I could not watch. And I can watch anything.

Impressive P.E. reference tag.

ruh roh!

Is it just me, or does the way Rev. Wright fills out his chasuble suggest that he spends a lot of what appears to be entirely worthwhile time at the gym?

I'm thinking Obama staffers might be able snatch this situation from the jaws of defeat were they to leak some candid photos of the reverend working-out shirtless or wearing a tight, grimy wife-beater and little else.

Pareene: Exceptional.

No, Wright is not helping. But let's step out of ourselves and see where exactly this Wright guy came from in relation to Obama's life:

Obama, born from a white mother with an Indonesian stepfather who was raised outside of the country who then finished his schooling in Hawaii, and then in CA, Columbia University and finally at Harvard Law, relocates and sets up shop as a legislator in Chicago.

The black church is the foundation and backbone of the black community, the community he is now entrenched in and building a career in. In order to gain the trust and respect of the black community, you have to go to the church, at least once in a while. You have to join into the pomp and circumstance of the whole black church circuit in order for you to be recognized and established. Barack in the past has expressed that he doesn't agree with many of Wright's views. I was raised Catholic and I severely disagree with the priest and the Pope. Unless I see Barack up there next to him on the pulpit expousing the same showboat views of Wright, it would be wrong of me to assume that he feels the same as he. Especially when you recognize that in order to get in touch of the community he was serving he had to go to the same places they were in in order to learn and gain some perspective as to their thoughts and needs.

Am I excusing Wright? No. But is he being trumped up as a stereotypical angry yet eloquent black man to bolster up the Ferraro-induced race hysteria? Perhaps.

@The Real JR: This totally awesome black preacher would be burned at the stake if he were a woman speaking in similarly strident terms about women's rights.

You say you're not excusing Barack Obama, but that's exactly what you're doing: No, a person may not agree with the pope, but that may not affect his or her decision to go to the local Catholic church. (The pope's a long way away, after all.) But you tell me how this is any different than going to services at the "church" of the Rev. Fred Phelps in Kansas (of "God Hates Fags" fame), but then saying you don't always agree with everything the dear rev has to say.

This is a double standard, pure and simple. AND, as awesome Queens Italian Geraldine Ferraro had the guts to say, it would be curtains for Obama if the media were not so afraid of offending racial sensibilities.

@Aatom: Agreed. Wholeheartedly.

@The Real JR: Bing- and Brav-o.

So Obama is slumming then?

We mined Nicaragua. Get it straight.

Also, he's a United Church of Christ preacher and you know who they DON'T want to kill with the Bible? Teh gayz. Clearly, they are a Christian sleeper cell of anti-American thought.

@avecboob: You're high. Dworkin was actually burned at the stake and they're about to start up Steinem.

@Aatom: Seriously. How many people are even old enough to remember Griff here?

@The Real JR: So he just used the church to gain "good PR" for the neighborhood? But didn't believe anything the preacher said? Because, thats not dirty politics.

I'd like to hear Dick Cheney's take on this. That should be decisive.

Much better (and more biting) video of the Rev is available on youtube. I'd post the link but this shiftless caucasoid will not be party to another high-tech Thomas Pynchon.

Can I write in Richard Pryor on my balot?

The church is over six miles from Obama's home.
There are plenty of other black churches a lot closer than that on the South Side.
In fact, there's just about one per block just a few blocks away on Cottage Grove Ave., 47th St., 51st St., 55th St or King Dr.

And there's a huge synagogue just across the street & 51st. & Greenwood maybe 200 feet from his house. And it's a beautiful building, one of those eight sided shuls.

That he drives miles to go there indicates he must agree with some of Wright's insane ideas!

@avecboob: Okay, well just like you say it's unfair to parallel the Pope in my statement, you do have to agree bringing up Phelps is totally apples and goodyear tires. But let's continue.

BO has consistently condemmed the highly divisive statements has made throughout the years:

[weblogs.baltimoresun.com]
[www.nytimes.com]

...but he had to condemn him in a respectful manner because, frankly, a lot of those in various black communities (let's not say all, okay) still hold those old views. So instead of isolating himself from the black community, he opens a dialogue with various leaders and then challenges them in regards to certain divisive thoughts and actions. (why would a man who was raised by a strong white female allow for someone to disparage the other part of his blood?)

Should BO have condemned stronger? Sure, why not. But has BO's words and actions reflected Wright's negative talk? No. Has he created a victim like atmosphere out of his campaign saying, "They all attacking me because I'm black and the white man is always trying to keep the black man down?" No. In fact he'll go in front of these audiences and say the exact opposite.

How else do you change the tone of discourse than from within.

And in regards to Ferraro, gutsy or just dumb in terms of what she said over and over? Again, she's too savvy to have just let an old person rant like hers get away from herself without a motivation, I think.

