March 13, 2008

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Wait 'til you hear Obama's pastor.  Now, we've mentioned this guy off and on during the course of the campaign.  Of course as you know, ladies and gentlemen, this program likes to focus not on personalities, but rather issues and so forth. We like to cause a little mischief whenever we can, but it's gotten to the point now where we can sort of back off for... Well, not for long, but for a couple weeks maybe and be bystanders and watch this implosion.  Somebody put it up on YouTube, the Christmas 2007 sermon at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. The pastor: Jeremiah Wright.  Now, this is the guy that married Barack and Michelle "My Belle" Obama.  They've been going to this church for 20 years.  They have been taking their two little crumb crunchers to this church.  Now, that means this guy and this church and the kind of stuff that's said in this church, Barack Obama had been signing on to long before he came on the public scene -- long before he ran for local office in Chicago, state office in Illinois and then, of course, the United States Senate.  

I mentioned a mere moment ago in a brilliant analysis: Obama is leading a double life.  This pastor -- this church, the stuff that you are going to hear in mere moments -- is representative of the life that Barack Obama used to live before he arrived in the United States Senate and started his presidential campaign.  He chose this pastor! This is not happenstance.  He's also associated, as you know, with Tony Rezko, and William Ayres, the domestic terrorist.  By the way, all this is the side of his life that he doesn't want discussed.  He wants to talk about "hope" and "change" and "the future."  And this is the life Obama lived, who he was before he became interested in the presidency, and this pastor didn't just start talking about this.  Let's go to the audio sound bites.  We'll start with number one, this is again the 2007 Christmas sermon, Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright.

WRIGHT:  Jesus was a poor black man who lived in a country and who lived in a culture, that was controlled by rich white people! The Romans were rich. The Romans were Italians, which means they were European, which means they were white -- and the Romans ran everything in Jesus' country.  It just came to me within the past few weeks, y'all, why so many folk are hatin' on Barack Obama.  He doesn't fit the model!

CONGREGATION: Right!

WRIGHT: He ain't white, he ain't rich, and he ain't privileged.

RUSH:  This is the kind of stuff Obama has been listening to from this guy for 20 years.  This guy didn't just start talking this way.  Here's the next bite.

WRIGHT:  Hillary never had to worry about being pulled over in her car as a black man driving in the wrong!  I am sick of Negroes who just do not get it!  Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home! Barack was.  Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people!  Hillary can never know that!  Hillary ain't never been called a (bleep)! Hillary has never had her people defined as nonpersons!  Hillary ain't had to work twice as hard just to get accepted by the rich white folk who run everything, or to get a passing grade when you know you are smarter than their C-students sitting in the White House.  Hillary ain't never had her own people say she wasn't white enough!

RUSH:  Um... Is this what is meant by a "new future"?  Is this what is meant by "change"?  Barack Obama, community activist. His preacher is a hatemonger, a black segregationist.  He's got a friend from the Weather Underground who was on the run for terrorist acts. He befriended and benefited from the largesse of a Chicago thug.  Is this what is meant by "change"?  Is this where we are investing "hope" for the future?  Is this really moving forward, at all?  Or is this taking us backwards?  The past is the past, and it's the past because it's behind us -- and to get behind you, you gotta turn around and go the other way, and that's the opposite of going forward in the future.  Barack Obama tells us he wants to go forward, but we're turning around, and we're going backward. We're going back to the past.  We're going to go back to the past! We're going to relive the past, apparently.  This guy has been preaching to Barack Obama for 20 years, and his wife Michelle "My Belle" Obama and their children; and this guy certainly didn't just start talking like this.

Is this what is meant by "changing the system"?  Is this what is meant by "fresh ideas" and "new politics"?  The fact is these old liberal war horses who now sit as reporters and anchors, want us to believe that Obama is JFK and Lincoln -- and that doesn't make it so.  This is JFK?  Did JFK's priests talk like this?  This is Obama's pastor, folks!  You need to understand this.  People need to understand that he and his wife chose this church because of this pastor.  To say he has no responsibility for what the pastor says, yeah, that's true. But the pastor believes all this, obviously.  Obama chose it.  Let me put a fine point on this.  You know me. I don't like to skirt around the issues.  What we have heard -- and there's more. Let's see how many more we got.  We got three more.  It's your lucky day.  We have three more.  One of them is short.  This is lunatic racism.  This is pure lunatic racism, and Obama chose this.  He chose this pastor.  He chose this church.  He chose this hatemonger as a spiritual leader.  This guy doesn't represent any change.

