Arkansas Blog

And who's surprised by this? As Rev. Wright has pointed out previously, Obama must and will say what a politician must say.

This is a likely to be a good thing.. get this stuff out of the way or at least get folks tired of it during a winning primary season.

The shock value of Wright (even in manipulated sound bites) drops with every hour of MSM and GOP (and occasional DLC lovers) repeated attempts to find a Dean scream moment. I don't have a problem with most of what Wright says, in fact I applaud him for speaking to adults in an adult maneer much of the time. Fact is Obama moved away from Wright weeks ago, and his campaign obviously did not have anything to do with Wright the past week.

It's the Hagee's of the world who are buying power and promoting Armageddon wars that threaten me.. and it's the kind of preachers who remain silent about the Hagee's or our endless wars of aggression that i have to wonder about their spiritual merit.. if I wonder about them at all.

The Wright debacle is bad, no doubt. What's even worse is when "journalists" promote and use this as legitimate ground against Obama. Media Matters has quite a bit on that.

What this tells me is that Barry is willing to sell out his own pastor to get to the White House.

Talk about power-hungry.

How long till he sends Michelle away for getting in his way?

Clearly Obama will say and do anything to be elected. Just a few weeks back Obama was praising Rev Wright for his influence in his life. Now he claims that he just doesn't know him. It's looking like early Christmas for Hillary.

So I decided to look up the Tuskegee experiment, which Wright has mentioned. In it, the US government experimented on poor black men from Alabama with diseases and untested treatments. It's real folks, and it's a cryin' shame.

And please, Severus, you're completely distorting Obama's words.

The Tuskegee experiment, from NPR:
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The Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began the study in 1932. Nearly 400 poor black men with syphilis from Macon County, Ala., were enrolled in the study. They were never told they had syphilis, nor were they ever treated for it. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the men were told they were being treated for "bad blood," a local term used to describe several illnesses, including syphilis, anemia and fatigue.

For participating in the study, the men were given free medical exams, free meals and free burial insurance.

At the start of the study, there was no proven treatment for syphilis. But even after penicillin became a standard cure for the disease in 1947, the medicine was withheld from the men. The Tuskegee scientists wanted to continue to study how the disease spreads and kills. The experiment lasted four decades, until public health workers leaked the story to the media.

By then, dozens of the men had died, and many wives and children had been infected. In 1973, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed a class-action lawsuit. A $9 million settlement was divided among the study's participants. Free health care was given to the men who were still living, and to infected wives, widows and children.

But it wasn't until 1997 that the government formally apologized for the unethical study. President Clinton delivered the apology, saying what the government had done was deeply, profoundly and morally wrong:

"To the survivors, to the wives and family members, the children and the grandchildren, I say what you know: No power on Earth can give you back the lives lost, the pain suffered, the years of internal torment and anguish.

"What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say, on behalf of the American people: what the United States government did was shameful.

"And I am sorry."
-------------------------------------

Why do you think they experimented on poor black people?

Obama's comment in full, so that people can't claim he said things that he didn't (it obviously wouldn't get posted otherwise):

--------------
I'm outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday. I have been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1992 and have known Jeremiah Wright for almost 22 years. The person I saw yesterday was not the person I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but they also give comfort to those that prey on hate and I believe they do not accurately portray the perspective of the black church. They certainly do not accurately portray my values and beliefs. If Reverend Wright thinks that is political posturing on my part, he does not know me very well.

I have already denounced those comments that have come out of these previous sermons. I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church, has built a wonderful conversation. They are a wonderful people and what attracted me has always been the ministries reach beyond church walls. But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions, that the U.S. government is involved in AIDS, when he suggests that Louis Farrakhan represents one of the greatest voices of the 21st century, when he equates the United States' wartime effort with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me, they rightfully offend all Americans, and they should be denounced. That is what I am doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.

I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people. That's in my DNA, trying to promote mutual understanding to insist that we all share common hopes and common dreams as Americans and as human beings. That's who I am, that's what I believe, and that's what this campaign has been about.

"But maybe, just maybe, the real shortcoming was in his failure to see this coming. That's the electability thing again." -Max

Valid point...definitely the symptom of a lack of harsh, cut-throat political experience that the other candidates have...it is unfortunate that sometimes that is what it takes to get elected...

