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Originally Posted by a700hitter

The Clinton's are breaking him down systematically. He will be brutalized and we will be inundated with more rants from his bigoted friends, mentors, and supporters undermining his candidacy. Hillary will run the table the rest of the way making it evident that B.O. is unelectable.

He's going to destroy her here in Oregon. I bet he wins North Carolina as well. He will also win Montana. All he needs to do is not lose 120 elected delegates. I guarantee you that his speech the other day won him a good number of superdelegates, which is all he has to do to wrap it up.

I have a pretty good idea about what specifically liberals find appealing in a person and in a leader. He's got it.

BTW it was a disgrace how he threw his grandmother under the bus to defend the hate mongering, anti-American preacher. His granny may have uttered a racially pejorative term from time to time, but she didn't hold herself out as a moral authority and preach hatred to throngs of followers.

Dude, whatever level of 'hatred' (I would call it 'resentment') you are talking about was PRE-EXISTANT in the church goers before going to church those days. Again, you're missing the forest for the trees:

Let the man speak for himself: (with my highlights)

"And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years...

"The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Did you not know that most African Americans likely harbor at least SOME resentment for the way that their ancestors were treated? Wasn't that obvious? Continuing...

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

Pervasive poverty is about more than bootstraps and smart free market choices.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

Equating her with the preacher was a shameful attempt at political manipulation. He revealed himself as being no different from the other politicians who will say anything for political expediency. He's as slimy as all the rest.

His grandmother is a) an important part of who he is, and where he comes from and b) a white woman from the same generation that actively oppressed Reverand Wright's generation. He's from both camps.

Why does his grandmother get a pass from you for her racism toward blacks, but it isn't understandable that an elderly pastor shares similar views with people in his own congregation? Especially given that the history of white-on-black racism is incredibly one sided, even today?


The entire argument that Obama will be and should be punished for the views expressed by people with a similar skin color seems bordering on racism to me. If it were a mostly mixed race church you would be calling the preacher a liberal crackpot, but not a racist.

To imply that the anger of african americans in this country is not socially acceptable, in the form of WORDS IN CHURCH, demands that they entirely repress their own awareness of black history and oppression, and thus resort to the belief that blacks are overwhelming inferior to whites in terms of education, money, life expectancy, healthy births, etc., because they are lazy or stupid or any other number of excuses.

If you don't believe that historical and systemic racism has contributed to the current stratification in our country, then you just won't get his message and Reverand Wright's comments probably really hurt your overly pristine view of America's moral standing in the world.

If you do believe that historical systemic racism has contributed to the current economic stratification in our country, then his comments likely seemed overblown but you certainly would understand where the anger is coming from.

When it comes to minority representation and working for the rights of minorities on a federal level (federal = what makes us a 'country', remember), one party gets it, the other doesn't, so I'm not shocked we disagree.

--There have been 3 (THREE) African American Senators in the last 200 years or so. Currently there are 42 African Americans in the House, and 42 of them are Democrats. There is one African American Senator, he's running for President. (100% Democrat)

--There are 24 Hispanics in the House of Representatives, 19 are Democrats. 2 hispanic senators, 1 Democrat and 1 Republican. (77% Democrat)

--There are 4 Asian/Pacific Islanders in the House, 3 are Democrats. 2 Asian/Pacific Islander Senators, both democrat. (83% Democrat)

--There is 1 native american house member, a Republican from Oklahoma. (100% Republican)(note the attempt for transparency with this data still being included )

--Of the 68 Women in the house, 45 are Democrats and 23 are republicans; there are 14 women senators, 9 are Democrats and 5 are Republicans. (66% Democrat)

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To ignore the logical implication of these numbers--there are many more we could discuss--shows a complete lack of understanding about the ACTUAL status of our country in the 21st century. Republicans want to ignore it. They want to go about explaining everyone else's woes and frustration with us to be a factor of not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Women, minorities and people under the age of 45 tend to agree with the view that America is a wonderful nation, but it as some warts.

A good look at our history indicates pretty clearly that we have this amazing and enormous country now because of our reliance on slavery and colonialism in our earliest years. We have propped up governments for our own economic gain, and supplied contra forces wit weapons if we stood to benefit from an overthrow.

We are probably the best country the world has ever seen, in terms of global scientific and intellectual contributions, tolerance for difference (role-modeling), innovation, etc., but we are FAR from perfect, and quickly losing our standing in many of these important areas.