Jeremiah Wright controversy

Barack Obama first met Wright in the late 1980s, while he was working as a community organizer in Chicago before attending Harvard Law School. Wright officiated at the wedding ceremony of Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as at their children's baptisms. The title of Obama's 2006 memoir, The Audacity of Hope, was inspired by one of Wright's sermons. This sermon also was the source for themes of Obama's 2004 keynote address to the Democratic National Convention. As reported in The New York Times, Wright was scheduled to give the public invocation before Obama's presidential announcement, but Obama withdrew the invitation the night before the event. Wright criticized the Times for their characterization of the incident as a distortion of the interview he had granted, where he had spoken of Obama in an extremely positive light. In 2007, Wright was appointed to Barack Obama's African American Religious Leadership Committee, a group of over 170 national black religious leaders who supported Obama's bid for the Democratic nomination. However, it was announced in March 2008 that Wright was no longer serving as a member of this group. On May 31, 2008, Barack and Michelle Obama announced that they had withdrawn their membership in Trinity United Church of Christ, stating that "Our relations with Trinity have been strained by the divisive statements of Reverend Wright, which sharply conflict with our own views". ==Controversial sermon excerpts==

Most of the controversial excerpts that gained national attention in March 2008 were taken from two sermons: one titled "The Day of Jerusalem's Fall", delivered on September 16, 2001, and another titled "Confusing God and Government", delivered on April 13, 2003. "The Day of Jerusalem's Fall" In a sermon delivered shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001, Wright made comments about an interview of former U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck which he saw on Fox News. Wright said: Wright spoke of the United States taking land from the Indian tribes by what he described as "terrorism," invading Grenada and Panama as well as bombing Libya in addition to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and argued that the United States supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and South Africa. He said that his parishioners' response should be to examine their relationship with God, not go "from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents." His comment (quoting Malcolm X) that "America's chickens are coming home to roost" was widely interpreted as meaning that America had brought the September 11 attacks upon itself. ABC News broadcast clips from the sermon in which Wright said: Later, Wright continued: "Confusing God and Government" Clips from a sermon that Wright gave, entitled "Confusing God and Government", were also shown on ABC's Good Morning America and on Fox News. In the sermon, Wright first makes the distinction between God and statecraft, and points out that many governments in the past have failed: "Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change." Wright then states: [The United States] government lied about their belief that all men were created equal. The truth is they believed that all white men were created equal. The truth is they did not even believe that white women were created equal, in creation nor civilization. The government had to pass an amendment to the Constitution to get white women the vote. Then the government had to pass an equal rights amendment to get equal protection under the law for women. The government still thinks a woman has no rights over her own body, and between Uncle Clarence who sexually harassed Anita Hill, and a closeted Klan court, that is a throwback to the 19th century, handpicked by Daddy Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, between Clarence and that stacked court, they are about to undo Roe vs. Wade, just like they are about to un-do affirmative action. The government lied in its founding documents and the government is still lying today. Governments lie. He continued: The government lied about Pearl Harbor too. They knew the Japanese were going to attack. Governments lie. The government lied about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. They wanted that resolution to get us in the Vietnam War. Governments lie. The government lied about Nelson Mandela and our CIA helped put him in prison and keep him there for 27 years. The South African government lied on Nelson Mandela. Governments lie. Wright then stated: The government lied about the Tuskegee experiment. They purposely infected African American men with syphilis. Governments lie. The government lied about bombing Cambodia and Richard Nixon stood in front of the camera, "Let me make myself perfectly clear ..." Governments lie. The government lied about the drugs for arms Contra scheme orchestrated by Oliver North, and then the government pardoned all the perpetrators so they could get better jobs in the government. Governments lie. ... The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. Governments lie. The government lied about a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and a connection between 9.11.01 and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Governments lie. He spoke about the government's rationale for the Iraq War: The government lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq being a threat to the United States peace. And guess what else? If they don't find them some weapons of mass destruction, they gonna do just like the LAPD, and plant them some weapons of mass destruction. Governments lie. Wright then commented on God and government: And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains, the government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton field, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing "God Bless America". No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America — that's in the Bible — for killing innocent people. God damn America, for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America, as long as she tries to act like she is God, and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent. These sermon excerpts were widely viewed in early 2008 on network television and the Internet. ==Reaction==