Like Obama said, he tried to give Wright the benefit of the doubt...and, for the record, I don't really have any issue with what Wright has to say. Like Eureka mentioned earlier it's nice to be spoken to like an adult...

Funny, though...Hillary's folks can get away with poking fun at gays but Obama's Rev. can't speak what is essentially 99% truth without getting slammed...

Instead of this party bickering I'm ready to be taking on McCain, dude...

Unfortunately there is no such thing as getting it over with in politics. The damage on this can't be undone and it can only get worse. The surface has barely been scratched on this. Obama is on record (video) making contradictory statements about his knowledge of past Wright comments. There is just no way to spin this to make it go away.

Obama is losing the support of swing voters already which is why he's tied with McCain while Clinton leads McCain by 9. Just wait for the national "swift-boating" commercials on this. Anyone that thinks this will soon be over is fooling themselves.

Man, that guy loves the spotlight -- way more than he loves Sen. Obama.

TAP

It appears you have assessed the situation well.

"The Wright debacle is bad, no doubt. What's even worse is when "journalists" promote and use this as legitimate ground against Obama. Media Matters has quite a bit on that."

Oh, please. Cry me a river. If this were Hillary Clinton's pastor, Keith Obamamann and the other media talking heads would already have declared her electoral dead meat and launched a sound barrier-shattering drumbeat for her to immediately drop out of the race.

Obama's credibility problem is not just the fact he is associated with Jeremiah Wright; it's that Obama's explanation that he didn't realize until just recently that Wright says utterly nutty things is frankly unbelievable. It boggles logic that Obama just happened to be absent from every one of these sermons and is shocked to learn that Wright is so offensive to just about everyone.

That Obama's campaign didn't see this day coming from a mile away is testament to the intellectual arrogance of the candidate and his campaign--and to the not-ready-for-prime-time judgment that will sink him in the general election. Very few people are going to honestly believe Obama was oblivious to Wright's nutty sayings. Obama's refusal to totally disavow Wright a few weeks back, followed by his panic-laden politically expedient about-face today, seriously calls into question Obama's credibility.

Whatever the merits of focusing on Wright (and the idea that the media would give this is a pass is seriously naive) this little debacle as you rightly label it will cost Obama legions of working class, white swing votes. Democrats didn't take back Congress in '06 with just base votes; they got disaffected Republicans and independents and swing voters who are going to be seriously repelled by this whole episode.

This situation is precisely why superdelegates were created. Obama should have been well aware that the Wright bombshell would seriously imperil his candidacy. The Democratic Party does not "owe" its nomination to someone who shows such a lack of political judgment and endangers his party's chances of winning back the White House. It's selfish, foolish, and amounts to political malpractice.

Man, this is the best dang soap opera since Dallas went off the air! *grabs popcorn*

My two cents: Eureka Springs is in serious denial if the thinks most Americans aren't shocked by this, or that they think Wright talks to them on an "adult" level. His comments were full of dramatic flair that typifies his sermons: the bug eyes, the thundery pauses, the hopping around for effect. He was like Rodney Dangerfield meets Malcolm X. And telling the American people they deserve terrorism for having committed terror? That the gub'mint created AIDS (yes, he reiterated that one)? Beyond unreal, and certainly unwise.

As for Max, I don't think Obama "groveled" at all. I saw it as serious and important damage control. D'ya think Hillary groveled in that debate where she admitted to lying about Bosnian sniper fire?

When I said on this blog a couple of weeks ago that Obama would regret not putting more distance between himself and Rev. Wright, I was accused of being a racist. Is Obama now a racist for actually separating himself from Wright? This episode has hurt Obama. He may make up some of the ground he lost, but he won't get it all back.

Shoot, Pavel...you're no racist and I hope you didn't take whatever any fool said otherwise seriously...

We'll see what kind of damage has been done or undone when the dust settles...

I think you'll be waiting a long time for the dust to settle. The traffic on this dusty road is going to keep coming. Nobody is entitled to the nomination...not Clinton...not Obama.

Muckraker - your summation makes about as much sense as arguing impeachment for a blow job was the right thing to attempt in the US House of Representatives... or would be the right kind of reason for Supers to overthrow the will of the people.

