Progress Illinois

While it had been rumored that Clinton supporters had been using Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeramiah Wright in their attempts to woo superdelegates, senior Clinton adviser Harold Ickes more or less confirmed it in an interview with TPM Media's Greg Sargent today. Ickes acknowledged that the Wright controversy is a common topic in the conversations between the Clinton camp and various superdelegates:

In a reference to Wright's controversial views, Ickes continued: "Nobody thinks that Barack Obama harbors those thoughts. But that's not the issue. The issue is what Republicans [will do with them]...I think they're going to give him a very tough time."

Asked whether he was specifically bringing up Wright to super-delegates, Ickes said: "I've said what I've said...I tell people that they need to look at what they think Republicans may use against him. Wright comes up in the conversations."

Classy stuff.

Also of note during the interview: Ickes made it clear that, despite Clinton's near constant emphasis on the need to make every vote count in the remaining primaries, the campaign plans to continue wooing superdelegates even if she ultimately ends up trailing Obama in the popular vote.

From Neil Steinberg's column in today's Sun-Times:

Rev. Billy Graham pooh-poohed the emerging civil rights movement, mocked peace protesters and sang amen to Richard Nixon's anti-Semitic slurs. Yet he is our nation's revered elder reverend. Rev. Jerry Falwell blamed the 9/11 attacks on American feminists and gays. Yet John McCain gave the commencement address at his Liberty University in 2006.

Most any clergyman will, over a career, utter comments ranging from ill-advised to idiotic. Which is why I have resisted -- until now -- the urgings of readers to weigh in on the controversy over Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. My initial reaction was, "Who cares?" But the issue continues to echo, so people must care.

Who? People already looking for something to bash Obama with, I'd say. If guilt by association with Wright is the best they can do, they're in trouble. Were Obama the standard hack, he'd have already dumped Wright. But he isn't, and he hasn't. Obama had the rare -- in my mind, courageous -- response of acting not like a politician, but likea real person. Who challenges their religious leader over dumb utterances? I've heard a lot of rabbis utter a lot of nonsense over the years and never once went up afterward to say, "What a load of b.s., rabbi." Only in political fairyland do you automatically denounce clergy for expressing an extreme opinion. In life, you squirm and move on.

Appearing on MSNBC yesterday, the Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet falsely suggested that Barack Obama hasn't addressed Rev. Jeramiah Wright's controversial comments about Israel. At issue are remarks about Israel in the "pastor pages" of Trinity United Church of Christ's newsletter and particularly their republication of an LA Times op-ed by Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzook.

Here's the exchange with host Andrea Mitchell:

MITCHELL: In one bulletin, the remarks of a Hamas leader were reprinted and circulated to the parish -- to the congregation, rather -- quoting the Hamas leader, "Why should any Palestinian recognize the monstrous crime carried out by Israel's founders and continued by its deformed modern apartheid state?" [U.S. News & World Report editor-in-chief] Mort Zuckerman and Lynn Sweet rejoin me again.

Lynn, how difficult is this going to be for Obama? Does he have to do more explaining? Does he have to meet perhaps once again with Jewish leaders to try to reassure them that these are not his views as well?

SWEET: Andrea, yes, yes, yes, and yes on everything you're saying. Senator Obama's been trying to spend much of the last year in shoring up his support in the Jewish communities. He had a meeting a few weeks ago in Cleveland with 100 Jewish leaders there and activists. If you want to cut him slack and cut him a break on what he knew or didn't know about Jeremiah Wright's sermons, when you have your church bulletin print some of this stuff and you attend it over years, how could he not address it?

But contrary to Sweet's suggestion that Obama hasn't "address[ed]" the issue, Obama already "condemned" Wright's "views on Israel" in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), as Media Matters pointed out.

From the March 20 JTA article:

A pro-Hamas op-ed printed in his church's bulletin is "outrageously wrong," Barack Obama said. [...]