How about both barrels of Pareene for McCain and his figurative fellating of that KKK-grade hater the Rev. John Hagee?

@The Real JR: I get what you're saying, I'm just troubled by the lopsided reaction.

Wright is a wingnut. I find what he said as offensive & stupid as Ferraro's statements. I agree that Clinton should shut her up, but why is everyone being so soft on Obama for letting this wingnut run off at the mouth on his behalf. And 'not isolating the black church going community' isn't a good enough excuse for me. I don't find Clinton's excuses viable, nor do I find Obama's. I think Obama is getting off easy in that regard.

What's good for the goose and all.....

@The Real JR: I'm not talking about "condemning" an errant supporter, I'm talking about Obama going(or having gone) to this church every single Sunday! I'm talking about Obama calling this totally awesome black preacher his spiritual leader. Don't you think Obama is talking out of both sides of his mouth? And don't you think that betrays his candy-coated message of "HOPE?"

The Phelps comparison is just as overboard as your pope comparison -- yes -- but aside from that, let's be honest about this:

If totally awesome white woman Hillary Clinton went to a church where the preacher spoke inflamatory rhetoric, she'd be done-for. She's getting crucified (to stick with the Christian theme) for not distancing herself sufficiently from Ferraro's words -- which were pretty tame, compared to Obama's awesome black preacher's -- but Obama gets a pass for for attending this preacher's church every weekend because he issued a few statements of "disagreement" when he started running for president?!

@Macloserboy: Raises hand.

"Professor Griff knows... Yo, I ain't milquetoast."

I saw the whole video of Jeremiah Wright, Jr.'s "Hillary's never been called a ni#&@*er" speech and I'm scratching my head. I agree that, in general, African-Americans are faced with far greater hardships and obstacles than, you know, white ladies who went to Wellesley, but slapping the "Barack grew up with a single mom" and "Barack grew up with the same hardships we all did" arguments around is a little specious. Barack's single mom was white, relatively prosperous, and from Kansas, and he grew up on the mean streets of... O'ahu? And Jakarta? Something tells me the struggles black teenagers face growing up in Camden or the South Side of Chicago or Anacostia or Detroit have absolutely nothing to do with the struggles Obama faced, you know, attending private school in Honolulu, playing pickup games of basketball with his buddies at Oxy, or on law review at Harvard.

That's all. I'm not trying to minimize or even attempt to summarize the struggles and disadvantages many African-Americans face. I'm just trying to point out -- without having a Gerry Ferraro label slapped on my forehead -- that, all things considered, Obama had a pretty sweet life. So did Hillary. Both faced discrimination, both faced uphill battles, both came to the table with the huge advantages of an upper-class education. So, yeah, the whole Jeremiah Wright thing? Obama used him to gain "cred" with the black community on the South Side of Chicago; now he's screwed.

Here's the difference between McCain standing on a stage with that douchebag Hagee and Barack Obama. Obama brought his kids to a church that preaches that Jesus is a black man (historically inaccurate) and that Louis Farrakhan is some kind of hero (how does Farrakhan feel about a dirty Jew like Jesus, anyway?).

But let's be real, here. His faith is a sham. He signed up with that church to get some black street cred when the half-white Harvard boy returned to Chicago and found that black people actually do give a shit that you go to church (and where you go). This doesn't hurt him with the Republicans (unless you believe the media and Barack myth that there is a host of Republicans just a-waiting to vote for Barack); it hurts him with working class white Democrats and black people who don't buy into crackpot anti-Americanism. (It's not like the folks who secretly think Barack is a Muslim were ever going to vote for him (or Hillary) anyway.)

And, by the way, not to pick nits, but according to the American Council on Education, 635,198 black men, the vast majority ages 18 to 24, attended higher education institutions in 2001 ... Of the 803,400 black men in the nation's state and federal prisons and local jails in 2001, just 189,200 were 18 to 24 years old. Nearly 76% of these black inmates were 25 and older, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported.

@sassypants: I mean, I get what you say as well.

I have my own issues with the black church and their particular hypocrises. You think Fundy churches are ridiculous with their child molestations, hookers and the like? Well honey there's illegitimate children, mistresses and cadillacs left and right. It's an insane game, black or white.

And since this whole Wright thing has just come up, we don't know whether the media will be going soft on Obama on this one. It's just started. But what I do know is that we should put EVERYONE'S spiritual and religious affiliations under a microscope then. And McCain's has already come out as well.

Frankly, I'm wondering if this is a Bush backlash in regards to how his over fundamentalizing of the politics process ruined it for everyone.

@The Real JR: Well put. I agree. And you're right, this Wright nonsense has just happened....the next couple of days should prove interesting! No matter what differences we have, I think we can basically agree on this: church sucks.