This guy doesn't represent any hope to anybody.  This guy doesn't represent any future.  This guy is pure hate, ladies and gentlemen.  Obama knew all about him.  This is the guy who gave an award to Farrakhan.  This same preacher, Jeremiah Wright, went to visit Moammar Khadafy in the 1980s! He has given an award to Calypso Louie.  Now, Obama knows all this. He knew all about him.  Now he plays the role of offended, centrist Democrat? When Ferraro says what she says, he's out there acting offended?  By the way, they axed Ferraro.  She has been thrown under the bus. She is gone, and she is mad.  She is still livid that people think she's a racist.  You compare what she said. What she said was right, it was truthful. You compare that to what Obama has been listening to in church!  The point that she was ultimately making was -- and she said it about herself -- that somebody with two years experience, who was white, would not be this far advanced in the Democrat presidential sweepstakes.  Let's get these bites in.  This is Jeremiah Wright on the Clintons from the same sermon.

WRIGHT:  Hillary is married to Bill and Bill have been good to us?  No, he ain't!  Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinsky!

CONGREGATION: (cheers)

WRIGHT: He was riding dirty!

RUSH:  "He was riding dirty" with "the big, fat nasty." Riding dirty with the big, fat nasty.  Here is more Jeremiah Wright, 2003 sermon in Chicago, Trinity United Church of Christ.

WRIGHT:  The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America?  No, no, no! Not God bless America! God (bleep) America! (cheers) -- it's in the Bible -- for killing innocent people! (cheers) God (bleep) America for treating her citizens as less than human!

RUSH: That's a 2003 sermon. Obama may have been in the congregation that day.  You heard it. That was 2003.  This is five years ago.  This is not in the Christmas sermon.  But he's out there, you know, "God bleep America," not God bless. God bleep.  So the Romans were Europeans which means they were white, and they killed Jesus.  So are we to believe here Rudolph Giuliani is going to go out and take out Obama?  This is the way this guy thinks, and Obama sits there and listens to it, folks, as often as he goes to church -- and he chose it, and he's been going there for 20 years.  We have one more Jeremiah Wright sound bite. We'll get to it after the break, and Obama talking about race on his campaign plane today, not specifically Jeremiah Wright.  Folks, we just turned the teakettle on. It hasn't even heated up yet.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Geraldine Ferraro's point is essentially this, and it's something... You know, Obama shouldn't even really be mad about it, especially given what he listens to in his own church.  His kids were baptized in this church! They're like six and ten years old. Baptized in this church! They chose it. They support it.  Now, what Geraldine... Mr. Snerdley, I want you to hear this, because you're screening calls. You may get calls about this.  Mr. Snerdley and everybody else, Geraldine Ferraro, I'm sure what she meant was, "Okay, we've got a guy whose candidacy was said to be historic?  Why?  Is it what he believes?  Is it what he says?  Is it how he says it?  Is it the color of his skin?" Damn right.  You can't factor that out.  It's just like Hillary's candidacy is said to be historic.  Why?  Because this would be the first Vagina Monologues woman ever elected president, or woman period.  So you can't take those two things separately. That's all she was saying, and she happened to use the word... She clarified, "I wasn't talking about his qualifications," and then she followed up with a Bush insult. She's saying, "Look, if Bush can learn to run the country, I'm sure Obama can.  I was talking about experience, lack of it, not qualifications," and then she's still peeved that people think that she's racist.  Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor, a 2001 sermon.  Now, we've gone back some years here to show you this is not just one sermon last December.  This stuff is consistent. 2001 is seven years ago.  Listen to this one.

WRIGHT:  We bombed Hiroshima! We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye.  We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians, and black South Africans, and now we are indignant (cheers) because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards! (cheers and applause) America's chickens are coming home...to roost.

