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What Did Obama Know, And When Did He Know It?

Obama has said that he only learned of the ?controversial? nature of some of Rev. Jeremiah Wright?s sermons on the eve of his presidential campaign, an assertion that has led many to wonder how he could have been oblivious to Wright?s extreme views during the first 19 years of his membership in Wright?s Trinity United Church of Christ.

There are already on the record reasons to doubt Obama?s obliviousness defense. First, as the New York Times reported over a year ago, Obama rescinded his invitation to Rev. Wright to deliver the invocation at his campaign announcement explaining, as Wright told the Times, that ?You can get kind of rough in the sermons....? Obama must have heard something in those 19 years to say that last year.

Another example, as Rich Lowry discussed two days ago in National Review Online, Obama?s first autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, reveals knowledge of Wright?s proclivities based on the first sermon he ever heard. Lowry quotes Obama?s discussion of that sermon, the sermon from which the title of his autobiography was taken. Here?s an excerpt:

?It is this world [Wright preaches], a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks? greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere?That?s the world! On which hope sits!?

And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded, though, the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate. The reverend spoke of the hardship that the congregation would face tomorrow, the pain of those far from the mountaintop, worrying about paying the light bill?

Another example: In October 2007 Newsmax Magazine featured an article on ?Obama?s Church: A Cauldron of Division.? As summarized in Newsmax today:

Correspondent Jim Davis attended a service at the church during which Wright referred to ?white arrogance? and ?the United States of white America.?

The church members in attendance that day included Obama, whose book ?The Audacity of Hope? takes its title from a Rev. Wright sermon. [Emphasis added]

We haven?t heard the end of Rev. Wright. The Trinity United Church of Christ, on its web site, offers ?WebCast On Demand: See past sermons at any time right here!? I suspect those sermons are being pored over and their dates compared with Sen. Obama?s whereabouts.

Full post as published by Discriminations on March 16, 2008 (boomark / email).