By BOB BILLETER

Rev. Wright Is a Caution

This former minister of Barack Obama, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, won’t go away. After weeks of staying out of the public eye while critics blasted his sermons, the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago made three public appearances in four days to defend himself. One of the appearances was at the National Press Club in Washington, D. C.
He certainly makes a spectacle of himself. You watch him for a minute or two and you realize how wise the Founding Fathers were to demand a separation of government and religion.
He waves his arms, jumps up and down and uses language--God d___ America, for instance--that a pastor should never use. His attacks on our country are treasonable. You would think that such a performance would not draw very much attention.
But draw attention he has. Obama’s campaign has all but come to a halt in the past couple of weeks because of Rev. Wright.
The way to handle ego maniacs like Wright is to turn your back on them. He is a friend of Obama’s, he says. Yet he has done his candidacy a great deal of harm. It is obvious that the Rev. Wright is not interested in his friend Obama but himself.
He lives in a 10,000 square foot mansion in a white suburb in Chicago. It is obvious that he has utter contempt for whites, yet he has this multimillion dollar mansion in an upper class Chicago neighborhood where there isn’t a white family in miles. He drives a Mercedes. He is living like a king, a very rich king. Most of his former flock are not so lucky.
It's amazing to listen to his defense of himself and the defense of him that his backers put forth. The criticisms of him are taken out of context, they say. He has done much great work for the poor and the needy. His critics use sound bites that last only a few seconds against him, and this is unfair to use against a man who has given a lifetime of service to others, his defenders say.
How ridiculous such a defense is. Being a pastor and helping the needy doesn’t give one the right to lie about one’s country and know that those lies are going to be repeated around the world by one’s country’s enemies.
How many millions of people around the world have read or heard his ridiculous charge that the U.S. invented the AIDS virus to kill off black people in this country? What man who had any feeling for his country at all would utter such a statement?
When will he stop making these vicious statements? We don’t know. They may continue through the general election.
The Rev. Wright’s rantings could cost Obama the presidency. It’s possible. And yet the Democrats almost had a lock on the race. The Iraq war is unpopular in the country and the Republicans are being blamed. And the economy seems to be falling into the dumpster. So how could the Democrats lose this race?
Well, if the kind of stupidity that the Rev. Wright has been dispensing continues, the Democrats could lose it.
Wright charged last week that criticism of his sermons was an attack on the black church. This is another ridiculous charge. Of course it was not. I believe that the vast majority of black people worship in dignity and are loyal, patriotic Americans.
Blacks in our country should be outraged by Wright’s comments. People like Wright are bigger racists than many, many white racists. But often the black racists are overlooked while the white racists are condemned. Racists black, white, brown and yellow should be condemned. Not just the white ones.