How bad is it? he asked Jarrett by telephone. Not good, she said, but struggled to describe just how bad. You have to watch it. Under pressure to say something, Obama issued a tepid statement rebuking Wright, but it fell far short of what many of his friends and outside advisers believed was necessary. The best Obama could muster was “He does not speak for me.”

The new eruption caused Obama real anguish. “The second one was in some ways more painful because I felt that was a personal breach on the part of Reverend Wright,” he told us.

Obama and the senior staff conferred by phone. The question, as one adviser bluntly put it, was “How are we going to elect someone president of the United States who has this person as pastor?” Obama and his team agreed he would need a much stronger statement to mark his full break with Wright. It came the next day: “His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church,” Obama said. “They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs.” He described Wright’s comments as “outrageous” and “ridiculous.”

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