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.
LOL! I haven't seen so many black faces on television in a long time! You better believe the Right Wing are going to send their black character assassinators such as Blackwell, Larry Elder, [Walter] Williams, Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, Jesse Lee Peterson, etc., to bring down Obama. That's their slick way of doing the dirty work without appearing obvious.
Do they ride a short bus to the station?
Good question. And I wonder if they're allowed to sit in front or back of this short bus.
LOL
Preston I was thinking the same thing. Look at the Republicans putting "their" black face front and center to reassure the white party faithful that they were being fair to Obama. THIS (Blackwell) man is Black and you can trust what he says so don't believe that crap that we don't like blacks or we're being critical of Obama becuase he's black, look at Blackwell.
I'm so feed up with this sh*t I could scream. I'm sick and tired of being played by both Republicans and the Clintons as if I'm stupid. If the goal was to keep me home on election day they are well on their way to succeeding.
The fact that this fool is even invited on shows to discuss race proves that we progressives have a lot of work to do in countering his nonsense.
I'm so feed up with this sh*t I could scream. I'm sick and tired of being played by both Republicans and the Clintons as if I'm stupid. If the goal was to keep me home on election day they are well on their way to succeeding.
Please don't stay home on Election Day, Pearlene. No matter who ends up with the Democratic nomination (and I'm hoping it's Obama), we're gonna need as many good people like you to get to the polls and vote against the forces of evil in this country who are trying to continue the failed policies of the Bush Misadministration.
WZ, I can't vote for her.
I don't mind you saying you would be a better President but Hillary didn't do that. Instead she stands before the news media and says several times that only she and McCain are qualified to be President. Besides that lie about her so called experience, how do you insult your fellow Democrat and compliment the Republican McCain?. Now today I hear Bill on the stump telling everyone how great McCain is and Hillary is good friends with him and they would provide a patriotic campaign this fall. What the h*ll is wrong with these folks? Bill and Hillary compliment McCain more than his fellow Republicans!
I said this before, they've gone to far from Bill's Jackson comment to Ferraro saying if Obama was a white man he wouldn't be where he is. Unbelievable! Please tell me how in the h*ll being a black man with the name Barack Obama is an advantage? They play the race card and then apologize and then go right out and do it again. Sorry but I'm done.
Hillary cares about Hillary. She and Bill have burned their bridges with me. If she gets the nomination, I will stay at home and I don't think I'll be alone. There is no amount of apologies to repair the damage. I'm done with her.
That's not a misadministration, that's just the Bush madministration.
I effin' coined it! :)
Pearline.
I see that there are a couple of us feeling the same thing about this "trotting out the black faces"but I am waiting for them to trot out the ultimate,James David Manning.
Blackwell forgot to mention that Obama also killed the Xmas Bunny. Pretty sloopy work there Ken, but I mean that in a good way.
Blackwell forgot to mention that Obama also killed the Xmas Bunny.
Does that mean i can still hang my Easter Stocking by the fireplace?
Pretty sloopy work there Ken, but I mean that in a good way.
Yeah, but remember, Sloopy lived in a very bad part of town, but she still was able to hang on...
These people are absolutely shameless. What depths will these people sink to in order to misrepresent and distort this issue?
I know they want to keep this story alive for as long as they can, to emflame people's emotions to the point of giving up, or throwing in the towel and essentially saying it ain't worth it anymore, they've won.
Beat Obama up so badly, bruise him beyond repair, slime him with enough guilt by association, morph Wright into Obama that people will have a hard time differentiating who said what, trash and slice and dice him into little pieces that issues become meaningless and charicatures rule the day, plant enough doubts in people's minds that Obama is an American hating time bomb that we cannot afford, bob, weave, avoid, lie, manipulate and twist Obama's words and actions so he appears dangerous and maniacal.
Are these people proud, do they feel good about themselves, is winning elections that important, do they teach their children to behave like this?
I hope this emboldens Obama and he fights on, the country is worth it, these people can't be allowed to hijack integrity and honor for the sake of any election.
is winning elections that important
As long as there is such an obscene amount of money available for the ruling party, the answer to your question is a resounding YES. I don't think we've even seen the depths that people will be willing to go in this country for that power unless we reform the money issue in politics.
As to Blackwell and Beck I can't be suprised by their tactics, they are Republicans afterall. Flippin' Blackwell was instrumental in stealing the 2004 election in OH. The capacity for sneering ugliness of the modern day Republican has no bounds. They have proven that in abundance they will do anything to control the debate.