McCain is on CNN pushing the Huck-a-diet health care meme right now... juxtaposed to a story of (skinny) people getting married in order to gain access to health care benefits. The stupid greed of the Republicans is enough for most folks to believe in Hillary's DLC these days.. which is bad enough for anyone who understands the back stabbing corporate loving nature of the DLC.. but enough folks understand the GOP is a bunch of borderline fascist lying, club Hubris.

Even a fair share of the bigots and misogynists would prefer health care (without threat of bankruptcy) over a Huck-aCain faith based immoral diet plan... and so will plenty of Blue Collars. The Dem/progressive messaging is already correctly tying in the costs of our immoral wars with the economy and lack of ability to address health care in America.. When we take on Murdoch GE Disney owned media.. we will be financing a much larger fight this year.. as we did successfully less well financed in '06..

Obamas grass rooters are the energy ready to take on the fground game.. not the old and the tired waffling Blue Collars or over 50ers in their lazy chairs.... but they will vote in their own best (economic and health care) interest come fall too. if the Dems keep the run to the right DLClinton out of the race in order to help clearly define the best part of the D party... all will work out just fine... messy but fine.

I think Clinton, if she steals the nomination, would definitely be able to raise the big bucks from the corporate and MIC boys and wealthy women... but she cannot motivate across the base and middle of the party nearly as well as Obama, when she runs to the right nd talks about obliterating more innocent nations... after all that O hope raised.. the young will sleep in on election day without Obama... the vast majority of the new millions of registered or motivated Democrats. I don't think most women will sleep in on election day.. Hillary's women are much more practical than the young... and hopefully they are watching the Pryor Supremes more than GOP Pryor chamber of commerce men.

Max, the link on your update to t h is post takes you to the Clinton Foiundation memo.

Glad you dropped the *grovel.* How could he, Obama, ever anticipate all this brew-hawhaw
from his pastor, HIS PASTOR for heaven sake? Catholic church might be best after all, they
know how to keep a lid on all things. Barry is in a no win situation, damned if he does, damned
if he doesn't.
True story....when I was 15-16 we attended a church in Pa......you don't know fundie till you
go to this church. My mom *let me* go to a Disney movie on a sat. aft.----preacher & wife
came to visit mom and she didn't lie, when they asked to see me she told them I was in a movie,,,,
short of the story....when I walked out of the theatre they were waiting for me on the sidewalk..
but, it gets funny...they asked me if I'd been inside that *movie place* and I said, *NO.*
Hell, I lied when they were right there to see me walk out!!!!!
Another time they were going to boot me out for BUYING A NEWSPAPER on a sunday.....
the kicker, I never *joined* that church,,,just went 'cause I had a mama & step that made me.

"How could he, Obama, ever anticipate all this brew-hawhaw from his pastor, HIS PASTOR for heaven sake?"

Not sure if you meant that seriously or as sarcasm, but I can't imagine anyone that knows Rev. Wright not seeing this coming. It would take an amount of politically naievity that I can't even imagine.

Pastor's brew-haw. It's simply another holiday from the real issues. Way to go Wright. You can join all of us in soup lines. TAP you nailed it.

"...Obamas grass rooters are the energy ready to take on the fground game.. not the old and the tired waffling Blue Collars or over 50ers in their lazy chairs.... but they will vote in their own best (economic and health care) interest come fall too. if the Dems keep the run to the right DLClinton out of the race in order to help clearly define the best part of the D party... all will work out just fine... messy but fine...--Eureka

WHAT...and excuse you...if we're old/tired it's from keeping you youngens from running smack into a wall 'cause, as all youth, you tend to mistake exuberance for wisdom and you tend to miss the life-lived wisdom of us folks in the lazy chairs because you're too busy knowing it all. But I do agree...all will work out just fine. Hillary will kick McBush's warmongering ass back to Arizona!

And boy did all this exertion drain this old geezer...you young whippersnapper ha. (I'd insert a smiley face here if I had that ability, eureka!)

