Reverend Jeremiah Wright, soaring on his new-found notoriety in several public appearances in recent days -- included speeches in front of the National Press Club and NAACP annual conference -- repeated and emphasized his anti-American positions and suggested that candidate Barack Obama secretly concurs but needs to distance himself to be electable. Obama promptly took to the airwaves to distance himself from his former pastor and his "outrageous" remarks.
The public distancing reflecting Obama's concern that the growing "white flight" to the Clinton camp might threaten his candidacy and prevent him from becoming the Democratic nominee.
Obama's previous statement that he could not "disavow" Wright has only served to encourage his former pastor, and other militant black leaders, to escalate their rhetoric, provoking opponents of the campaign to continue emphasizing the twenty-year connection between the two men.
It appears that Obama is only now waking up to the consequences of his previous luke-warm, punches-pulled disavowal. "I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday," Obama said at a news conference Tuesday.
For weeks, Wright stayed out of the public eye. Then he made three public appearances in four days, including a major speech in Detroit before an NAACP gala Sunday night. Saying he was not "divisive" but "descriptive", he repeated claims of nefarious US government evil and ongoing conspiracies against colored races.
Wright slammed the U.S. government as imperialist and stood by his suggestion that the United States had invented HIV as a means of genocide against minorities. "Based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything," he said.
And perhaps worst of all for Obama, Wright suggested that his church congregant secretly concurs. "If Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected," Wright said. "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls."
Obama was compelled to state flatly that he does not share the views of the man who officiated at his wedding, baptized his two daughters and has been his pastor for 20 years.
"What became clear to me is that he was presenting a world view that contradicts who I am and what I stand for," Obama said. "And what I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing. Anybody who knows me ... knows that I am about trying to bridge gaps, and I see the commonality in all people."
But other black preachers stood by their men: Dr. Samuel White III, head of Friendship Baptist Church in Detroit, likened the situation to "two great men ... at odds with each other."
"You want to appreciate and uphold the mission of both men. You're talking about two kingdoms, two worlds, two perspectives. As Dr. Wright said, 'I'm the preacher. He's the politician.' And those two can work together, but there are times when they can be at odds," he said.
Obama, desperately seeking to control the damage, was looking for ways to disentangle himself in the public eye from his former mentor: "Obviously, whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed. I don't think he showed much concern for me. More importantly, I don't think he showed much concern for what we're trying to do in this campaign."
Obama said he Wright's "performance" was more than a case of the former pastor defending himself. "His comments were not only divisive and destructive, I believe they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate," the candidate said.
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