Obama, Wright, the Mansion, and the Gated Community

It's not very courageous for Barack Obama to claim he would have left the Trinity United Church of Christ of Rev. Jeremiah Wright if the pastor had not retired.
It's complete hypothetical BS, worthless drivel. Obama admits to having heard Wright say controversial things. He had 20 years to leave the church.

The fact is Obama knew what Wright and his church were about and he didn't leave. Unless Obama is one of the most clueless people to ever walk the earth, he was well aware of the depth of Wright's racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism.

WASHINGTON -- White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama's campaign, not stepped down.

"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church," Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, "The View." The interview will be broadcast Friday.

What a load!

I don't buy that the brilliant Obama didn't know what Wright was preaching. I absolutely don't buy it. The fact that he didn't leave reveals that he willingly tolerated Wright's hate for America as well as his disgraceful racial, ethnic, and religious slurs.

Obama insists that if not for Wright's retirement, he wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church.

Sure.

Obama was comfortable donating tens of thousands of dollars to the church. Obama was comfortable quoting Wright and declaring him to be his spiritual mentor. Obama was comfortable giving his speech about race last week and refusing to disown Wright.

Obama is comfortable running around and downplaying the outrageous things that Wright has said. Obama defends Wright, "This is somebody that was preaching three sermons at least a week for 30 years and it got boiled down...into a half-minute sound clip and just played it over and over and over again, partly because it spoke to some of the racial divisions in this country."
Obama is saying that Wright has been victimized by the media. Now we're supposed to accept Obama's statement on The View that he would have quit his church if Wright hadn't retired?

I can't accept that. The way Obama has handled the Wright controversy, Obama's own actions and his words, tell me that his assertion about leaving the church is a lie.

Obama says that what Wright said isn't a big deal and it's being distorted, but if not for Wright's retirement, he would leave the church. Huh?

In his sermons over the years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has railed against the United States and accused it of bringing on the Sept. 11 attacks by spreading terrorism. He also has said the government invented AIDS to destroy "people of color" and has shouted "God damn America" for its treatment of minorities.

"Sermons over the YEARS"-- This stuff was Wright's calling card, not an aberration, not the stuff of a half-minute sound clip.

...In an attempt to quiet the controversy, Obama gave a speech last week in which he sharply condemned Wright's remarks but did not repudiate him.

Obama said Wednesday he has spoken with Wright, who retired from Trinity United Church of Christ last month but remains as a senior pastor.

In spite of continued attempts, Obama has failed to quiet the controversy.

That's because Wright's sermons are so hateful and so inflammatory and Obama embraced the man so completely. Obama can't rewrite his history.

What was said was said. What was done was done.

...Asked about the controversy Wright's comments have created, Republican John McCain said while campaigning in Denver: "I can only say that I am sure, knowing Senator Obama, that he does not share the extreme views that were expressed that I saw on television."

I don't like this statement from McCain. How mealy-mouthed!

If Obama didn't share Wright's extreme views to some extent, why did he stay at the church? Why would he listen to that trash year in and year out? You know he heard it.

I guess it was all political maneuvering on Obama's part. He sat in the pew to advance his political career while Wright spewed. Very slimy.

McCain is bugging me, too. He's bending over backwards to keep from offending independents and disgruntled Dems. He puts politics ahead of principles.

One more thing about the retired Rev. Wright--

He won't be squeaking by on Social Security checks in retirement. Wright will be living in luxury.

From FOX News:

This was supposed to be the week that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. returned to the pulpit to preach for the first time since his anti-American sermons generated nationwide outrage and drew condemnation from his longtime parishioner, Barack Obama.

But, citing security concerns, Wright canceled his speaking engagements in Florida and Texas. A spokeswoman at his former church in Chicago said his schedule is pending.

A two-week FOX News investigation, however, has uncovered where Wright will be spending a good deal of his time in retirement, and it is a far cry from the impoverished Chicago streets where the preacher led his ministry for 36 years.

FOX News has uncovered documents that indicate Wright is about to move to a 10,340-square-foot, four-bedroom home in suburban Chicago, currently under construction in a gated community.

...“Some people think deals like this are hypocritical. Jeremiah Wright himself criticizes people from the pulpit for middle classism, for too much materialism,” said Andrew Walsh, Associate Director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life with Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

“So he’s entitled to be tweaked here. So the question really is, how unusual is this? Somewhat unusual,” he said.

According to documents obtained from the Cook County Register of Deeds, Wright purchased two empty lots in Tinley Park, Ill., from Chicago restaurant chain owner Kenny Lewis for $345,000 in 2004.

Documents show Wright sold the property to his church, Trinity United, in December 2006, with the proceeds going to a living trust shared with his wife, Ramah.

The sale price for the land was just under $308,000, about $40,000 less than Wright’s original purchase two years earlier.

Public records of the sale show Trinity initially obtained a $10 million bank loan to purchase the property and build a new house on the land.

But further investigation with tax and real estate attorneys showed that the church had actually secured a $1.6 million mortgage for the home purchase, and attached a $10 million line of credit, for reasons unspecified in the paperwork.

...Wright did not respond to repeated calls for comment, and Trinity United refused to discuss the specifics of the home it is building for him and the way the deal was financed.

Wright will be living in a mansion in a gated community. He's putting distance between himself and the riff raff, the undesirables. It's seems rather hypocritical that he rails on Hillary for not knowing what it's like to be a poor black man when he doesn't know. Wright didn't grow up or live in poverty. Wright has a middle class background.

Rather than spending $1.6 million on a home for himself, Wright could establish a scholarship fund or apply the funds to some other worthy cause. You'd think he could cut at least a few thousand feet off his new house.

Does he have any pangs of guilt about spending so much on himself?

I hear Wright screaming from the pulpit, "God damn America."

He's managed to make a pretty good life for himself in America, hasn't he?