"I have already condemned my former pastor's views on Israel in the strongest possible terms, and I certainly wasn’t in church when that outrageously wrong Los Angeles Times piece was re-printed in the bulletin," Obama said in a statement emailed to JTA late Thursday, and referring to critics who noted that Obama had been in church when Wright had made controversial statements. "Hamas is a terrorist organization, responsible for the deaths of many innocents, and dedicated to Israel's destruction, as evidenced by their bombarding of Sderot in recent months. I support requiring Hamas to meet the international community's conditions of recognizing Israel, renouncing violence, and abiding by past agreements before they are treated as a legitimate actor."

Earlier today, I theorized that a "silver lining" around the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy is that it corrected the misimpression among many voters -- fueled by right-wing email smears -- that Barack Obama is a Muslim. My thought process was fairly simple: if these folks hear the word "reverend" enough, not to mention the "Christ" in Trinity United Church of Christ, they have to put two and two together at some point.

I guess I overestimated the attention being paid to such details: a Pew poll released today and conducted March 19-22 found that plenty of voters, including one in 10 Democrats, still think Obama is Muslim.

From the AP:

Fourteen percent of Republicans, 10 percent of Democrats and 8 percent of independents mistakenly think he is Muslim, according to a survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. Just over half of each group correctly identified him as Christian, while about a third said they don't know his religion.

The false rumor that the Democratic presidential candidate and Illinois senator is Muslim has been fanned on the Internet and conservative talk radio.

It has persisted despite the recent controversy over divisive remarks by his longtime pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Those saying they have heard a lot about Wright's comments are about as likely as others to say they think Obama is Muslim, the poll showed.

Perusing the Chicago Tribune headlines this morning, I let out a reflexive groan at the sight of the following:

Until recently, such a headline would surely have sat atop an article about the disconcerting number of Americans -- many of them Democrats -- who think that Obama is Muslim or irreligious. These damaging misconceptions are largely due to a rash of smear emails that have circulated widely during the past year. Back in January, a press pool report by Time's Mark Halperin showed how common it was for Obama to face questions about his faith (or purported lack thereof) from voters on the campaign trail:

He reached over the counter and shook hands with workers at the Subway sandwich shop.

Zanata Moore-El asked Obama if he was an atheist.

“I’m a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ,” Obama replied. “Don’t read e-mails.”

Similarly, a report by CBS' 60 Minutes prior to the March 4 primaries came across voters in Ohio who had "been told" that Obama was Muslim. Here's what one had to say:

"There are a couple issues with him I'm not too clear on. ... I'm hearing he doesn't even know the Pledge of Allegiance. He wouldn't use the Holy Bible. He's got his own beliefs -- with the Muslim beliefs. A couple issues that bother me at heart ... This is what I've been told."

But if there's one good thing about the Rev. Wright controversy, it's this: there are now a lot fewer Americans who think Obama is a Muslim.

For instance, that Tribune headline that illicited my groan? Turns out it accompanied an article that focused entirely on Obama's Christian church and made no mention of the Muslim rumors.

Well, thank God for that.

... and the next thing you know it's on the chalkboard:

A Delaware state human relations commission is investigating allegations that a fifth-grade teacher told her class she wouldn't vote for Barack Obama because he is "scary" and a Muslim.

The mother of a 10-year-old student complained, saying her daughter's teacher made the comments during a mock primary on Super Tuesday last month at a southeastern Delaware elementary school. The student is a Muslim.

The Democratic presidential candidate is a Christian, but he's had to fight against false Internet rumors suggesting he's really a Muslim intent on destroying the United States.

For more about these damaging online whisper campaigns, check out our post from a couple days ago.

While there were some rumors that supporters of Hillary Clinton had been attempting to use the controversy around Rev. Jeremiah Wright to dissuade superdelegates from backing Barack Obama, the campaign more or less laid low on the matter. After all, the media was doing a fine job of replaying the controversial snippets of Wright's sermons and demanding revocations and denouncements from the Obama camp.