I'm as serious as death and taxes. I expect pastors, preachers of all stripes, priest, Mullahs,
Rabbi's, Voodoo Queens, the Pope, lawyers, doctors, judges....to keep my secrets and not
inject themselves into my private life. I thot we had a right of privacy in this country, not so
since GWB/vice. Used to be a sacred trust between a pastor/priest....guess that is gone too.
Hello Germany 1932..........
I'm workin for Mcbush now, this country hasn't had enough hell.
Naw, that is a joke......
lord help the U. S. A.

"The stupid greed of the Republicans is enough for most folks to believe in Hillary's DLC these days.. which is bad enough for anyone who understands the back stabbing corporate loving nature of the DLC..."

Bitch slap the DLC all you want, Eureka, but the last Democrat to run as an unabashed liberal and win was LBJ in 1964. The only Democrats who have won since then (Carter in '76, Bill Clinton in '92 and '96) have run as centrists. Just because many voters have rejected the Republicans as wingnut incompetents doesn't mean they're ready to embrace the Moveon.org agenda.

Winning through superdelegates is not "stealing" anything; it's following the rules of the party. If you don't like those rules, work on changing them for 2012. But there is absolutely no provision, other than in Obama supporters' minds, that the winner of the pledged delegates and/or popular vote is entitled to the nomination--especially if said winner has been mortally wounded.

If Obama supporters would really prefer to go down in defeat in November with a deeply flawed candidate, their loyalty is truly to a cult of personality and not to the important task of electing a Democrat to the White House.

"I'm outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday."

I'm outraged that Mr. Obama has squirreled out on this one. You can put me back in the Hillary camp again. Obama would have been smarter to say shut up.....he's my preacher, not my wife, not my brother, NOT ME. Or, he might have done the right thing and helped explain what Rev. Wright is trying to say. The "spectacle" Barry saw yesterday is the truth. Sure, it hurts, it's sad, we should be ashamed and determined to do better.....but we shouldn't PRETEND America's perfect and believe it was just a bad old towelhead having a bad day when he bombed New York and DC. That's how you can be sure 9-11 II will come again one sunny day in the future.

Let's take Rev. Wright's most outlandish statement. And let's put his statement the way he said it, not the way others are reporting it. When asked a question, he said he thought the US government was capable of using the HIV/AIDS virus as a weapon. He said because of other atrocities, like the Tuskegee Experiment, and based on some modern books he's read about other government experiements, he THOUGHT the US Government was capable...CAPABLE.

In 1946 a man from Fort Smith rode the old USS Arkansas out to the Bikini atoll to take place in Operation Crossroads. After readying the ship, he was put on another ship and taken 20 miles away from ground zero. Then the military dropped an Atom bomb above the Arkansas and the other old boats anchored in a circle. He watched the bomb explode and felt the shock wave wash over him a few minutes later. They sat around for 28 days and were then put back aboard the damaged USS Arkansas to make it ready for the 2nd atomic test. After several days of walking around the radioactive ship, they were removed, taken out 20 miles and watched the 2nd bomb, Baker, go off underwater, which resulted in all the ships sinking.

He told me that the USS Arkansas was loaded with old surplus weapons and live animals to be studied for the effects of radiation. He told him his health has been good, but he knows some men close to the test got sick and died soon after. And he assumes other men died early as the years went by. He purposely hasn't researched his own crew for fear of finding out something dreadful.

Today I talked to a man who was aboard a small aircraft carrier when the US conducted H-bomb tests at Bikini in an operation called, Operation Castle back at Bikini in April and May, 1954.....9 years after the A-bomb test. His aircraft carrier was placed 20 miles from the H-bomb ground zero. His only job was to observe with the rest of the crew. At 4 am one morning they were all ordered to the flight deck. Told to get down on their hands a knees with their asses facing the direction of the bomb and to cover their eyes. He said even facing the other way, down like a female dog, with his hands over his eyes and his eyes closed, it was like bright noon when the bomb went off. He said he could see the bones in his hands.

At some point they were told to stand up and face the bomb blast. He said even from 20 miles away it was gi-normous with every color of the rainbow in the stalk of the giant mushroom cloud. In a few minutes the shock wave rolled over them, but then the wind changed and debris from the air started falling on them like rain. He said the sea looked like it was full of salad. They took shower after shower trying to get the radioactive sand and dirt off their bodies.

