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Obama Resigns from Church

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Candidate Leaves After Latest Remarks from Pulpit

Sen. Barack Obama resigned on Friday from Trinity United Church of Christ after 20 years, in light of the latest

controversial remarks from that church’s pulpit, this time from the visiting Rev. Michael Pfleger, who mocked Sen. Hillary Clinton, saying she feels frustrated because of her sense of white entitlement.

Veteran Chicago journalist Monroe Anderson broke the story at 1:55 p.m. Central time Saturday on his blog, writing, “in an attempt to turn manufactured right-wing ammo into blanks, Obama has completely separated himself from his minister and his church.

“What worries me is this: Can we expect a President Obama to cave in to the whims and will of the right on policies and issues he knows are important, if this nation is to move forward in a progressive and compassionate manner? Can we expect him to genuflect to negative reports by an uninformed, misinformed or ill-willed media? Is the candidate of change willing to go-along in a willy-nilly get-along fashion?

“I hope not, but I’m not sure.”

Anderson, who also writes for ebonyjet.com and wrote for Newsweek, the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune and Ebony magazine, and spent 13 years as an executive at Chicago’s WBBM-TV, told Journal-isms he learned that Obama had resigned from the church from “a reliable source.”

At 5:46 p.m. Eastern time, CNN’s Roland Martin broke the story for television audiences. A story on cnn.com posted half an hour later said the campaign confirmed the resignation.

Obama cited CNN’s report at a press conference late Saturday in Aberdeen, S.D., in which nearly all questions were about his decision the leave the church, despite Obama’s victory before the Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee. The committee ruled in Obama’s favor on the allocation of delegates from the disputed Michigan and Florida primaries.

“I’m not denouncing the church and I’m not interested in people who want me to denounce the church,” Obama said, as Tom Raum reported for the Associated Press.

“It’s clear that now that I’m a candidate for president, every time something is said in the church by anyone associated with Trinity, including guest pastors, the remarks will be imputed to me even if they totally conflict with my long-held views, statements and principles,” Obama said. Referring to the church’s new pastor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, Obama said, “I don’t want Reverend Moss to have to look over his shoulder and see that his sermon vets or if it’s potentially problematic for my campaign or will attract the fury of a cable program.”

Obama was asked, “Do you think it will be possible for you to join a black church, or a historically black church, or do you think . . . that political correctness is going to be an issue in this election and that will be a factor in the racial mix of the church that you join?”

The candidate replied, “I do think that — I said this earlier, that there is a different religious tradition or a worshipping style in some of the historically African American churches and other churches. But I am confident that we are going to be able to find a church we feel comfortable with and that will reflect our concerns and values. But I do think there is a cultural and a stylistic gap that has come into play in this issue.”

The church issued this statement late Saturday:

“Trinity United Church of Christ was informed today that Senator Barack Obama and his family will no longer be members of our church. Though we are saddened by the news, we understand that it is a personal decision. We will continue to lift them in prayer and wish them the best as former members of our Trinity community.

“As in the Prayer for the Ephesians, our entire Trinity family asks that the nation entrust Barack, Michelle, Malia and Sasha to God’s care and guidance, so that Christ may continue to dwell in their lives, in their hearts and in their work. We ask now for God’s peace to be with them.”

Obama has been dogged since March by comments from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who was retiring then as pastor of the church, when reporters broadcast excerpts of Wright’s sermons that were offered for sale by the church. They were quickly publicized via YouTube. Wright was excoriated by white pundits over remarks denounced as anti-American and unpatriotic, and Wright quickly became a campaign issue.

The furor prompted Obama to give a widely praised speech on race from Philadelphia in which he said Wright had gone too far in his comments, but added, “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.”

However, when Wright repeated some of his remarks during a question-and-answer period at the National Press Club on April 28, Obama disassociated himself from his former pastor.

Then came Pfleger’s comments this week, which Obama was also forced to denounce.

Those comments, reported heavily by Fox News, reflected not simply on Pfleger, who has his own, Roman Catholic, congregation, but on the parishioners at Trinity.

