Reverend Wright - GO HOME!

Reverend Wright - GO HOME!

It's beginning to look as if next year we may have the first woman in the White House. Although the polls and the numbers show it will be next to impossible for Hillary Clinton to secure the Democratic candidacy for the November election, if there is a way to do it, she has proven she has the intelligence, ability, spunk and fortitude that is needed.

I favor Barack Obama who would be the first black man in the White House. He was taking a strong lead over Clinton until remarks in a sermon given by Obama's pastor, Reverend Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ were brought into the spotlight recently. That one sound bite, that seems to incriminate Wright as an unforgivably unpatriotic, screaming, angry man, may dash all hope for Barack Obama to win the Democratic presidential candidacy.

It was shortly after 9/11 that Wright gave a sermon in which he referred to remarks of former Ambassador to Iraq, Edward Peck, on Fox Network. No matter what Peck said, Wright's reaction was severe criticism of the United States Government. In the loud and angry tones used by some preachers, part of what Wright said was as follows:

"We nuked thousands of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki without batting an eye! Now we are indignant that the stuff we have done overseas is brought back into our own back yard! Violence begets violence! Hatred begets hatred! Terrorism begets terrorism!"

He also said in another context:

"God bless America? NO! God damn America!"

Those words are hard to forgive or forget, no matter what the context. As the pastor of the church where the Obama's were married, their children were baptized, and the family attended since the 1980s, it is hard separate Wright's views from Obama's. In his own defense, Obama condemned Wright's words, but not the man. And just as we thought the issue had been put to bed, here comes the Reverend back into the limelight to stir it all up again.

Who is this man? He was the pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ for 40 years, and when he started, there were just 87 members. When he left he had increased membership to over 10,000 in Church of Christ that is predominately white.

A little research tells us he was born in 1941, joined the U.S Marines in 1959, and transferred to the U.S. Navy in 1961. There he became a corpsman, graduating at the top of the class. He specialized as a cardio -pulmonary technician, and was eventually assigned to a team that cared for President Johnson. When he left military service, the White House awarded him three letters of commendation.

Wright entered Howard University in 1967 where he received a degree in English and Divinity. Later in 1990 he earned a Master's Degree at the Chicago University School of Divinity. He holds a Doctorate in Divinity from United Theological School in Dayton Ohio where he studied under a mentor of Martin Luther King. He holds many other awards and honorary degrees, as well as being honored for creating a program in his church for the advancement of beginning Black seminarians.

On the other hand, he has had associations with unsavory people like Farrakhan and Libya's Guddafi that are sure to be exploited by the Republican campaign to the detriment of Barrack Obama.

All in all, except for that terrible sound bite that makes him sound like a terrorist himself, Reverend Wright seems to be a very intelligent and admirable man. Now it seems that in every other sentence he utters he sticks his foot in his mouth giving fuel to Obama's opponents. At least nothing I have heard him say so far seems to be helping his friend Oback Obama. As they say, "With friends like that, who needs enemies?"