RUSH:  This is Barack Obama's pastor saying we deserved it on 9/11. We deserved what we got for all eeeevil that we have done around the world.  People said, "Rush, you bleeped out what Obama's pastor said. 'God (bleep).'" Yeah, it's what you think it was.  Damn it, it was. I don't know how... I just told you what the other word was, but I'm not going to put the words together. I bleeped it out. I'm not going to do it, and not going to go there.  Now, this pastor, Jeremiah... By the way, I'm still waiting for Obama to apologize to me.  Obama is running around out there lying about me, saying that I wanted to round up all the illegals and deport 'em.  I never said it. I don't. I never have thought it would be possible.  It's not the point of my take on illegal immigration. He's out there saying it.  I have demanded an apology.  I mean, if he's going to run around and get all offended and all upset and all sensitive about these criticisms he's getting; well, then he's gotta apologize when he engages in those kinds of things, if he says things about people aren't true.

I am offended!  I have been lied about by the leading Democrat presidential candidate.  Now, this pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, he is a racist. He is a hater.  Here is the question for you, Obama.  Why did you join this church?  Why did you stay with this church for 20 years?  Why do you subject you, your wife, and your kids to this hatemonger in church as often as you go?  Why you donate large sums of money to this church and this pastor, Obama?  Who in the world joins a church to listen to a pastor who is a racist hatemonger?  Who contributes money to a church where the pastor is a racist?  How can it be said with a straight face -- and believe me, mine's not -- that Obama didn't know what this pastor was preaching?  Obama has said that he searched for a church that was appropriate for his beliefs.  This is the church that he settled on, the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago?  So why did you join this church, Obama?  Why did you stay with this church for 20 years?  Why do you give large sums of money to this church?  Here's Obama, sound bite six.  I'm changing the order.  Here's Obama.  This is March 3rd in Nelson, Ohio, at a campaign event.  Obama said this about Jeremiah Wright, who you just heard.

OBAMA:  Jeremiah Wright, who was my pastor in the past, has said some things that are considered controversial because he's considered that part of his social gospel.

RUSH:  Well, that's helpful.  Was his "pastor in the past"?  He's quit?  Oh, he resigned, the pastor? So the Christmas sermon was the last sermon?  Well, Jeremiah Wright's gone, huh?  We gotta find this out.  This is news to me. I know almost everything, and I didn't know that Jeremiah Wright was gone.  Where did they put him?  Where did they put him, if he's gone?  Okay.  Jeremiah Wright gone.  Here's this morning, Good Morning America, Chris Cooomo interviewing an advisor to the Obama campaign and a professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.  Chris Cooomo said -- yes, I know, it's "Cuomo," but the Reverend Jackson pronounces it Cooomo, and in this highly charged racial atmosphere, I don't want to be accused of racism.  So if they say Cooomo, it's Cooomo.  Anyway, Chris Cooomo says, "You believe that what the reverend has said doesn't go beyond the pale of what he preaches in terms of religion. It doesn't deserve any more scrutiny than that. It doesn't have anything to do with politics, this is just the media picking on Senator Obama?"

CASEY:  It seemed to me what you're trying to do is what some of the media tried to do to John Kennedy in 1960, that because he was a Catholic, he must embrace certain political views the Catholic church held.  And he denied those, and he denied those for about a four-year period.  And it really wasn't until the actual election itself that the American public understood that he was able to separate himself from some of the political views of his church.  I think it's the same dynamic that's going on here.

RUSH:  All right. That's just unbelievable.  That is just... To compare Jeremiah Wright and what you just heard to the same thing John Kennedy was doing? They can't face up to this.  Is he really gone? Did you do some research? Is Jeremiah Wright gone?  Well, find it.  Don't just sit there and look.  Find it.  The show is moving along pretty quick.  I want you to keep up.  Here's Obama this morning on the campaign plane. We're back to sound bite 21.  Listen to this.

OBAMA:  As I said yesterday, I -- uh, I do think it's unfortunate. It's not entirely unexpected.  Uh, you know, as I said before, race and gender issues are very powerful in our society.  They've been an organizing principle for our politics since (pause) the earliest days (pause) of this country, and so, you know, it would be naïve for me to think that we could just brush them aside, and I know that sometimes (pause) Senator Clinton and others accuse me of being naïve, but I'm not naïve enough to think that we're going to solve the country's racial problems or some of these other divisions in the span of six months or a year.

