It is sad but true that Jeremiah Wright was Barack Obama’s long-time pastor at the Trinity United Church. Obama admired his wit and wisdom, citing one of his sermons as a turning point in his life in Dreams From My Father and drawing the title of The Audacity of Hope from the same sermon. He had a long and close relationship with him until earlier this year when it became politically inconvenient.
Wright is liberal with his hatred toward America. Who can forget “God damn America,” “chickens coming home to roost” and “the U.S. of KKKA”? Wright also peddled one of the stupid old canards about Pearl Harbor: “The government lied about Pearl Harbor. They knew the Japanese were going to attack. Government’s lied.”
These were among the highlights of the sermons that provided the occasion for Obama’s “More Perfect Union” speech vindicating his long relationship with Wright this past March 18. Obama instructed us in the speech: “He is a man who…has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country.”
Obama’s speech was hailed as the greatest since the Sermon on the Mount by luminaries of the left-wing punditocracy including Andrew Sullivan, Joe Klein and Garry Wills. When Wright reemerged in May to reiterate his views, Obama called a press conference to repudiate Wright and announce his withdrawal from Trinity United Church.
This past Sunday Wright returned to the pulpit of Trinity United Church in honor of its forty-seventh anniversary (video here). Wright commented on the historical significance of the date:
“Today is December 7, the day that this government killed over 80000 Japanese civilians at Hiroshima in 1941, two days before giving an additional. 64000 Japanese civilians at Nagasaki by dropping nuclear bombs on innocent people.”
TigerHawk asks: “Why did Barack Obama spend twenty years listening to a man whose command of history is such that he thinks that December 7 commemorates the day the United States bombed Hiroshima?” As I tried to point out in “The Kennedy-Khruschchev conference for dummies,” however, Obama’s knowledge of history is somewhat less than expert. Maybe he didn’t know any better.
We learn from Wright’s sermon that in addition to hating the United States, he is an ignoramus. TigerHawk asks: “Forget the fact that the Obamas listened to this clown. The exigencies of national politics have rescued them from Wright’s silliness. What about all the other people who still do?”
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