OBAMA GIVES INCONSISTENT ANSWERS ON REV. WRIGHT IN N.C.

[Washington Post]

While he has discussed his relationship with the former pastor of his church constantly over the last two weeks, it's still unclear what exactly Barack Obama heard as he sat in the pews of Trinity United Church of Christ.

At an event in Greensboro, N.C., on Wednesday, Obama used a question about his religion to defend his relationship with Jeremiah Wright, after Hillary Clinton had said earlier in the week she would not have had a pastor who made controversial remarks like Wright has. Videos of Wright's speeches that surfaced earlier this month show him saying "God damn America" for its treatment of ethnic minorities and suggesting the U.S. government invented AIDS to harm blacks, the Washington Post reports.

Wright said "some objectionable things when I wasn't in church on those particular days, and I have condemned them outright," Obama told the crowd, according to NBC News.

Interviewed on March 14 on Fox News, Obama also noted he had not been in church for Wright's controversial remarks, saying "none of these statements were ones I had heard myself personally in the pews."

But in his speech in Philadelphia about race last week, Obama described his recollections differently.

"Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes," Obama said.

Obama aides have not said specified which of Wright's sermons the candidate attended or if there was a difference between "objectionable" comments Obama did not hear and "controversial" ones he did.

But Obama defended his pastor last week and again yesterday after returning from the campaign trail following a few days off in the Virgin Islands.

"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."

At the same time, Obama added a wrinkle to his description of the church he has long attended, noting in Greensboro that the United Church of Christ denomination is "by the way, a 99 percent white denomination." The Chicago congregation Obama belongs to has an overwhelming black membership.