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Kelly Branan
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More than 40 years after his death, Martin Luther King Jr., one of the great prophets of American democracy, has been reduced to little more than a lifeless statue. Yet his courageous call for peace and criticism of his government at a time of war must not be lost to history.
Posted on Jan 20, 2013
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Can Robert Wright, the acclaimed author of “The Moral Animal,” square the circle in his new book on the persistent and vexing issue of what role religion plays in how human societies seek to comport themselves? Just how crucial to our modern ethical ideas like universal rights and equality among all persons is the notion of a single, all-powerful god?
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Every election season, some independent groups sizzle with controversy and impact, and others fizzle. We couldn’t tell at first, but the National Republican Trust PAC appears to be of the sizzling variety.
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AP Photo / Alex Brandon
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Even though the American mainstream media pronounced Friday’s presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain a draw, the UK’s Guardian newspaper tallied up some poll results and found that Obama has gained an edge over McCain as the candidates head into their final month of campaigning.
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AP photo / Chris Carlson
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Having endured at least three rounds of controversy stemming from his 20-year association with Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, Democratic candidate Barack Obama has decided to end his membership, telling reporters Saturday that he is sorry for the intense media attention his affiliation has attracted to the church and its members.
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This wasn’t the best week for Sen. John McCain’s (former) religious advisers, the Revs. John Hagee and Rod Parsley—primarily because the Republican front-runner has effectively given them both the political heave-ho following the public re-airing of their takes on Israel and Islam, respectively.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The first important election result for the senator in May—coming before his North Carolina victory—was the outcome of a little-noticed U.S. House contest in Louisiana.
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It is a period of political civil war. Hillary Clinton, striking from her hidden base in Pennsylvania, has scored a major victory against Barack Obama. During the battle, rogue surrogates provided distractions from real issues. Pursued by the Republican Party’s sinister agents ... well, you get the idea.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Do white right-wing preachers have it easier than black left-wing preachers? Is there a double standard?
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AP photo / Gerald Herbert, file
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By Bill Boyarsky — We are letting religious fanaticism dominate the presidential campaign. The candidates have brought it on themselves with tedious references to their churchgoing piety. Now we’re all paying for it. Who cares what their preachers say?
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Director Michael Moore paid a visit to “Larry King Live” on Wednesday night, holding forth on a number of timely topics, including his decision to endorse Barack Obama, his newest documentary (about the ‘04 presidential election), Hillary Clinton’s interview the same day on “that other station” and the persistent controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
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By Joe Conason — As Jeremiah Wright gleefully tours the airwaves, inflicting severe political damage with almost every utterance, he is proving that racism isn’t the only obstacle to a black president.
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Hillary Clinton tells Bill O’Reilly (always an elevator of conversation) that “I take offense at” the comments of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Michelle Obama, meanwhile, would rather the press just move on.
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Barack Obama has officially severed ties with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose Monday address he described as a “spectacle.” Said a “saddened” Obama: “The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago.”
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By Eugene Robinson — The media tour he’s conducting is doing a disservice that goes beyond any impact it might have on Obama’s presidential campaign.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — This is supposed to be a big election, but it has given every sign in recent weeks of becoming a small one. As a result, the public and the media are showing signs of exhaustion with what had once been an exhilarating contest.
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After laying low for some time, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been speaking out about the controversy that has tarnished his name. The minister seemed to enjoy this encounter with the media, too many elements of which relied on YouTube to lay out the facts of their stories.
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Barack Obama has frozen out Fox News since he found himself the victim of the network’s attack journalism at the start of the campaign. Here he lifts the ban to run the gantlet with Chris Wallace on flag pins, the Rev. Wright and, to be fair, more substantive issues.
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Lesser journalists continue to characterize the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons as hate speech, without ever having heard more than snippets of them. As Wright tells the great Bill Moyers, the meaning of his sermons has been deliberately distorted to achieve a political goal, and it worked. Updated.
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Kelly Branan
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Forty years after his death, Martin Luther King, one of the great prophets of American democracy, has been reduced to little more than a lifeless statue. Yet his courageous call for peace and criticism of his government at a time of war must not be lost to history.
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Flickr / Llima
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A new poll shows Barack Obama taking a lead over Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania for the first time. His two-point advantage marks a shift of 28 points from the last Public Policy Polling survey, which was conducted just before Obama’s race speech. Other polls show Clinton holding a lead, though by diminishing margins.
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The national media have made a pariah of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former pastor, by replaying carefully selected snippets of his sermons without context. Here are extended versions of two of Wright’s more controversial statements.
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By Eugene Robinson — Talk about not being able to catch a break. To pummel a boxing metaphor, it was Barack Obama who got tagged with a roundhouse right, flush on the chin—but it was Hillary Clinton, from early indications, who ended up nursing a sore jaw and wondering what it was that hit her.
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By David Sirota — Since the 1960s, bigotry has undergone an aesthetic makeover. Today, the most pernicious racists do not wear pointy hoods, scream epithets and anonymously burn crosses from behind masks. They don starched suits, recite sententious bromides and stage political lynchings before television cameras.
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thepage.time.com
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Lost in the discussion of the Rev. Wright controversy and its impact on the Obama campaign is the fallout for the minister himself. Wright’s first public events since his sermons went YouTube, a revival in Tampa and a series of sermons in Houston, have been canceled. A third event, where he is supposed to be honored, has been downgraded to “pending.”
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Hillary Clinton says she would have left her church, were she in Barack Obama’s position, because “We have a choice when it comes to our pastors.”
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AP photo / Brian Kersey
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The Rev. Madison Shockley, who presides over a congregation of the same denomination as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, joins a panel of Truthdiggers to investigate the controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s church. How can a predominantly black church be described as separatist and hateful, Shockley asks, when it is part of an overwhelmingly white denomination?
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Let’s ask the hard question about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright: Is he as far outside the African-American mainstream as many of us would like to think?
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As the controversy over remarks by his former pastor continues to get play in the media, Barack Obama escalated the damage control by giving a major speech on the subject of race and politics. His ability to distill the conflict and character of America into moving rhetoric is as impressive as ever, but will it be enough to weather this storm?
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Shortly before the Ohio and Texas primaries, Tina Fey offered a raucous endorsement of Hillary Clinton that ended with the slogan, “Bitch is the new black.” Her friend and colleague Tracy Morgan has a few things to say about that.
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It was only a matter of time before Barack Obama would have to weigh in on the controversy surrounding the sermons of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose rhetorical flair sometimes verged on the incendiary.
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