The next day 5 groups of 10 hand-picked men were sent to 5 different islands that had survived the blast. They were told to swim and drink beer and have a good time. One man was said to have drown immediately. Over the next month many of the men got sick and died. He didn't know the fate of the rest of them or the men he served with, he was discharged honorably as soon as his ship got back to Long Beach. He is in good health, but his 2 daughters developed cancer at a young age. One has cancer pop up 4 times, the younger one, only once.

We know about the Tuskegee Experiment, and now we know what the military did to WHITE MEN in 1954, surely knowing full well the effects of radiation on humans after the testing done in 1946. But ohmagod NO NO NO surely that Rev. Wright is a nut!!! How could anyone think the US Government could be CAPABLE of using HIV as a weapon upon those perceived to be enemies???? We are a Christ-like nation.....if you hold the mirror just right, we even look like Christ!

Whatever happens to Barack Obama will happen. But I predict one day Rev. Wright will be hailed as a hero who when we were blind, tried to make us see, when we were deaf, tried to make us hear. Why, when the Chinese take over they might even build a monument to Rev. Wright! But by all means let's use Rev. Wright like a weapon and beat Barack Obama to death with him. It makes perfect sense to me in a nation so gullible.......let me say it again....in a nation so gullible.

THIS KEEPS GETTING TO BE MORE FUN......

I really would not have thought this possible a while back....but I think you Democrat's are creating the perfect storm to lose this election.

You seem to have a little mess where Hillary can't get the nomination and Obama can't win the general. And for each day that you drag this out you create a new round of material for McCain to use in the general.

What amazes me the most is that it took Obama so many weeks to see that he had to distance himself from the crazy preacher.

If the Superdelegates give the nod to Hillary...you will have millions of black voters outraged and feeling that the nomination was stolen. They will come to McCain.

If Hillary does sneak out a close win you also have this growing voter irritation with Bill. I'm sure real polling shows he is driving as many votes away as he attracts.

And if Obama does hang on and drag his fading campaign across the nomination line....he is indicating each day he is ill prepared for the fight that is ahead. He will not win Southern states and even if he does win a few, he has shown that he can't win the Ohio's and Pennsylvania's.

And to mediate all this you have Howard Dean.

If I didn't deeply love this amazing country I would find all of this sort of amusing as a Republican. But the stakes are too high this year for either party not to be on it's game.

"I really would not have thought this possible a while back....but I think you Democrat's are creating the perfect storm to lose this election."

Really? I've seen it happen too many times to be surprised. I've been worried for the past two years. We almost always find a way to lose the presidency. I think many Democrats subconsciously want to lose so they can be the outsiders. Just look at some of the comments on this blog. Some would rather be what they think is pure than to win.

PS. Muckraker you have nailed it once again.

I don't know what will happen with this election...Will Obama prevail? Will Hillary gain more momentum and pull it out in the end?? One thing I do know.. the vast majority of Blacks in this country WILL NOT vote for Grampa Munster...no way!!

DBI,

You just don't get it do you?

The Clinton's articulated the relevant political philosophy years ago:
"The Image Creates the Reality."

This is now the dominant ethic of American politics.

What Wright says is secondary to what he is believed to have said.

Truth is always secondary and negotable.

DBI sounds more and more like Dale Gribble with each passing day.

Obama renouncing Wright TOO strongly....

is worse than Clinton's duplicity with regards to the Columbia Free Trade Deal, Bosnia lies, etc....... in DBI's logic.

The same Wright controversy that the Clinton that is capitalizing and exploiting to begin with.

Hah.

Clinton campaign is*

JD, don't be lookin' for ole DBI to bring much in the way of logic here. He just wants a forum to rant about Mark Pryor and tell bullsh*t longwinded stories. I wish he could a barbershop or a feed store or even a bar full of old men who are liberal as he is. Then he could tell them his fabulous stories all day long.

When Obama made his infamous White Racist Grandmother speech, he was fully aware of the
the Reverands public remarks about the genesis of AIDS in America.

Now that he is falling in the polls, he has decided to change his public demeanor, and is incensed with the remarks of his spiritual advisor. Still the "latte liberals" are determined to force this deeply flawed candidate on the Democratic party.

Thomas Eagleton