Barack Obama When Wright's comments were aired in the national media, Obama distanced himself from them, saying to Charles Gibson of ABC News, "It's as if we took the five dumbest things that I've ever said or you've ever said in our lives and compressed them and put them out there — I think that people's reaction would, understandably, be upset." Writing for The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates characterized Wright's remarks as "crude conspiratorial antisemitism." The pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League released a statement condemning Wright's remarks as "inflammatory and false. The notions of Jewish control of the White House in Reverend Wright's statement express classic anti-Semitism in its most vile form." Rabbi Scott Gurdin at Temple Sinai said Wright "is missing an opportunity to build alliances and bridges." The National Jewish Democratic Council distributed a statement reading, "Obama showed good judgment in strongly separating himself from Reverend Jeremiah Wright". On June 11, 2009, Wright amended his remarks during an interview with Mark Thompson on his radio program, Make it Plain. "Let me say like Hillary, I misspoke. Let me just say: Zionists... I’m not talking about all Jews, all people of the Jewish faith, I’m talking about Zionists." In The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg alleged that "In other words ... [h]e regrets speaking plainly instead of deploying a euphemism." Wright wrote on his Facebook page apologizing for his remarks on June 12. He wrote, "I mis-spoke and I sincerely meant no harm or ill-will to the American Jewish community or the Obama administration ... I have great respect for the Jewish faith and the foundational (and central) part of our Judeo-Christian tradition." He also stated, "I love President Obama as my son, and support and honor him as the President of the United States of America and leader of the free world." Amos Brown, a former San Francisco supervisor and Baptist pastor, has defended Wright and disputed charges of antisemitism. He said, "[p]eople hear snippets of things and they go running with it rather than sitting down and having a dialogue, the way Jesus engaged people". ==Opinion polling==

In mid-March 2008, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone poll of voters found that just 8% had a favorable opinion of Jeremiah Wright and 58% had an unfavorable view. 73% of voters believed that Wright's comments were divisive, while 29% of African-Americans said Wright's comments made them more likely to support Obama. 66% of those polled had read, seen, or heard news stories about Wright's comments. During these events, Hillary Clinton briefly took the lead in the Gallup national tracking poll, ahead of Obama by 7 points on March 18. By March 20, Clinton's lead decreased to 2 points, a statistically insignificant amount. The same day, John McCain took a 3-point lead over both Democratic candidates in hypothetical General Election match ups, with a 2-point margin of error. By March 22, Obama had regained his lead over Clinton and was up by 3 points. The editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll said that the effect of the controversy "died after a couple of days". A CBS poll taken from March 15 to March 17 found that sixty-five percent of registered voters said it made no difference in their view of Obama, while thirty percent said it made them have a less favorable view. At the end of March 2008, as over 40 states had already held their Democratic primary processes, Barack Obama built on his national Gallup daily tracking poll results to become the first candidate to open a double-digit lead since Super Tuesday, when his competitor Clinton had a similar margin. On March 30 the poll showed Obama at 52% and Clinton at 42%. The Rassmussen Reports poll—taken during the same time frame—showed an Obama advantage of five points. These polls followed weeks of heavy campaigning and heated rhetoric from both camps, and another late-March poll found Obama maintaining his positive rating and limiting his negative rating, better than his chief rival Clinton, even considering Obama's involvement in controversy during the period. The NBC News and Wall Street Journal poll showed Obama losing two points of positive rating and gaining four points of negative rating, while Clinton lost eight points of positive rating and gained five points of negative rating. Following the revival of the controversy surrounding Wright in late April 2008, several polls showed that Obama's image among voters had suffered. According to a Gallup poll, Obama's nationwide favorable rating dropped from 50% to 45%, while Clinton's rating rose to 49%. In this poll, McCain edged Obama by four percentage points in general election match ups, while Clinton was tied with McCain. As of May 5, a Gallup poll of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters showed Obama with a 5% lead over Clinton for the Democratic nomination. In poll data released May 3, 2008, from The New York Times and CBS News, Obama's favorable/unfavorable rating among white Democrats remained the same from last summer. During the same period, Clinton's unfavorable rating among black Democrats increased by 36 percentage points. The Times theorized that the opinion shift among blacks was due to tactics of the Clinton campaign labelled "racially tinged" by many vocal elements within the media, including the alleged "amplifying" by Hillary Clinton of the Wright affair at numerous times. ==Comparisons with other candidates==

Several commentators have drawn comparisons between the media's treatment of Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright with the treatment of political candidates who ally themselves with white religious leaders who have made controversial statements. These critics said that John McCain actively sought the recommendation of John Hagee, who has been criticized for anti-Catholic and anti-Muslim statements and has described Hurricane Katrina as "the judgment of God on the city of New Orleans" for the city's "level of sin" (specifically a planned gay pride march). E. J. Dionne of The Washington Post contended that white religious leaders who make controversial statements often maintain their political influence. He specifically mentioned the remarks of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who agreed that gays, feminists, and liberals shared the blame for the 9/11 attacks, but faced no calls for denunciation by politicians with whom they had relationships. Frank Rich of The New York Times wrote that Rudy Giuliani's relationship with Monsignor Alan Placa had gained little media attention. (Placa is a longtime friend of Giuliani and performed his second wedding; Giuliani hired him to work in his consulting firm after Placa was barred from his priestly duties due to sexual abuse allegations.) Conservative commentator John Podhoretz said that the comparison of Wright with Hagee was "entirely specious", because Obama had a longstanding relationship with Wright and McCain had no personal relationship with Hagee. ==References==