Andrew S. Ross, interactive editor of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Web site, wrote Friday:

“Apart from the appallingly racist nature of Father Michael Pfleger’s remarks about Hillary Clinton, what is one to make of the congregation who seemed to lap it all up?” Pfleger is white, and the congregation is predominantly, though not exclusively black.

“How, one may be entitled to ask, do these assembled churchgoers differ from those white Appalachians who admitted they voted for Sen. Clinton on the basis of race?

“Also, is it not fair to ask why a campaign, supposedly so disciplined seems not to be able to control some of its more prominent supporters — a former Obama campaign ‘adviser’ no less — especially in the wake of the Jeremiah Wright affair? And, moreover, since said former adviser’s political proclivities are not entirely unknown.”

However, Anderson wrote, “Obama knows what Trinity is about. I’ve only set foot in the church twice in my life and I know what it’s about. It’s nothing like it’s being portrayed in the national media. Nor is Rev. Wright.

“Obama knows that Rev. Wright and his church and Father Pfleger have been forces for good on Chicago’s South Side for three decades. Both Trinity and Father Pfleger should have known the Catholic priest’s racially-tinged mocking Hillary Clinton performance would only be perceived as another weapon to use against Obama. They should know, as I know, that they ultimately left the Illinois senator with little political choice.

“I also know that perception can become reality in our media-defined world.”

At the height of the Wright controversy, Frank James wrote in April on the Chicago Tribune’s blog, the Swamp, that overzealous reporters had become “a very real and present annoyance” at Trinity. “According to Moss, journalists have tried to conduct interviews during church services. They have accosted members as they’ve headed into the church,” James wrote.

“Some journalists have even actually gone as far as calling church members whose names they found on the sick and shut-in list that appeared in the church bulletin, a list which included the names of people dying in hospices.”

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Feedback: A Media-Approved List of Pastors

It is a dangerous thing when fear of the disapproval of mainstream media can so greatly influence what preachers say in their pulpits. Why not just throw out the King James Version of the Bible and let preachers choose their text from the bible according to Fox News and CNN?

The media have given their approval to the Pastor Joel Osteen kind of cotton-candy religion and the megachurch “claim it and grab it” crowd. Those disciplines or denominations that preach truth to power and rant against oppression and corporate evil are denounced or set up for divide-and-conquer tactics.

Never have I been so ashamed of mainstream media’s exploitative tactics and a gullible public that does not have the sense to see through them. Who was it that started the split between Obama and Pastor Wright? The media. If you ever examine Wright’s words carefully, he has never said anything negatively against Obama. It was the media that started the feud. In the future, I guess the political wannabes will only choose their pastors from the “A list” of CNN.

Rev. Dr. Barbara A. Reynolds

Washington

May 31, 2008

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“Pastor Problem” or Media Problem?

May 30, 2008

News Judgment Differs on Priest’s Remarks

A visiting white Catholic priest who supports Sen. Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright denounces Sen. Hillary Clinton from the pulpit of Obama’s church, saying Clinton feels frustrated because of her sense of white entitlement. Obama is not in the church, and hasn’t been for months.

Is this news, and if so, how big is it? How relevant is the fact that the speaker is white? Is what he said “racist”? How does this story help voters decide who should lead the country?

News organizations split on the answers after a video of the Rev. Michael Pfleger’s Sunday remarks made the rounds of the Internet via YouTube. Obama issued a statement denouncing them and Pfleger apologized. The Clinton campaign voiced its outrage.

The tabloid Chicago Sun-Times made it front-page news Friday. The broadsheet Chicago Tribune put the story on Page 23.

The stories ranged from 553 words from the Associated Press to 240 words in the New York Times and 777 words in the Washington Post, played inside in both papers among the political coverage.

On broadcast television, “Morning shows all gave prominent, negative coverage . . . On NBC’s ‘Today,’ David Gregory said Pfleger’s rant is a problem, though ‘maybe it’s manageable,’ ” Mark Halperin of Time magazine reported Friday on his political tip sheet, “The Page.”