RUSH:  He's gone. Okay, Jeremiah Wright's gone. January 13th, after the Christmas sermon, Jeremiah Wright, histoire.  At any rate... Past pastor.  Now, ladies and gentlemen, this guy, Obama, he was asked a question about race in politics.  Did you hear this? This guy is leading two lives and he's getting away with it.  He is! There's the public Obama that is this new revolutionary "agent of change and hope in the future," and the other Obama -- which has been alive much longer than this new Obama -- that has been sitting himself down in this racist church and soaking up all of this hatemongering racism from this pastor for over 20 years, and to act like...and to get away with this? The last thing this is, is "change."  The last thing this is is "hope."  The last thing this represents is "a new future."  This is worse than the same old same old.  Well, I don't know how the same old same old can be worse, but it's the same old same old.  And he's getting away with leading this double life here, and when this is brought up. (paraphrased) "Well, I -- I -- crazy uncle. We put him down in the basement of the church. He said some things, you know, social gospel," blah, blah.  Oh!  Fine, that explains it.  That explains why your pastor thinks we deserve what we got.  That explains why the al-Aqsa Brigades over in the Middle East can't wait 'til you're elected.  That's why Hugo Chavez can't wait 'til you're elected.  Those guys say we deserved 9/11, too.  Your preacher said, Obama, that we deserved 9/11.  You've got all these guys that can't wait for you to get elected, and it ain't just because you promised to talk to 'em.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Well-l-l-l-l-l-l. Well-l-l-l-l-l.  It may well be that Obama's pastor has left the pulpit of the Trinity United Church of Christ.  However, according to The Politico.com, Ben Smith, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a member of Obama's African-American religious leadership committee.  Now, it is largely honorary, it is an advisory body that in recent days has been used mostly to throw people off who say controversial things.  The Obama campaign couldn't immediately say whether Reverend Jeremiah Wright would remain on the committee.  But that's where he went.  He left the church and he went to the Obama campaign.  So Obama says, "I lament all this, race has come up, I know we're not going to fix this in six months or even a year."  Well, Senator Obama, you would know that race is an organizing principle in our country, since your pastor promoted it!  And you joined the church because of the brilliant things your pastor was saying.  Then the pastor leaves the church and joins your campaign in an advisory role! 

Meanwhile, representative Steve King of Iowa, we've talked about him yesterday, says that Al-Qaeda will be celebrating an Obama election victory, and McCain says, (doing McCain impression) "Stop it!  I will not have those kinds of things said. You're off point," and throws him down the stairs.  This pastor hates Israel.  This pastor embraces the Palestinian cause, such as it is.  He's Obama's pastor.  Steve King says, "Al-Qaeda would like to see Obama win, and that's considered over the top and a personal attack."  I'll tell you what, folks, this political correctness -- I'm about ready to just throw it overboard and whatever consequences I suffer, I'm going to suffer 'em.  It's paralyzing us.  It is making us ignore and look the other way at things which are really crucially important, such as this.  Barack Obama living two lives.  He didn't just check his own life at the door.  He still goes to this church up until last December, and this pastor is still around as an advisor.  We don't know who Obama is.  All we can do is surmise.  But since he doesn't say anything on the stump, since he says nothing better than anybody else has ever said nothing, we can go to where he parks himself every Sunday and listen to what his preacher says.  We can see, does he walk out in disgust or protest?  No, he keeps going, has his kids baptized there.  It's time we found out who this guy really is.  I'm serious. 

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: An update on the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Trinity United Church of Christ.  By the way, the Trinity United Church of Christ has nothing to do with the Churches of Christ all over the country.  It stands alone.  The Reverend Wright announced his retirement from the church, and it will not become effective until May of 2008.  He's not gone yet.  He's still there at the church, and he's still on the Obama campaign.  He held his last sermon Sunday, February 10th.  He will be on sabbatical leave from the church from March until May 'cause that's when he's on the Obama campaign.  Of course the press loves to report that Obama is a practicing Christian, not a Muslim.  Well, don't you think it's kind of relevant what kind of Christianity he chooses to practice, and nobody reports on it? 

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• HotAir: Video: Obama's Pastor Takes Highly Nuanced Approach to Racial Divisiveness

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/03/13/video-obamas-pastor-takes-highly-nuanced-approach-to-racial-divisiveness/

• YouTube: Barack Obama's Mentor Hillary Aint Never Been Called A.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPjVp3PLnVs  (03:20)

• Politico: Wright's Committee

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Wrights_committee.html