On the March 14 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, discussing controversial statements by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Sen. Barack Obama's church, host Joe Scarborough asked NBC correspondent Lee Cowan, "[H]as Barack Obama had to answer any questions about this pastor's September 11th speech, where five days after September 11th, the pastor blamed 9-11 on America and its foreign policy, supporting terrorist states, et cetera, et cetera. Has Barack Obama been pressed on that issue?" Cowan replied: “Nobody that I know of has asked him, certainly not at the town hall meetings -- they don't get that specific. It's more this general tone of, 'Who is this guy and what has he been saying?' ” Cowan further stated, “Barack Obama has always tried to distance himself -- the campaign has tried to distance himself [from Wright's comments] as well.” In fact, Obama was specifically asked about Wright's 9-11 comments during an interview with The New York Times, and reportedly replied, “The violence of 9/11 was inexcusable and without justification.”

Earlier in the show, discussing Wright's comments about 9-11, co-host Mika Brzezinski asserted that "Barack Obama does not agree with that. I mean, that, I think, most people know." Scarborough responded, “We'll let people decide; we're not gonna figure it out here.” Indeed, while Wright's comments were repeatedly highlighted on the March 14 Morning Joe, at no point was Obama's assertion that "[t]he violence of 9/11 was inexcusable and without justification" mentioned.

The Times reported on April 30, 2007:

On the Sunday after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Mr. Wright said the attacks were a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later he wrote that the attacks had proved that “people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just 'disappeared' as the Great White West went on its merry way of ignoring Black concerns.”

Provocative Assertions

Such statements involve “a certain deeply embedded anti-Americanism,” said Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative group that studies religious issues and public policy. “A lot of people are going to say to Mr. Obama, are these your views?”

Mr. Obama says they are not.

“The violence of 9/11 was inexcusable and without justification,” he said in a recent interview. He was not at Trinity the day Mr. Wright delivered his remarks shortly after the attacks, Mr. Obama said, but “it sounds like he was trying to be provocative.”

As Media Matters for America documented, during a report on the March 13 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross also reported on Wright's remarks about the September 11 terrorist attacks without noting that Obama had specifically said he disagreed with them.

From the March 14 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:

BRZEZINSKI: I wonder how this compares to what -- the stories we've been covering where race has come up in the past. How does this compare to Bill Clinton in South Carolina or Geraldine Ferraro? I mean, it's kind of hard to compare the two.

SCARBOROUGH: Well, I don't know that this is a race issue. I think this is more of an issue of Barack Obama's judgment and this guy talking about how the United States was responsible for 9-11 and that Hillary Clinton is a privileged white woman that has never been called the n-word, just a --

BRZEZINSKI: That would be a race issue, but let me just say that the other concept, the 9-11 -- Barack Obama does not agree with that. I mean, that, I think, most people know.

SCARBOROUGH: Well, we'll let --

BRZEZINSKI: I think it's --

SCARBOROUGH: We'll let people decide; we're not gonna figure it out here.

BRZEZINSKI: No.

SCARBOROUGH: But I will tell you that those are tough words out there --

BRZEZINSKI: Yeah.

SCARBOROUGH: -- and there's gonna be a lot of talk about it.

[...]

SCARBOROUGH: Lee, has Barack Obama had to answer any questions about this pastor's September 11th speech, where five days after September 11th, the pastor blamed 9-11 on America and its foreign policy, supporting terrorist states, et cetera, et cetera. Has Barack Obama been pressed on that issue?

COWAN: Nobody that I know of has asked him, certainly not at the town hall meetings -- they don't get that specific. It's more this general tone of, “Who is this guy and what has he been saying?” I mean, what's important is a lot of this stuff has been out there for a good deal of time, these tapes that everyone is showing are actually for sale. You can go buy the DVDs at the church and listen to his sermons, like you can many pastors. So this isn't something that's necessarily new; it's been out there for quite some time. Barack Obama has always tried to distance himself -- the campaign has tried to distance himself as well. They certainly don't like these things popping up. It doesn't do the campaign particularly a good service, but it is a tough thing to back away from if you still want to say you're a part of, a part of the church.