OBAMA TRIES TO CONVINCE NC VOTERS THAT HE (FINALLY) DENOUNCES WRIGHT

[Ben Smith-politico.com]

“In Winston-Salem, Obama sharply attacks Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the substance of his remarks yesterday, a far sharper disavowal than he gave in Philadelphia last month.
“The core of his message: That Wright was not only offensive, but the polar opposite of Obama's own views and politics.

"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," Obama said.

"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday," he said.

“Obama also distanced himself from the man in a way he has been reluctant to in the past."The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago," he said. "His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church.""They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs," he said."If Reverend Wright thinks that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well and based on his remarks yesterday, I may not know him as well as I thought either.""

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church," he said. "But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS; when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century; when he equates the U.S. wartime efforts with terrorism – then there are no exuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced, and that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today."

"It is antithetical to my campaign. It is antithetical to what I’m about. It is not what I think America stands for," he said.”

OUR TAKE: Nothing that Wright said at the National Press Club yesterday was anything new—except for Wright’s claim that Obama’s March 11 disavowal of some of Wright’s [unspecified] remarks over the last 20 years was an insincere declaration by a “politician” based not on principle but polling data. Which raises the unanswered question: Why does Obama distance himself now? Could it be that Wright has his close friend pegged, that Obama is merely a politician reacting to his fall in the polls? In any event, Barack Obama has failed—once again—to explain how it is that given Wright’s passionate, clear, anti-American, anti-Jewish, racist views—why Obama waited 20 years to put distance between himself and the white separatist preacher.

Moreover, Obama—in today’s press conference—asserted that the Reverend Wright at yesterday’s National Press club speech “is not the Reverend Wright I met 20 years ago”, but one is left to speculate whether this is the same Reverend Wright that Obama knew 5 days after 9/11 when 3,000 souls perished in the WTC towers alone, and Wright blamed those deaths on America at that Sunday’s sermon--let alone whether this is the same Reverend Wright Obama knew a year ago when he "disinvited" Wright from the event where Obama announced his candidacy for the office of president. In addition, and according to Wright, Obama never 'disinvited' Wright at all--he just kept him in the basement for the public part of the ceremony.