But the starkest contrast came on cable television between Fox News and MSNBC, which is carving out a niche as Fox’s polar opposite.

“Up next: The far right trying to create a new pastor problem for Barack Obama,” Dan Abrams told viewers Thursday night on his MSNBC show, “Verdict.” “Tonight, FOX News and others are playing video of another pastor at Obama’s church, talking about white people and entitlement as he mocks Hillary Clinton. . . . for Fox News, come on. This is red meat, tonight, doing their best to make this as big as possible.”

And indeed, on Fox’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” the host introduced her segment this way:

“Tonight: What do you think about this, clapping and cheering as a priest spews racist remarks from a church pulpit, racist about Senator Hillary Clinton and racist towards white Americans in general? Well, it happened last Sunday inside Senator Obama’s Chicago church. Now, Senator Obama was not there, but this is creating a controversy provoking statements from the priest and also from Senator Obama. This time, the speaker — well, it’s not Reverend Wright. It is Father Michael Pfleger, a priest who is a Senator Obama supporter. Father Pfleger had been on the Catholics for Obama volunteer advisory committee, but he stepped down a few weeks ago.

“Now, listen to what Pastor Pfleger had to say on Sunday at the Trinity United Church of Christ.”

Then came the video clip.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is our brother. He is none other than Father Michael Pfleger! We welcome him once again!

(APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)

PFLEGER, ST. SABINA CHURCH, CHICAGO: He is honest enough to address the one who says, ‘Well, don’t hold me responsible for what my ancestors did.’ But you have enjoyed the benefits of what your ancestors did. But you have enjoyed the benefits of what your ancestors did. And unless you are ready to give up the benefits, throw away your 401 fund, throw away your trust fund, throw away all the money that’s been put away in the company you walked into because your daddy and your granddaddy and your great — unless you’re willing to give up the benefits, then you must be responsible for what was done in your generation because you are the beneficiaries of this insurance policy!

(APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)

PFLEGER: And unless you are ready to give up the benefits, throw away your 401 fund, throw away your trust fund, throw away all the money that’s been put away in the company you walked into because your daddy and your granddaddy and your great — unless you’re willing to give up the benefits, then you must be responsible for what was done in your generation because you are the beneficiaries of this insurance policy!

We must be honest enough to expose white entitlement and supremacy wherever it raises its head. I said before — and I — I really don’t want to make this political because you know I’m very unpolitical.

(LAUGHTER)

PFLEGER: But (INAUDIBLE) when — when Hillary was crying…

(LAUGHTER)

PFLEGER: … and people said that was put on, I really don’t believe it was put on. I really believe that she just always thought, ‘This is mine.’

(APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)

PFLEGER: ‘I’m Bill’s wife. I’m white. And this is mine! I just got to get up and step into the plate.’ And then out of nowhere came, ‘Hey, I’m Barack Obama!’ And she said, ‘Oh, damn! Where did you come from?’

(APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)

PFLEGER: ‘I’m white! I’m entitled! There’s a black man stealing my show! Waaahhhhh!’

(APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)

PFLEGER: She wasn’t the only one crying! There was a whole lot of white people crying!

(APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)

PFLEGER: I’m sorry. I don’t want to get you in any more trouble. The live streaming just went out again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

On Fox’s “Hannity & Colmes,” the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, who is black, said, “That this is another example of racism being taught from the pulpit. It is not uncommon that in many of the black churches you hear racist comments coming from the black preachers. It’s unfortunate but they are catering to the racist attitude of black Americans toward white Americans.”

Dick Morris, the disgraced former political adviser to Bill Clinton, said in another segment, “OK. Look, I’ve been — my wife and I have been writing for months now that Hillary Clinton does, indeed, feel a sense of entitlement. This nomination is hers. It is rightfully hers. She’s waited for it for eight years. She’s been married to the president. She’s ready for it, which is a phrase she used in the campaign. She’s entitled to it.

“And there is, undoubtedly, a sense of shock and denouement at this guy coming to take it away. Now that is not, obviously, primarily fueled by race. It’s fueled by her role in the establishment, her money raising.”