I waited until I was blue in the face. I held it in as long as I could.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright said a few unpopular things, he said “God damn America,” a “country ruled by rich white people,” and that “we’ve nuked more than died in New York.” His words have been called racist and unpatriotic, and I’ve been silently watching the media repeat the who, endlessly loop the what, sketchily detail the when, positively harp on the where and still no one is talking about the why. There are many important whys in this story, the most important of which being why did Wright say what he said and why is the media painting so narrow a portrait of it?
Wright was born in 1941.
To put that in perspective, the first black Major League baseball player didn’t take the field for another six years, Jackie Robinson, ending roughly eighty years of segregation in the sport. Jim Crow laws, that allowed separate but equal treatment of black citizens after the thirteenth amendment abolished slavery, were enforced for another twenty four years of this mans life. He drank from separate faucets and ate at separate tables. His experience in America was a little different than that of his loudest critics; Wright grew up in a time many only hear about in history books, a time Americans are rightfully not proud of.
The retired Reverend, now in his late sixties, is witnessing the first black candidate for President of the United States with the potential of winning the general election. A United States citizen with First Amendment rights to freedom of speech is being told to watch his mouth by the main stream media. In true McCarthy fashion Wright is being labeled anti-American. White people have enjoyed a racial benefit in American society, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did kill at least one hundred and ninety seven thousand more people than died in New York, he may be putting things bluntly but his basic facts are right. Even if they were not, in America he still has ever right to shout it on the mountain, its part of what makes our country great. Where was the media when Jerry Falwell on The 700 Club declared, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen”??? How about Pat Robertson when he said “…you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Anti-Christ.”??? And McCain supporter Minister John Hagee, an endorser that the media seems reluctant to discuss. On Katrina the minister had this to say, "All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that." Why was it alright for all those right wing preachers to say all that? A double standard? I was born in 1977. I hope that when I’m in my late sixties I can look back at all this and laugh about how primitive it all seems. The race gotcha games, the unbalanced media coverage, the denial of history. I hope I live to see the America that Martin Luther King Jr. saw in his dreams. And I hope I’m free to discuss it all, as loud as I want, in a free country. But I’m not holding my breath.i think one of the things that was bothersome about wright's remarks was that they were five days after 9-11 and they were delivered with a mocking dismissal of a very emotional event.
The Iraq War was predicated on lies. Bush invaded a country that had NOTHING to do with 9/11 causing the deaths of 4,000 American men and women and countless Iraqis. Using the death of over 2800 people as his excuse to destroy a country, cause the death and misplacement of it's citizens all based on lies. 9/11 didn’t happen because they hate us for our freedom, but because of a complex history of these relationships that go back at least 50 years if not back through the better part of the 20th century. That the US unilateral support for Israeli policies with respect for Palestine is a source of difficulties in our nation’s relationships in the Middle East at large. America is not perfect and it is not a crime to say so.
Rev. Wright may be loud and abusive but HE was not the President. He did not lie to the entire country using the deaths of innocent people who died on 9/11, to start a war for revenge and oil. That not only bothers me it makes me mad as h*ll.
And Falwell's remarks saying that the ACLU, the abortionists, the homosexuals and assorted other evangelical bogeymen were partially to blame for 9/11 and Robertson's "I concur" were made on September 14, 2001, less than 3 days after the attacks. They were not made in a private church service, they were made on a cable and syndicated television program.
But somehow they don't have to apologize every day for what they said and, in Robertson's case, continue to make similar statements on television to this day. McCain was excoriated by the political agents of the religious right when he dismissed people like Falwell and Robertson as fanatics, but today he can't run as a Republican presidential candidate without giving them a figurative deep tongue kiss. Meanwhile, Obama won't ever be able to denounce what Wright said loudly enough or strongly enough for some people to just shut the hell up about it already.
If Obama showed any signs that Wright's controversial remarks form the core of his governing philosophy he would be just as appaling to me as the Goopers who love them some mega-church whackadoos. But there is no history of that, unlike some currently in office who invite Christian fanatics into strategy and planning meetings.
I can only hope that if McCain wins he'll bail on the fanatics as so many others have once they've gotten the votes they were kissing butt to get.
9-11 didn't happen in a vacuum
It was the end result of many failed US foreign policies
That innocent people died is a tragedy, to ignore the history behind it would be too
"so you are saying it was justified?"
Consequences of actions taken do not necessarily mean those consequences were "justified" but they can mean the consequences were PREDICTABLE. And if they were predictable, that could even mean they were preventable.
