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Clinton Seeks To Keep Pastor Flap Alive
by The Associated Press
Posted: March 26, 2008 - 10:00 am ET
(Greensburg, Pennsylvania) Hillary Rodham Clinton
says she would have parted company with a minister who talked about America
the way Barack Obama's pastor has.
Clinton's comments marked a clear shift in her handling of
the Obama church controversy, which she had generally avoided until now. Some
Democrats see Obama's refusal to dissociate himself from the Chicago church and
its recently retired minister, Jeremiah Wright, as his stickiest campaign
challenge so far.
"I think that given all we have heard and seen, he
would not have been my pastor," Clinton said at a news conference after
being asked if Obama should have left the church. She declined to say what Obama
should have done, or whether the subject is now a legitimate topic for her
appeals to Democratic superdelegates, the party leaders who will decide whether
she or Obama will be the presidential nominee.
Over the years, Wright has preached fiery sermons to his
predominantly black congregation in which he shouted "God damn
America" for its treatment of minorities. He has said the U.S. government
invented AIDS to destroy "people of color." He also suggested that
U.S. policies in the Middle East and elsewhere were partly responsible for the
2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
Videos of the remarks have circulated widely on the
Internet and news programs.
While politically controversial, Wright is renowned for
leading the church's long fight against poverty, homelessness, AIDS and racial
oppression. He attended a White House prayer breakfast in September 1998 and
shook hands with President Clinton. The Obama campaign has provided reporters a
copy of a photo of the former president and Wright from that meeting.
In a highly publicized speech last week, Obama sharply
condemned Wright's remarks and the preacher's refusal to acknowledge progress in
race relations. But the Illinois senator refused to repudiate his longtime
spiritual mentor, saying he could no more disown Wright than he could disown his
white grandmother.
Clinton was ready for the question at her news conference,
and read much of her response from notes, unlike her handling of other
questions.
"We don't have a choice when it comes to our
relatives," she said. "We have a choice when it comes to our pastors
and the churches we attend. Everyone will have to decide these matters for
themselves. They are obviously very personal matters."
If Wright were her pastor, she said, "the choice
would be clear."
Emphasizing that she was saying only how she would have
dealt with a minister such as Wright, Clinton added: "I don't think that's
negative."
Her comments closely tracked those she made earlier in the
day in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. She and Obama are
competing for votes in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary.
Clinton indirectly compared Wright's comments to those of
radio shock-jock Don Imus, who lost his job as a prominent program's host after
making a racial slur about the Rutgers women's' basketball team.
Clinton noted that she condemned Imus in a speech at
Rutgers.
"I said it was time for standing up for what is
right, for saying enough is enough," she said of the speech. "While we
of course must protect our right to freedom of expression, it should not be used
as a license to demean or humiliate our fellow citizens."
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement,
"It's disappointing to see Hillary Clinton's campaign sink to this low in a
transparent effort to distract attention" from her acknowledgment that she
had exaggerated an account of a hostile reception in Bosnia as first lady in
1996.
Obama has "spoken out against his pastor's offensive
comments and addressed the issue of race in America with a deeply personal and
uncommonly honest speech," Burton said.
©365Gay.com 2008
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