@The Real JR: Well, you didn't answer my questions. But I suppose that's the whole "rise above" trick the Obama campaign likes to play: Get everyone all whipped up in a frenzy, then pretend you had nothing to do with it.

Here's what I'd like to see: A Ferraro-Obama fistfight. That badass lady would kick the shit out of the effete, Harvard egghead who poses like he's "down" with the black folks on the South Side of Chicago, all the while "distancing" himself from the more radical views some members of that community hold.

He's a pussy.

There. I said it.

@SpecialK: Don't forget the part about the white government inventing AIDS to kill the blacks, another Wright chestnut. At the end of the day, if you want to be the President/Commander In Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, you need to put on your flag lapel pin, put your hand over heart when they play the Star Spangled Banner, tell your wife to shut up about struggling when she has a full-time maid, a 300-thou-a-year-job, and an ivy league edumacation, distance yourself from former Weathermen like bomb-throwing Bill Ayers, and especially run away a liberation theologist pastor who sounds like Ward Churchill in a good mood. Using 'goddam America' in the pulpit will not play in Peoria. What next--9/11 truther abductees for Obama?

@avecboob: I'm not fully disagreeing with you on all these points...

But frankly, what do we do? Seriously- what do we do?

Racism and sexism has been rampant throughout America's entire history. So we fight the battle RIGHT NOW, right when the nation is falling apart or do we push aside all of the extraneous noise (and that's what all of this is), and get right back to the issues at hand so that we can elect a Preasident who will fix all of this or at least try.

So is Hilary just the "woman president"? What will happen if, because she has no other qualificiations or record than her having a vagina, will happen when she becomes president? Will men suddenly become pregnant? Will women suddenly be the top of every agenda and control the corporate offices everywhere?

If Barack is the Black President, because that's all that he is, the black guy with no other dimension to him, then once in office will suddenly he start the Revolution that Public Enemy had described over screeching alarms back in the 90's?

Sounds ridiculous? Absolutely it is because that's what talk about race and gender in regards to whether these two are qualified enough to lead our heavily multicultral nation is leading to. When people play up that she's female, they use stereotypes of a weepy, emotional and fussy Clinton at the white house. When race is involved, all the alarms of White Fear come into play and then we do get youtubes of a colleague of his who does spout bullshit to feed onto the paranoia, yes FEAR, of a Black Planet (whatever the fuck that is).

Basically the race and gender talk are all distractions from the big picture and we're feeding right into it.

I have no strong views on this Wright guy, frankly I don't give a fuck because I know well and good he has no access to government really. Much like Falwell. Or Robertson. Or whatever jackoff hiding behind a Bible.

So we can talk this to death or at least see the big picture. See how these are all distractions without context and basically feeding into whatever fears that brought us into this situation of not only the past 8 years but of the batshittery of the -isms that as a nation we have been embarassed of for generations.

@avecboob: And you're right, I didn't answer your questions and I tried to with my belated reply. Work distractions and all...

thank God Jon Stewart is here to explain it for us. twerp.

@The Real JR: Absolutey agreed.

For all I know, this black preacher could be 100 percent correct about the U.S. government "inventing" AIDS to kill black folks, about politically motivated bombing campaigns or anything else.

But this is my point: If you're going to run a campaign about "speaking truth to power" you better damn well TELL THE TRUTH yourself. Don't pussy-foot around about whether you attend this guy's church. Don't pussy-foot around about your true beliefs just so the scared white folks in Nebraska and Wyoming will vote for you. Don't tamp down your wife's controversial beliefs because the Republicans are making an issue out of them.

If you want to channel the spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King -- as Obama and his supporters seem to want to do -- then you had better be willing to put your neck on the line and TELL THE GODDAMNED TRUTH.

Why are Hillary supporters so wierd and angry?

@avecboob: the second you said "Queens Italian" it was over. You know what's older than red sauce in the outer borough Italian communities? Racism. Specifically, hating on black people - in unions, NYPD, NYFD, with baseball bats, what have you. It's as old as NY. Ferraro's twisted sense of who's getting away with what is the same old crap you always hear from outer borough whites complaining about some kind of affirmative action conspiracy.

@procrastinator, esq.: As for who's more privileged, it's clearly Hillary. Sure Barack didn't grow up in the projects, but that doesn't mean he had the same advantages as Hillary, which he did not. His mother wasn't prosperous, and his grandfather was a salesman. He got a scholarship to attend private school. Overall, I'd say he's made it a lot farther on his own merit than she has.

Not that any of this is the point. I think BO probably agrees with the good reverend more than he admits, but so what? the reverend is right about a lot of things.

@avecboob: sounds like you have higher standards for Obama than you do for Hillary.

Ferarro sounds like just another insipid outer borough Italian complaining about some fictional affirmative action conspiracy. Her comments are absurd.

