Why were not Rev. Wrights sermons under scrutiny before now?

[keep_it_real]

Because no one cared.

Rev. Wright made this sermon 7 years ago and no one called him or Obama to question - why? The media did not care what this pastor said. Because no on cared or asked Obama about them. Which means no one really, really cared what some Reverend in some church in Chicago was preaching. Which shows the hypocrisy of questioning it now by the news media. Why was these kind of sermons not called into question before now?

This is just political mud slinging and the media being used to sling it.

If Obama was not running for President and the Reverend was not retiring he could go on preaching and no one would give a damn and the proof is Obama has reached elected office up until now and his pastor has not been issue.

This is just political hypocrisy.

[marlakay]

1. Doesn't Hillary have a secret prayer group

god only knows what they talk about...

[MonkeyFunk]

16. Secret? No

She attends prayer breakfasts or prayer meetings or whatever with other Senators. Not a secret.

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. Because we heard 'em on YouTube n/t

[silverweb]

3. 'Cause Obama as Muslim didn't stick.

n/t

[JackORoses]

4. Hillary didn't need to use them until now.

They desperately needed something to end the Ferraro flap.

[baldguy]

5. Because yesterday the Clintons needed something to hit Obama with.

It doesn't matter that the sermons were made years ago. It doesn't matter that he retired a month ago. It doesn't matter that Obama said he disagreed with him three weeks ago.

Rev Wright was just handy to use as a club.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

12. Though we know where it came from (not Clinton) and the Clinton campaign hasn't said a word...

[DJ13]

6. I heard about these before Iowa

Its only news now because Fox Noise was pissed that their paid for Democratic analyst and Clinton insider Ferraro was caught again making racial comments, so they dug through their vault and dusted off an old issue to try and help Murdock's candidate, Hillary, move the debate away from the racism outrage that again surrounded her campaign.

Obama had already repudiated these same comments back then, its not new.

[Cant trust em]

11. Good point. Hannity has been pushing Hillary over McCain all this time.

So maybe it's a way for him to get his "wish" to come true.

[grantcart]

7. this is the second time around - the first time the MSM didn't want to be the ones

that attacked the AA candidate - it seemed weak anyway. Now with the SNL skits and everything else the media has been goaded into firing something at Obama and this is about all they have that atleast has something based in fact.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. Video, video, video. Video makes a print story into a TV story.

There's been a lot of stuff written about Wright and Trinity, but until FOX put all the clips on the air Sunday there was no TV appeal to the thing.

[democracy1st]

9. Its called politics

Rise and Fall

[NDambi]

10. They were pulled back out to get Geraldine Ferraro and her racist rhetoric off the front pages

[CTyankee]

13. That is a good question. IMO, this guy should have been vetted long ago

before Obama launched his campaign. It was a bombshell waiting to go off. Where were his staffers? Where were party officials? Someone had to have the responsibility to look into this and make some recommendations.

I am NOT saying this against Obama. Sometimes it is hard to reject someone who has been close to you over the years. But this is a hardball campaign for president. We ALL know what happened to John Kerry, a decent and honorable man and member of the Armed Services. Why were the people responsible so blind to this threat?

Again the Dems just shoot themselves in the foot. I am so sick of it...

[cyberpj]

14. Because Hillary's association with "The Family" cult was just published in Mother Jones' magazine:

Mother Jones
Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics

snip...
When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian "cell" whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.

Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.

snip...
Coe's friends include former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Reaganite Edwin Meese III, and ultraconservative Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.). Under Coe's guidance, Meese has hosted weekly prayer breakfasts for politicians, businesspeople, and diplomats, and Pitts rose from obscurity to head the House Values Action Team, an off-the-record network of religious right groups and members of Congress created by Tom DeLay. The corresponding Senate Values Action Team is guided by another Coe protégé, Brownback, who also claims to have recruited King Abdullah of Jordan into a regular study of Jesus' teachings.

The Fellowship's long-term goal is "a leadership led by God—leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit." According to the Fellowship's archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship's God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regular visitor to Coe's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing and spiritual guidance.

Full article:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html

Also:

Harper's Magazine (2003)
"Jesus plus nothing:
Undercover among America's secret theocrats"
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2003/03/0079525

LA Times (2002)
"Showing Faith in Discretion
The Fellowship, which sponsors the National Prayer Breakfast, quietly effects political change. It acts with the blessing of many in power."
http://www.toobeautiful.org/lat_020927.html


Yet another:
"THE CHRISTIAN MAFIA"

snip...
Waiting for God

Journalist, columnist, and television commentator Bill Moyers recently wrote that “for the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.” Ever since Abraham Vereide, a misguided immigrant to this country who brought very un-American ideas of Nazism and Fascism with him in his steamer trunk, the so-called “Christian” Right has long waited to take the biggest prize of all – the White House. Moyers correctly sees the Dominionists or “End Timers” as being behind the invasion of Iraq. He cites the Book of Revelation that states, “four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man.” Such words may have their place in Sunday School and in church halls but using such thinking to launch wars of convenience or religious prophecy have no place in our federal and democratic republic. Moyers also rightly sees fundamentalist thought behind Bush’s “faith-based initiatives” and the rolling back of environmental regulations.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world no longer feel the United States is a country that can be trusted. They feel the people who run the affairs of state are out of control and dangerous. Considering the hold the Fellowship and their like-minded ilk have on the United States (and some of its allies) they are correct in their fears.

The political and religious dynasties who have embraced the Fellowship, Vereide, Fascism, Moon, Buchman, Moral Rearmament and all of their current and past manifestations, hatreds, and phobias show no sign of ceding power any time soon. There are many such father-son dynasties that hope to ensure a continuation of their shameful racketeering and political chicanery under the corporate “logo” of Jesus: George H. W. Bush to George W. Bush; Douglas Coe to David Coe; Billy Graham to Franklin Graham; Oral Roberts to Richard Roberts, Pat Robertson to Gordon Robertson; Jerry Falwell to Jonathan Falwell; Jeb Bush to George P. Bush; Robert Schuller Sr. to Robert Schuller, Jr., and Sun Myung Moon to at least nine sons (who are known about).

For them and their followers, they should keep in mind something Jesus said, “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.”

FULL ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.insider-magazine.com/ChristianMafia.htm

[MADem]

15. Because there was no vetting process, no scrutiny. The media was uncritical.

They bought the "official" biography of the dreamy young lad with the unique background and his eye on the Prize. All camera shots were looking UP at him, the heroic figure who could do no wrong, who was perfect in every way. Rezko? Pffft...never mind. McClurkin and Rev. Kirbyjon Whatsisface? Tempest in a tea pot. Those Weatherman Radical buddies? Pay no ATTENTION...! But now, we have "God DAMN America"--and that's not quite so easy to brush to the side.

It wasn't until "Would you like another pillow?" that they woke up from their Kool Aid induced stupor and realized how they'd been...lulled.

It's not like this was a huge secret, either--you can BUY the Reverend's "Greatest Hits" DVDs on the website. If you sign up, you can WATCH the services on the computer.

The media did NOT DO THEIR JOB. THAT's why this is happening now, and not a year ago.

But then, who owns the media? GE, We Bring Good Wars to Life...and others of that ilk....

They brought Obama to the point where he's "just about" the nominee, and made him an easy target for Popeye.

It might have been Edwards in his place, had the media not been entranced by, and so invested in selling, the Great Story.