"when those danish newspapers printed those muslim based cartoons, they knew what the reaction would be. "
No they didn't. That who controversy is selective outrage on the part of the radical Muslims. They believe that Jesus was a prophet too, and any depiction of him is also blasphemous. To say that they knew is ludicrous. They were just the fall-guy in this whole episode
Hell, we have a statue of Mohammad in the U.S. Supreme Court. Do you hear them getting all up in arms about that? No. There are depictions of Jesus everywhere you look, in churches and advertising and on television, are the Muslims reacting violently to them? Not that I've heard of.
actually you are wrong. it is not selective outrage on the part of radical muslims. here is a statement, in the link, of ministers of 17 muslim nations issued after the first printing of the cartoons:
"the council of arab interior ministers strongly denounce the offence to islam and the prophet published in the danish press and ask the danish government to firmly punish the authors of these offences."
good thing that the authors were not living in those countries. and the fact is that religious minorites in islamic countries have been under attack for years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4668068.stm
YES I am
His comments illustrate the oddness of American outrage
Right or wrong we nuked 200 thousand people, and they were not all soldiers, right or wrong we financially crippled the Soviet Union and it resulted in generations of poverty, crime, prostitution and death, again not all the victims were millitary
And what of our interventions in South America and the Middle East, we have installed dictators and armed madmen who turned around and slaughtered their people
We have done and we have enabled and now we are SHOCKED that there are people that hate our country and want us dead
As soon as the 9/11 pity party is over and the jingoism subsides we all need to meet at the adults table and discuss why this happened and what we can do to prevent it from happening again
Its not really a matter of right or wrong, its winners and losers and how history is written up. Its the truth about the nature of war, conflicts being decided by sending the youth to fight and die.
Communism was no threat to our way of life, when we crippled the Soviets finacially through the arms race the social consequences were not just felt by politicos and soldiers...
Nonsense, yeah, ok
estimates are that 3 to 7 million died due to stalin's forced collectivization in the ukraine in the thirties.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7111296.stm
Well yes, ME, if we were to discuss all of Soviet history you might have a point
The communists were no great threat to us, we have the superior Navy and in the end that is all that would have mattered
We fought the economic ideology as if it were a declaration of war
From the WIKI "The end of the Cold War gave Russia the chance to cut military spending dramatically, but the adjustment was wrenching. The military-industrial sector employed at least one of every five Soviet adults.[45] Its dismantling left millions throughout the former Soviet Union unemployed. Russian living standards have worsened overall in the post-Cold War years, although the economy has resumed growth in recent years."
That the Cold War bankrupted the country really isn't arguable just by pointing out what happened before, is it true they would have gotten to this place regardless of US intervention, yes, maybe so, but we will never know. And what happens in destitute countries ME ? Crime, maybe. Starvation? Prostitution?
So when you grow up starved and your fathers a con and your mothers a whore becuase some wealthy nation decided to put your country to economic ruin what exactly do you think that persons opinion is of the great USA?
it was their decision. did they not say they would "bury us"? did they not occupy eastern europe for decades and kill citizens of hungary [in 1956] and czechslovokia [in 1968] when they decided they did not want to be dominated by the soviet union? i agree the threat to us personally was overrated, but you are going to proclaim them the victims when they made their own bed? france told us to pack our troops and leave in the 50s and we did. there is no competent economist who thinks that a soviet style system can produce a decent standard of living. and you provided quotes that contradicted your own argument, the fact that things got worse after the cold war because so many people were involved in military production. my point, which you have not refuted, is that it was the system itself, all that history you insist should be ignored.
The Soviet citizenry said they would bury us ?
Their government did, and yes the threat to us was not just overstated it was almost nada until we escalated matters. No worries ME, lots of people like to think of the GOOD wars, the ones they so starkly contrast Iraq to. Alas, war is war. The victims of which are almost never the decision makers and the hawks but rather the troops and the citizens caught in the crossfire, both real and economic. Our guilt in this is complicit when it is a war of CHOICE, which the cold war was as Iraq is now.
Don't get me wrong, if the enemy is storming our beachfront here in the states I'm ready to go help in any way I can to defend the nation. War of CHOICE is another matter entirely, and I disagree with my government sanctioning it. WW2 is another example, Hitler was a madman and he was a threat to the planet as a whole, he had to go and I agree with our involvement. Had Saddam invaded Kuwait again, and started firing on his other neighbors in a way that smacked of empire building then my current feelings about Iraq would be different.
So I'm not a 100% peacenik, I'm justing saying that in a war of Choice, when the victims are the enemies citizens, yes ME we share some blame in allowing that by accepting it.
Sure, maybe. With the exception of the thousands of civillians killed in the shock and awe campaign.
