During last night's Democratic debate, moderator Charles Gibson asked Barack Obama about Jeremiah Wright. Here's the exchange:
MR. GIBSON: Senator Obama, since you last debated, you made a significant speech in this building on the subject of race and your former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And you said subsequent to giving that speech that you never heard him say from the pulpit the kinds of things that so have offended people.
But more than a year ago, you rescinded the invitation to him to attend the event when you announced your candidacy. He was to give the invocation. And according to the reverend, I'm quoting him, you said to him, 'You can get kind of rough in sermons. So what we've decided is that it's best for you not to be out there in public.' I'm quoting the reverend. But what did you know about his statements that caused you to rescind that invitation?
SENATOR OBAMA: Well --
MR. GIBSON: And if you knew he got rough in sermons, why did it take you more than a year to publicly disassociate yourself from his remarks?
SENATOR OBAMA: Well, understand that I hadn't seen the remarks that ended up playing on YouTube repeatedly. This was a set of remarks that had been quoted in Rolling Stone Magazine and we looked at them and I thought that they would be a distraction since he had just put them forward.[Emphasis added]
I couldn't recall the remarks Obama thought would be a "distraction," so I looked them up. The article to which the likely Democratic nominee refers is "The Radical Roots of Barack Obama" by Benjamin Wallace-Wells, from Rolling Stone's February 22, 2007, issue. Here is Wallace-Wells:
Wright takes the pulpit here one Sunday and solemnly, sonorously declares that he will recite ten essential facts about the United States. 'Fact number one: We've got more black men in prison than there are in college,' he intones. 'Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!' There is thumping applause; Wright has a cadence and power that make Obama sound like John Kerry. Now the reverend begins to preach. 'We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS. . . . We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. . . . We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. . . . We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!' The crowd whoops and amens as Wright builds to his climax: 'And. And. And! GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS SH-T!'
Charming.