Obama's made it farther on his own merit than Hillary has. The reason the press doesn't give him as hard a time is because he has a nicer personality.

I think BO probably does agree with the reverend more than he's letting on. But who cares? The reverend is right about a lot of things.

@lalalina: Oops. I thought my first comment didn't take.

Have to say it -- time to revive the "in which we mock an old man for saying things that are arguably true" tag again. What were the chances?

@lalalina: My reference to Ferraro as a Queens Italian is in reference to these posts. It's my protest against constantly refering to soon-to-be Gov. David Paterson as "awesome blind governor."

You can see these posts here:
[gawker.com]
And here: [gawker.com]

P.S.: Your blanket statements about the perceived (or actual) racism held by people in the "outer boroughs" kind of negates your own comments.

P.P.S.: Your comments about Barack Obama's grandfather being "only" a salesman also ring false. Hillary Clinton's father, Hugh Rodham, was a drapery salesman -- before starting his own drapery fabric manufacturing company -- in the Chicago suburbs.

P.P.P.S.: Let's not get into who's had it worse -- who's been more oppressed, etc. I think we can all agree both Barack and Hillary have faced challenges because of their race and sex, respectively.

@avecboob: indeed, I think Obama and his wife have more radical views than his whole "uniter" rhetoric would suggest, which is fine with me since my views are radical as well.

Besides the association with Farrakhan who is just too laughable to be offended by at this point I think about 70% of this preacher's opinions are on to something and even if the other 30% are batshit crazy conspiracy theories - it represents what a (smallish) chunk of the black community believes so I can understand why O signed up for the street cred. However in the New York article about his wife it says that they've been members for years so this might not be an election prank.

Is this the place where we can suggest commenters for execution?

@lalalina: Well, good for the reverend being right about a lot of things. He and Barack can be right about everything right there in Chicago, because that kind of shit isn't going to win a general election. Barack can kick this clown and his anti-semitism and his anti-Americanism to the curb now or he can do it in the general election. Either way, he's going to have to do it because if Hillary doesn't make an issue of it (and she'd be stupid not to) then John McCain will, and he'll do it loud enough so that it won't just be whites who get the message. (After all, I'd bet that Christian Hispanics and Asians would disagree on that whole 'Jesus is black' bit.)

And while Ferraro's antics were probably nothing more than a well-played racial gambit by the Hillary campaign, the only difference between Barack Obama speaking at the Democratic Convention last time around and J.C. Watts speaking at the Republican convention were the letters behind their names. (Well, that and Watts had two years in national office under his belt when he spoke and Obama had none.) They were put up there by mostly white politicians trying to make a point.

George W. Bush has expressed one or two opinions I agree with, and no one has repudiated my support.

@avecboob: Acknowledging racism in the outer boroughs is nothing new. I didn't say that BO's granddad was "only" a salesman, I simply stated a fact. You yourself acknowledge that Hillary's dad owned a company. The two are not the same. And of course they both suffer -isms. That's not my point at all. Rather, for all her groaning about having experience, most of it is comprised of being a famous person's husband. The only reason I'm getting involved in all of this (and apparently being nominated for execution) is that I'm tired of seeing this guy be diminshed by reference to his race.

Back to Madonna's crotch.

@lalalina: What?

You say:
The only reason I'm getting involved in all of this (and apparently being nominated for execution) is that I'm tired of seeing this guy be diminshed by reference to his race.

But then also say:
Rather, for all her groaning about having experience, most of it is comprised of being a famous person's [wife].

How are you *not* "diminishing" Hillary because of her sex?

Barack Obama suggested Hillary's diplomatic missions to China -- and more than 80 countries -- were simply ladies' tea parties. [blogs.abcnews.com]

If Hillary had said something similar, something like "Barack's community organizing on the South Side of Chicago is simply 'a black thing,'" what do you think the response would have been?

It seems to me there's an alarming double standard when dealing with "race vs. sex."

Seems to me overt sexism is alive and well -- even among women, I'm sad to say! -- but any comments even scratching the surface of race (whether or not they're actually racist) are automatically deplored and somehow "diminishing" of a person.

Yes, if I were you, I'd stick to Madonna's crotch.

What the hell, since when did Gawker comments become a place for people pretending to have a serious political debate?

@SpecialK: This is what bothers me the most too. Obama can do whatever he wants, but he is exposing his children to this trash. He can't say he rejects the message on one hand but let his children listen to it on the other hand. Can you imagine what it is doing to their little minds? Children soak up that stuff like sponges.

@flyoverstate: The next thing we know they'll be actually black!

That church also doesn't believe in Daylight Saving Time.
They're covering this on local Chicago TV right now & during a stand-up outside the church, you can see the clock is not only still on Central Standard Time & even that's wrong, it's slow!