Morris said later, “in a sense, white America is now getting a glimpse of what goes on within the black community and passes for socially acceptable rhetoric. Rhetoric that would never be tolerated in the white community anymore.”

On MSNBC, Abrams played a tape of Fox News’ Brit Hume intoning, “Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is distancing himself tonight from another Chicago minister over a sermon that was preached at Obama’s Trinity United Church this past weekend. So, we appear to have a new reverend controversy swirling around the Obama campaign.”

“So, we appear to have a new — I mean, it’s all so — I don’t know,” Abrams said. “I mean, look, we all hype things to some degree but this just seems to me like classic right-wing propaganda. April, give me the objective assessment,” he said, turning to April Ryan, who covers the White House for American Urban Radio Networks.

“Objective, yes,” she said. “What is happening, and as you know, the effort is now to knock out Barack Obama. He is, for all intents and purposes, probably the Democratic nominee and we’ll find that out a little later in a couple of days or so. But nonetheless, you know, they are trying to knock him out now. And anything that they can use, the Republicans will use, and that`s the obvious case. That`s the objective case. I mean it’s plain and simple.”

ABRAMS: Here’s going to be the test, all right? Here’s the test. Fox News, when it came to Rev. Wright, did breaking news every night on his travel schedule — Rev. Wright’s travel schedule, all right? Let’s see how much they do on — you know, “Breaking news tonight, the Rev. Pfleger has decided to move one of his appearances from a convention center to a — “you know, that’s what I think we’re going to see here. We shall see.

RYAN: But Dan, depending upon the relationship, what we find out more about the relationship, it really doesn’t have legs unless there is a very, very close relationship. With, you know — with Rev. Wright, it was very close.

Roy Sekoff, founding editor of the Huffington Post, said, “Oh, Dan, let’s agree from the beginning that this entire campaign has been the worst recruiting ad for purported men of God since Jim Jones started passing out the Kool-Aid.”

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Sorry, Scott McClellan, “You Are . . . at Fault . . .”

“I’m not a big fan of press secretaries who turn rat. You’re either with your guy or you’re not,” Eric Easter wrote Thursday on ebonyjet.com.

“Politics is a game of loyalty. You can hate your boss after leaving — and you will — but you keep it to yourself and those who will keep it quiet. I’ve criticized my old bosses publicly, but on their politics, which is fair game. Private moments stay private, as they should.”

Easter, who served as media consultant for the presidential bids of Howard Dean, Jesse Jackson and Doug Wilder, as well as the successful Mark Warner campaign for governor of Virginia, was writing about the new book by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, in which McClellan says President Bush “signed off on a strategy for selling the war that was less than candid and honest.”

“The big problem with press secretaries is that so few know what a press secretary is supposed to do,” Easter continued.

“Press secretaries too often let themselves fall into the role of PR person and/or press liaison, when what you really should be is a strategist. The role of a press secretary is not to spin the message, but to shape the action in the planning stage. In other words, get close enough to the action to argue for people to do the right thing (or at least the smart thing that looks right) at the beginning so that when it goes down, the press will do your spin for you.

“If you don’t have that role in the inner circle, it is your obligation to develop that role, not to scream to the public that bad decisions were made. Sorry, Scott, but you are as much at fault at the edge of the room as at the center.”

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Media Narratives of Obama, Clinton Both “Positive”

“If campaigns for president are in part a battle for control of the master narrative about character, Democrat Barack Obama has not enjoyed a better ride in the press than rival Hillary Clinton, according to a new study of primary coverage by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University,” the project reported on Thursday.

“From January 1, just before the Iowa caucuses, through March 9, following the Texas and Ohio contests, the height of the primary season, the dominant personal narratives in the media about Obama and Clinton were almost identical in tone, and were both twice as positive as negative, according to the study, which examined the coverage of the candidates’ character, history, leadership and appeal — apart from the electoral results and the tactics of their campaigns.

