What is your opinion of Obama's speech? Do you believe him? Do you think he has a chance of becoming president, or do you feel the speech was inadequate?

I was blown away by the way he trashed his white grandmother. Here is the excerpt from his speech "I can no more disown the Rev. Wright than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

I find it very odd that Obama can remember these things about his white grandmother but cannot recall anything hateful the Rev. Wright said when his association with Wright has encompassed over 20 years. Also, what kind of a man throws his grandmother to the wolves in order to save his political career? Good grief, he admits his grandmother loves him as much as she loves anything in this world and has sacrificed again and again for him, but he trashes her in order to save his chances for the presidency. This man is beyond contempt. How many of you would toss your elderly grandmother in front of a moving train to save your ass? Of course, none of us do such a terrible thing. And this guy wants us to put him into the White House as our president? Come on! We can do a lot better than a man who has no loyalty to the grandmother that he admits helped raise him.

Incidentally, this episode about the white grandmother being racist is quite different in his book "The Audicity of Hope." In his novel grandmother is waiting for a bus and a very aggressive panhandler would not let up on her. Out of fright grandmother gave him a dollar since she feared he might hurt her, because the begger would not leave her alone. When she came home Obama knew something was wrong and she told him what had happened at the bus stop. Grandfather decided that from now on he would drive grandmother to the store so she wouldn't have to get the bus and deal with panhandlers ever again. Later Obama found out from grandfather that the man was black. As you read the passage in Obama's "The Audicity of Hope," you can see Obama turning the tale around to imply that grandmother is afraid of all black men. Read the book and you will see what I am talking about.

Additionally, I got the impression that Obama was defending his pastor and playing the race card by going on and on about slavery and the struggle of the black people. Also, the man read from cue cards and was looking at his notes. If he meant what he said, why didn't Obama look his audience in the eye? It is because he didn't mean a word of what he said .... a bunch of speech writers put the words on paper and he said them like a parrot.

Another point is that Obama stated Rev. Wright introduced him to the Christian Faith. Obama was a Muslim and became Christian, because he wanted to go into politics and felt he would have a better chance if he became Christian. Therefore, he picked a popular black church and aligned himself with it. He was very much aware of Rev. Wright's fiery racist rhetoric, but couldn't distance himself from the church since it would spoil his electability with the black community. However, have you noticed Obama's story is that he was an atheist before he became Christian? Sure, and I am really an elf and not a human being.

One last thought and that is, if Obama is elected president, guess who will be Spirtual Advisor/Pastor to the President? You guessed it Rev. Wright and believe me, he will influence Obama.

Your comments?

This outlandish dude
is Full of platitudes
his wife shows no gratitude
Both need a change of attitude

So, you are a poet? Well put!

he just proved he is as racist as i thought.next!!

First time he looks like a real politician, crap is coming out the wrong end...lol.

I am not satisfied with Senator Obama's speech. He owes us and himself better answers on the Reverend Wright. In view of what has come out about what the Reverend Jeremiah Wright has said from the pulpit, Senator Obama's claims not to have heard Wright's statements seem dubious. What's more, the Reverend Wright's hateful comments and lies about America aren't unusual. Wright's hateful words are of a piece with Senator **** Durbin's (D-IL) 2005 comparison of the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay with the Nazis, the Soviet gulags and Cambodia's Pol Pot.

If Senator Obama hopes to live up to his self-proclaimed image as a uniter not a divider, he's going to have to do better than offer evasions about what he's heard in church on Sunday. He needs to reject not just the Reverend Wright, but the entire Hate America Left that Wright is a part of.

Thanks for your comments.

Sen. Obama's speech was questionable and gave no answers. It offers two scenarios for judging his character, both of which are unsettling. The first is that Sen. Obama did not notice the racism, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism coming from Rev. Wright in the 17 years he attended Trinity Church. Also Senator Obama wants us to believe that he didn't realize there was a problem with Rev. Wright going to Libya with Louis Farrakhan to see Muammar Qaddafi, or Trinity Church giving Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award.

Let's say the above is true and that Obama really heard no evil and saw no evil. If this is absolutely true, it means that there is no way that Sen. Obama is ready to be President. How can we expect him to act with judgment and responsibility in Iran and Iraq, to pick a Supreme Court Justice or to undertake any other complex act under the pressing reality of being president when Obama did not notice the hate-filled sermons of Wright and Wright's association with Farrakhan in 17 years at his church?

