On Glenn Beck, Blackwell's false claim: Obama "basically said that, while he was in Reverend Wright's church, he embraces Louis Farrakhan"
Summary: On Glenn Beck, Ken Blackwell stated of Sen. Barack Obama: "Here is a guy who basically said that, while he was in Reverend [Jeremiah] Wright's church, he embraces [Nation of Islam founder] Louis Farrakhan." In fact, Obama has called himself "a consistent denunciator of Louis Farrakhan," which neither Beck nor Blackwell noted.
On the March 19 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, Family Research Council senior fellow and former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell stated of Sen. Barack Obama: "Here is a guy who basically said that, while he was in Reverend [Jeremiah] Wright's church, he embraces [Nation of Islam founder] Louis Farrakhan." In fact, in a February 25 speech, Obama stated that he has been "a consistent denunciator of Louis Farrakhan." Also, during the February 26 Democratic debate in Cleveland, Obama said "You know, I have been very clear in my denunciation of Minister Farrakhan's anti-Semitic comments." And in a January 15 statement issued about an award given to Farrakhan by a magazine associated with Wright, Obama said, "I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan. I assume that Trumpet Magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree."
Neither Blackwell nor host Glenn Beck mentioned any of Obama's statements denouncing Farrakhan or his related comments.
From the March 19 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck:
BECK: Ken, I wanted to have you on because you are a former U.N. ambassador -- U.S. ambassador at the U.N. And you have seen this black liberation philosophy or theology before. Explain. I think this is even more frightening than the stuff that I've already read on television. Explain what you've seen.
BLACKWELL: Well, essentially, liberation theology took root in Africa and Central America. It was often offered up by Marxist regimes that knew that they couldn't uproot the church, so they tried to weaken the doctrine of the church. So it is an alternative doctrine of the church that embraces big government. It advances a collectivist ideal and idea, and it says the state, not the individual, is central to society.
And that is very disquieting. But it also gives you a better understanding of the undergirding of Senator Obama's big-government liberal philosophy that would increase spending, increase taxes, weaken our military and our position in the world.
BECK: I tell you, it explains the comments of his wife. It explains -- you're exactly right, his big-government ideas. If you understand what this theology is, you do begin to understand Barack Obama, but it is in a -- I believe, in a frightening way. However, I'm being labeled the one that's the hate-monger for asking these questions. How is this theology out there and it not be labeled racist and hate-mongering?
BLACKWELL: Well, it's part of a -- it's part of a series of parts. You know, here's a guy who says that he studied the doctrine of Saul Alinsky, who was an anarchist, a radical. Here is a guy who basically said that, while he was in Reverend Wright's church, he embraces Louis Farrakhan.
The fact is that nobody has elevated this beyond his race. He can speak eloquently on race and moving towards a color-blind society, but what he can't speak to is how he got there, going to a color-conscious theology, and how he got there by embracing, I think, a position that was really radical and antithetical to this whole notion of God as being central to our nation and the individual as being primary.
—K.E.