“The trajectory of the coverage, however, began to turn against Obama, and did so well before questions surfaced about his pastor Jeremiah Wright. Shortly after Clinton criticized the media for being soft on Obama during a debate, the narrative about him began to turn more skeptical — and indeed became more negative than the coverage of Clinton herself. What’s more, an additional analysis of more general campaign topics suggests the Obama narrative became even more negative later in March, April and May.

“On the Republican side, John McCain, the candidate who quickly clinched his party’s nomination, has had a harder time controlling his message in the press. Fully 57% of the narratives studied about him were critical in nature, though a look back through 2007 reveals the storyline about the Republican nominee has steadily improved with time.”

In another analysis, the Washington Post’s Paul Farhi, writing in the June/July issue of the American Journalism Review, observed, “The widespread perception of media unfairness doesn’t necessarily confirm the existence of it.”

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Obama Blasts Dobbs, Limbaugh on Immigration

“Speaking to supporters in Palm Beach last week, Barack Obama blasted a couple of media personalities by name,” Ruben Navarrette noted in his column in the San Diego Union-Tribune on Wednesday.

“‘A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There’s a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year,’ Obama said. ‘If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it’s not surprising that would happen.’

“It’s about time. That some cable hosts and radio talkers grow their ratings by pandering to the anti-immigrant crowd is no big secret.

“Not surprisingly, supporters of Dobbs and Limbaugh went on the attack. They insisted that Obama had overstated the statistics. . . .”

Obama’s Florida comments were not the first time he had criticized Dobbs. A January NewsMax.com story noted that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and an aide to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had also jabbed at the CNN host over the immigration issue.

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Murdoch Says He’s Impressed by “Rock Star” Obama

“Media mogul Rupert Murdoch said he was impressed by Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama’s ‘rock star’ status and found that his Republican rival, John McCain, ‘has a lot of problems,'” Agence France-Presse reported on Thursday.

“‘You have possibly the making of a phenomenon in this country,’ Murdoch said without actually mentioning Obama by name, at the ‘All Things Digital’ conference held Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal in Carlsbad, California.

“‘Politicians and Washington are at an all time low, they are despised by 80 percent of the public … And you’ve got a candidate who is … trying to put himself above it all … and he’s become a rock star. It’s fantastic.’

“The News Corp. chairman admitted he had some influence over the New York Post’s endorsement of Obama, 46, over Hillary Clinton, 60, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.”

Watch the video.

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Critic Rates WFAA Tops in Dallas Diversity

Which of Dallas-Fort Worth’s major TV news providers are doing the best and worst jobs of both hiring minorities and giving them prominent on-camera roles?

On his blog Thursday, longtime Dallas television critic Ed Bark, answering his question, gave KDFW-TV (Fox) a B-minus, KXAS (NBC) a C-plus, WFAA-TV (ABC) an A-minus and KTVT-TV (CBS) a C.

“Let’s note that I’m a 60-year-old white male from Racine, WI. Neither of my late parents finished high school, and I went to college entirely at my own expense after serving in the U.S. Marines. I obviously don’t know what it’s like to be black, Hispanic or Asian. But I do know a little something about working my way up — and down — without any ‘connections’ to fall back on,” Bark wrote.

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MSNBC

For MSNBC series, readers shared stories and images of life in ethnically mixed families.

MSNBC Posts “Multiracial in America” Series

MSNBC has posted a series, “Gut Check: Multiracial in America,” that “examines the growth in the number of Americans living in multiracial families and the first-hand experiences and issues they face,” the network announced on Wednesday.

Among the components:

This columnist is moderating a panel, “What Is Race?” at the Unity convention in Chicago on Friday, July 25, from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. A successor to a workshop of the same name at last year’s National Association of Black Journalists convention, panelists will be Sam Ford, reporter at WJLA-TV in Washington, a Cherokee Freedman; Yolanda Moses, anthropology professor at the University of California, Riverside, adviser for the Race Project; Karen Narasaki, president, Asian American Justice Center, Washington; and Lori S. Robinson, editor, VidaAfroLatina.com.

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Short Takes

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