Obama feels Wright impact

Obama feels Wright impact

By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY

A public relations blitz by Democratic presidential candidate Barack
Obama's controversial former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is re-igniting a
racially charged controversy at a time when Obama is trying to
convince party leaders he can appeal to white, blue-collar voters
critical to capturing the White House.
In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Obama acknowledged that speeches
Sunday and today by Wright come at an awkward moment for his
presidential bid. Obama did not dispute Fox anchor Chris Wallace's
assertion that Wright's re-emergence "obviously isn't helpful to your
campaign."


USA TODAY ON POLITICS: See latest reaction to Wright's remarks
Wright, who is scheduled to speak at 9 a.m. today at the National
Press Club in Washington, lamented his "public crucifixion" during a
45-minute sermon Sunday in Dallas and later while delivering the
keynote address to an NAACP convention in Detroit.

Wright said the people who call him "bombastic" and "divisive" simply
don't understand a religious experience that's different from theirs.

"I come from a religious tradition where we shout in the sanctuary and
march on the picket lines," he said. "The black religious experience
is different. … Different does not mean deficient."

During a nearly hour-long interview aired Friday on PBS, Wright said
he had been "crucified by corporate-owned media." He did not recant
his controversial sermons — including one in which he suggested that
the 9/11 terrorist attacks were payback for "terrorism" that the U.S.
government had perpetrated abroad in military actions against Libya,
Panama, Iraq and in the nuclear attacks on Japan that ended World War
II.

He said he is being exposed to "vitriolic hatred" and death threats
because Americans "would rather cling to what they are taught" than
come to grips with facts about their government's acts of oppression
against Native Americans, African-Americans and foreign civilians
caught in the crossfire of war.

Obama said Wright — former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ
in Chicago — had not consulted with him about his decision to take his
case to the public.

The appearances broke weeks of silence that Wright maintained
following a speech last month in which Obama criticized his former
pastor for his fiery statements but defended him as the product of a
generation shaped by racial prejudice. The Illinois senator took the
same tack Sunday, conceding Wright's comments were causing him
political problems.

"I think that people were legitimately offended by some of the
comments that he had made in the past," he said. "The fact that he's
my former pastor I think makes it a legitimate political issue."

The likely Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, seized on
that remark, telling reporters at a Sunday news conference in Florida
"if he believes that, then it will probably be a political issue."

McCain said he continues to oppose plans by the Republican Party in
North Carolina — which, along with Indiana, holds the next
presidential primaries on May 6 — to air an advertisement making an
issue of Obama's relationship with Wright.

The Arizona senator didn't mind making an issue of Wright himself,
however, telling reporters that some of the Chicago minister's
critiques of American policies are "beyond belief."

Last week, McCain released a letter to North Carolina Republican Party
Chairman Linda Daves that called the ad divisive. "In the strongest
terms, I implore you not to run this advertisement," he said. The
North Carolina GOP is nonetheless going forward with plans to begin
airing the ad today.

"I will continue to think and to say that I think that ad should not
be run," McCain told reporters traveling with him Sunday. "But I won't
continue to try to be the referee here."

On Fox, Obama said Wright was wrong "in only cataloguing the bad of
America and not doing enough to lift up the good" but reiterated his
plea for understanding.

"He went through experiences I never went through. I am the
beneficiary of the civil rights movement," said Obama. Obama is 46;
Wright is 66.

Whatever difficulties it might cause his campaign, Obama said Wright
is entitled to respond to critics who have "caricatured him."
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