Double true
Shock and awe killed plenty of people and the civil war was corked under the Saddam dictatorship
We broke it ME, we bought it and some day there will be consequences for it
ME we are not ignoring anything
You are making a chicken vs the egg analogy that doesn't hunt
sure there were centuries old conflicts, I agree, the Sunni and Shite have only gotten along in recent times due to the Saddam dictatorship, this civil war was corked
we uncorked it by invading and killing Saddam
what happened after is our fault, we let the cat out of the bag
Thanks WZ
I know what I'm saying isn't popular, but it is true
I love my country as I would my child, if I had one. I can still feel love without ignoring everything that has been done wrong. In fact if I turn a blind eye I am being a bad parent
When you dance to the music eventually you have to pay the fiddler, chickens do come home to roost, that is not to say its justified, just that it is logically to be expected
The truth should never be comfortable, the truth cuts to the marrow
Oh yes...the babyboomers have created wonderful schools to produce the 'thinkers' of the type we see on this commnet board. You should be VERY hopeful indded.
How do you know Blackwell is honest? He doesn't have a track record for being honest. Look at the 2004 election in Ohio and the voting machine foul up in the urban and college areas. Also the corruption that involved the republicans in that state. Blackwell's hands were not clean. On the other hand, Obama confronted his accusers directly and is looking better and better.
Blackwell was a complete and utter failure as Ohio's Secretary of State - he tried his best to suppress the minority vote in 2004, which may have been responsible for 4 more years of Bush and the endless war. (I mean, he was reponsible for running elections in Ohio, yet was Bush's CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN - yeah, no conflict of interest there).
Yet, in the wingnut world, that makes him the perfect expert to opine on the teevee.
Yet, in the wingnut world, that makes him the perfect expert to opine on the teevee.
PERFECT EXPERT? In Neo-Con Bizarro World, what Ken Blackwell did in Ohio to suppress the vote OF HIS OWN PEOPLE makes him a HERO!!!!
I am glad Blackwell is brave enough to be honest. Obama is looking worse and worse everyday :-(
You've become boring and predictable and since no one can leave you would you do us a favor and leave us? Please
This guy is just another member of the fox"Glee Club"
All these discredited guys are getting their platform on fox and singing the same tune.
Well folks I don't know how this is going to play out,but I just saw a picture of Bill Clinton shaking the hand of Reverend Wright.
Stay Tuned!!
That's exactly the reason I left the church. Some friends of mine were getting married, and a former priest who was made to leave the diocese because he was allegedly molesting children turned out to have the desk job certifying marriage applications.
I had had enough, and I left.
The MSM found a way to lengthen the election cycle and frame the race, it profits them to do this
UPDATE:
A story was just posted on CNN's web page that blows this whole Rev. Wright story out of the water. It seems that when you listen to his complete sermon about 9/11, the passages that people like Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, and Levin are concemning Rev. Wright for were actually a QUOTATION he was referencing. As the story states, "He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News."
Rev. Wright quotes a Reagan Administration official who was speaking on Fox News, and the righies condemn him for it...
The full story is on Anderson Cooper's blog - here's the link for those of you who want to learn more:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/21/the-full-story-behind-rev-jeremiah-wrights-911-sermon/#comment-78545
Another link also:
htt://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/20/224958/631/841/481227
Curious...why is this not on NATIONAL news 24/7, lol
never mind...8-)
This is part and parcel of how the people in America have in some ways come to this pickle we are all in. History is ignored.
Policies are put in place with no regard to long term even when our history shows it to be an intolerable policy.
People say that Wright is a racist for saying what he did, no...he only spoke the truth. Problem is a lot of white people just don't get it. Head in the sand syndrome.
We have the pettiest of news casters opining whether or not Obama condemned Wright "enough" and etc.....right on down the line even to the "sound" of someone's voice. No real issues have been heard on television for years with real debate, real solutions to real problems, just pettyness!
Wright was quoted as saying “Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run” and accusing the country of importing drugs, exporting guns and training murderers. This is an verifiable part of history:The US Military sold Saddam Hussien the poison gas he used to kill his own people (lest we forget he was our friend before he was our enemy), U.S. customs on the take when drugs reach our shores, the White House selling guns to the Contras and various other countries, CIA training assassins against enemy leaders—all have been well documented. Lest we forget.
There has been documented cases of OUR government experimenting on blacks, prisoners, mentally handicapped people too. Lest we forget.
Oh yes and lets not forget that America now advocates for torture of fellow human beings. And prominent preachers call for the assassination of leaders of other countries, and disasters are the hand of god almighty him/herself....if that is not damning America I don't know what is.
Embrace the truth America, the truth will not set you free, but it damn sure will open your eyes so that you can make decisions so that it does not happen again.
GO OBAMA!!!
Blackwell is a pathetic piece of sh*t who's responsible for repressing the votes of "his own people" and delivering Ohio, and 4 more years, to George W Bush.
Sir Blackwell can come to my block and me and all of my posse will give him an individual big spanking.
Exactly what part of "strongly condemning the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan" indicates to Blackwell that he's embracing Farrakhan?