But now that Obama's numbers seem to be rebounding and the media has turned its attention elsewhere -- including to Hillary's embellishments of her foreign policy experience -- the Clinton campaign is suddenly bringing up Obama's former pastor left and right, going so far as to describe the controversial statements as "hate speech" and to compare Rev. Wright to David Duke.

(More after the jump ...)

Yesterday on NBC's The Chris Matthews Show, Tribune columnist Clarence Page pointed out what should have been obvious: the 30-second soundbytes replayed over and over by the national media are not an accurate representation of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's ministry at Trinity United Church of Christ:

PAGE: Plus, you know, Jeremiah Wright, I've seen the man preach, long before I knew he was Barack Obama's minister. And people knew he had been Oprah's minister. There's a side to him that has not been shown on these clips. He is a Marine. He is a guy who's had a tremendous program for black families, etc.

MATTHEWS: OK. Would you get those tapes out?

PAGE: Well, it's going to happen.

MATTHEWS: Let's get the good tapes out.

In fact, a lot of "the good tapes" are out there -- whether media figures like Chris Matthews actually decide to air them is another story.

Archpundit has a couple of these videos featured on his site today: Here you see the full context of Rev. Wright's comments on 9-11. Notice how he describes the attacks as "unthinkable acts" and an "American tragedy" (not quite the impression I got from watching the cables). The tape also shows him initially attributing the sentiment that "America's chickens are coming home to roost" to former U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck.

And here you see Wright -- during the sermon in which he stated "God damn America" -- professing his faith in the potential for real political progress in the U.S.

Also worth checking out are the tributary comments about Wright by United Church of Christ President John Thomas -- a white man -- on February 24.

For more of "the good tapes" check out Trinity United's YouTube page.

A new FOX News poll shows that the Barack Obama's public image may not have been severely damaged by recent political attacks against Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Some opponents of the Illinois Senator hoped that by charging the former pastor of Trinity United Church with anti-Americanism they could tarnish Obama by association. The FOX poll suggests the attacks aren't sticking:

By a 57%-24% margin, registered voters do not believe that Obama shares Wright's controversial views. The internals show only 17% of Democrats saying Obama shares Wright's ideas, along with 20% of independents and 36% of Republicans.

The poll also showed that 66 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of Independents said Obama's relationship with Wright has not caused them to have any doubts about the Illinois Senator. Click here (PDF) for full poll results.

It's still too soon to really appraise what kind of effect the Wright flap will have on Obama's overall numbers. But these numbers are encouraging, nonetheless.

In related news, a photo of Wright shaking hands with President Bill Clinton during a 1998 White House event has surfaced online. The photo is further proof that Wright enjoyed broad-based political support and recognition before recent media attacks tried to paint him as a black "radical."

To learn more about Wright and Trinity United, readers may want to visit this blog set up by a parishioner there.

The Chicago Reader's Mick Dumke -- "a white boy who’s crossed paths with the minister and the church before" -- describes his own experiences with Trinity United Church of Christ:

I knew nothing about Rev. Wright or Trinity until I attended McCormick Theological Seminary, a graduate school in Hyde Park, from 1997 to 2000. The student body was mostly white, but I’m pretty sure Trinity had more of us enrolled than any other congregation. Trinity was presented to me and everyone else as a welcome and open place whose pastor and members were dedicated to social justice, especially for the people in their own neighborhoods; and the 20 or so people I knew who went there—including several church leaders—were universally warm, respectful, and open-minded. When I attended services at Trinity I was welcomed no less, and while I’m kind of the skeptical type when it comes to sermonizing, I was impressed with Reverend Wright. He was thoughtful, critical, funny, and deeply spiritual; he railed against white supremacy, which struck me as appropriate; and he seemed to challenge everyone there to become better citizens.

Read the whole thing here.