It’s getting down and dirty in the Democratic nomination contest, and racial politics seems to be taking over the race. Leave to Afro-centric Obama pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. to lift us up by bringing Monica Lewinsky back into play . . . as reported in the Baltimore Sun, via Steve Gilbert at Sweetness & Light:
The packed house at Trinity United – some 3,000 in all – had been in the pews for almost two hours, energized by a 200-voice choir and a rousing dance performance Sunday, when the Rev. Jeremiah Wright stepped up to speak.
Wright is well-known in Chicago and in the black church world for taking over a small United Church of Christ congregation in 1972 and turning it into an 8,000-member powerhouse. More recently, his name has become familiar as the longtime spiritual mentor of Barack Obama, who joined the church in 1988 – a move Obama says was important to shaping his identity as an African-American.
The connection has thrown a spotlight on some of Wright’s more controversial remarks in a church that advertises itself as “unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian” – at times espousing a black liberation theology that can sound as exclusionary as Obama’s message is inclusionary. He has also equated Zionism with racism.
On Sunday morning – amid intensified crossfire between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Obama over the use of race in the Democratic presidential campaign – Wright was preaching from the Gospel of John, using his powerful style to link the story of the loaves and fishes to a contemporary political message…
Some argue that blacks should vote for Clinton “because her husband was good to us,” he continued.
“That’s not true,” he thundered. “He did the same thing to us that he did to Monica Lewinsky.”
Read it all at the link above. Yep, that’s the way to “bring us together,” all right – a trip down memory lane with Monica as the Hostess with Mostess.
There’s a touch of irony in the fact Obama was falsely assailed – including by several Clinton supporters – as being a Muslim, when the details of his actual “Christian” church’s doctrines would prove far more damaging.
Just to keep one step ahead of our commenters, I must note that bringing up Monica ten years later really sucks . . .