Barack denounces Pastor: Just in!
By Jeff Mason 18 minutes ago
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama strongly denounced his former pastor on Tuesday, saying he was outraged by assertions made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright about the U.S. government and race that have disrupted Obama's presidential campaign.
The controversy over Wright has been a major stumbling block for the Illinois senator, who is leading New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in the state-by-state contest for the party's nomination for the November election.
Obama was forced to address the issue after an appearance by Wright on Monday at the National Press Club in Washington, where he repeated earlier suggestions that the United States deserved some blame for the September 11 attacks and that the government had had a hand in spreading AIDS to blacks.
"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw," Obama told reporters as he campaigned for the North Carolina vote against Clinton next Tuesday.
"The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate," Obama said.
Wright's comments have undercut the campaign of Obama, the son of a white mother and a black father who has based his campaign on a promise to unite the country after years of sharp political and racial divisions.
Wright had also questioned the senator's honesty, saying he had been pandering to voters when he earlier denounced the pastor's words. "If Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected," Wright said.
Obama, unsmiling and choosing his words carefully, responded: "At a certain point if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally and then he questions whether or not you believe it -- in front of the National Press Club -- then that's enough."
"That's a show of disrespect to me. It is also, I think, an insult to what we've been trying to do" on the campaign, he added. "Whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this."
Wright, asked on Monday about a speech in which he asserted the September 11 attacks were retaliation for U.S. foreign policy, said: "You cannot do terrorism on other people and not expect it to come back to you."
Asked about another sermon in which he suggested the U.S. government created the AIDS virus to kill black people, Wright said: "Based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything."
Wright, who presided over Obama's wedding and baptized his children, is now semi-retired from Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, which Obama joined 20 years ago.