On the other hand, if Obama noticed the goings on at Trinity Church but failed to act on them, what does that tell us about Obama's honesty and his courage? It tells us Obama is a liar and a coward.

Also, let's get back to his white grandmother, whom he mentioned in his speech. According to him, she helped to raise him. She loves him as much as anything in the world. She sacrificied again and again for him. She came up with the money so he could receive the best education possible at the fine private school he attended in Hawaii. And what did he do to this wonderful woman who still loves and cares about him? First he called her a racist and threw her in front of a train to save his political ass. Today he redefined what he meant about his white grandmother. This time he threw her under a bus once again to save himself.

This stuff just makes me like Obama more

My interest in his (Obama's) comments can be found in what is not said. He talks about his grandmother with an odd sort of disconnect--how much she loved him how much she sacrificed for him--but he doesn't affirm his own feelings towards here except for one word: "cringe." His white grandmother used racial slurs that made him cringe--and they should have. But it is an odd analogy he creates by comparing his inability to disown either his white grandmother or his black pastor. First, his grandmother is presumably someone he could not simply walk away from in that by his own admission, she helped raise him. His pastor on the other hand....

I can recall exiting a church I once belonged to, a church I had made good friends in and become very active in because of a racist view from my pastor that came to light as I began to know him better. There was no discussion, no explanations were asked for. I simply told him what I thought and left. I never once went back.

I was 19 at the time of my experience and pretty dumb. But smart enough to know I could not be comfortable with even the subtle form of racism I had experienced. Barak Obama is a much better than average mind. He should have known better. And once he was asked about it he ignores the Rev. Wright's comments and focuses instead on his white grandmother being scared of passing black men on the street??

I am not entirely sure what sort of credibility his comments are supposed to spotlight but it seems to me that he would have been smarter to drop the word "disown" (again, an odd word in itself when dealing with questions of race) and instead hold responsible those people with whom he disagrees.

No one with half a mind thinks that just because a pastor of a church says something that the entire congregation believes it. And that doesn't change simply because one of the members of the congregation is running for president. But if you are going to swim in controversial waters as a candidate for the High Office be ready to be questioned and challenged. And when you are, perhaps a better stratagem, something more worthy than comparing a pastor's words today with a grandmother's words from many years ago would be worth considering.

-Drew

Drew ....

You bring up a lot of good points. The thing that troubles me is that he can recall one racist incident about the grandmother that raised him and still loves and supports him, but he cannot recall anything about Wright being racist when he has known the man for over 20 years. The man is not creditable.

mnhiker......

You are bored because you don't want to hear Obama consorts with racists and is one since you go along with racism. Well, I am bored with your attitude.

Dragoness.....

Consider this in reference to your liking Barack and his speech.

All Obama did was critize white America. He failed to acknowledge that America has been the best country on earth for blacks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. In this connection Obama and his wife Michelle should go down on their knees and thank God they and their children are American. Incidentally, the 600,000 blacks who were brought here from Africa were sold to whites by their fellow blacks. In certain parts of Africa when two tribes waged war against each other, the losers were made slaves and either kept or sold to other tribes for the duration of their lifetime.

Obama fails to realize that no people anywhere have done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the 1960's on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Obama doesn't want to see that American government, both on the state and federal level, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white America with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas, all to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Obama's speech never gave credit to the churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America who have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks. When I was teaching I taught at Delcite prior to my teaching at the University. Delcite is/was a school for adult men and women who wanted to earn their GED. The school was free, if you were black.

Barack talks about new "ladders of opportunity" for blacks. Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for "deserving" white kids. None -- they were all offered to black kids.

Obama and his Rev. Wright believe white America is responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America. I suppose it is white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent. Obama won't acknowledge that the fault first, last and always lies within the black community itself.

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

To sum everything up, how much does white American have to give before we are even? What do we have to do to prove that the majority of white America is not racist? At what point is enough, enough!?

So, leahmarie, were you ever victimized personally by a black man?

perhaps when you stop these ramblings and just let people make up their own mind...

bastet126,

I quite agree. These 'Rev. Wright' threads have gone on long enough and have to end.

If you think these 'Rev. Wright' threads have outlived their shelf life and need to end, use the emoticon whenever someone who shall remain nameless tries to bring them back to life.

here here hiker!!!

I am quite ashamed to even share the title "human" with ppl who will not tolerate other ppls views, and have no recourse to their statements intelligently except to ridicule their views and seek to get others to do the same. If you cannot intelligently discuss a persons topic, then stay the hell out of it and keep your insignificant feelings to yourselves. end of rant. Thank you