At RedState, Eric Erickson reminds us that the main stream media did not adequately vet presidential candidate Obama's connections with Jeremiah Wright. He is correct. As you may recall, CNN's John Roberts went so far as to declare CNN a "Rev. Wright-Free Zone."
Because of the inadequate vetting, we still do not fully understand the relationship between Obama and his long time spiritual adviser, Jeremiah Wright. The media's vetting failure has also resulted in many believing President Obama is a Muslim.
Erickson also points out that the very same media, also known as the biased media wing of the Democrat's party, has now decided they should vet Mitt Romney's religion:
Then there was Bill Keller of the New York Times. He thinks candidates for President should be grilled on their religion. Except, he’s only doing this now, after Barack Obama got elected President.
[. . .]
Now, NBC News has run a special introducing Americans to Mormons. Not in 2010, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was running for re-election, but now. Meet the Press felt compelled to get Mitt Romney to discuss it.
In an effort remind the press and voters that they never really seriously examined Obama's spiritual past, My RedState colleague, Ben Howe, has produced the accompanying video of some of Wright's more memorable quotes interspersed amongst softball questions of Obama during an interview.
It is important to recall how we learned about Wright's extreme views. They came to light during the bitter, no holds barred fight for the Democrats' 2008 presidential nomination between Obama and Hillary Clinton. At the time Gallup reported that Gallup finds race was the issue that divides the Democratic electorate more than any other:
After the Wright quotes came to light, on March 18, 2008 Obama gave a speech, touted as an effort to bridge the Democrats' widening racial divide -- actually an obvious attempt to control the damage resulting from the hate-filled speech of Wright.
In his speech In his speech, Obama said Reverend Wright’s comments aren’t simply controversial, Wright's preachings are a "profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam."
Nevertheless, Obama refused to dissociate himself from this preacher of "profoundly distorted" views.
It
took six more weeks of political damage and the fear that Hillary would
win both the Indiana and North Carolina primaries before Obama threw his long-time spiritual adviser under the bus.
Obama held a press conference and claimed he was now "outraged" by
Wright's comments and attempted to dissociate himself from the radical
cleric: you can watch Obama throw Wright under the bus here.
Obama's
outrage would have been much more believable if it had been said six
weeks earlier. When Obama finally got around to being outraged about
Wright's preaching, it sounded simply like the politics it was.
It
took another month for Obama finally decided to do what most people of
sound judgment would have done much, much sooner -- on May 31, 2008, Obama finally resigned as a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ.
If Obama's politically motivated attack of sound judgement wasn't so pathetic, it might be funny:
- Obama didn't see fit to resign from this radical church when Wright called on God to "damn America."
- Obama didn't see fit to resign from this radical church when Wright preached that we support state terrorism against the Palestinians.
- Obama didn't see fit to resign from this radical church when Wright said we invented HIV:
Wright was wrong to say those things and Obama was just as wrong when he refused to disassociate himself from Wright. Even worse the mainstream media was wrong not to adequately vet Obama.
Thanks to Erick Erickson and Ben Howe for reminding us.
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