Obama Distorted Rev. Wright's Background

Ronald Kessler

In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Barack Obama again fabricated the background of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to try to excuse his longtime pastor's denunciations of America and of whites.

Referring to racial discrimination, violence, and segregation, Obama said Wright "went through experiences that I never went through."

In his speech on race in Philadelphia, Obama made similar claims. He described a "lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family . . . Obama said this was "the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up . . . For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years."

But as detailed in an April 13 Newsman article, "Obama's Rev. Wright Mythology," Obama's characterization of his mentor's upbringing is untrue.

Wright grew up in a racially mixed, middle-class section of Philadelphia called Germantown, which consisted of homes on broad tree-lined streets. Both his parents had good jobs: His father was a pastor; his mother was vice principal of Philadelphia High School for Girls.

Wright was privileged to attend the elite Central High School, which admits only the most highly-qualified applicants from all over the city. When Wright attended Central High, the student body was 90 percent white, according to students who attended at around the same time.

Wright's classmates clearly respected him. The 211th class yearbook described him as the "epitome of what Central endeavors to imbue in its students."

In contrast to Wright, Bill Cosby, who also attended Central High, has denounced the black culture of victimhood that Wright has promoted in his sermons, a culture that Cosby says sets up blacks for failure.

Since the Newsmax story on Wright's background ran, only Fox News' Bill O'Reilly has picked up on the fact that Obama's characterization of his preacher's upbringing is fiction.

Meanwhile, the coverage resurgence of Wright over the weekend spotlights the fact that, by suppressing any mention of Wright until mid-March, the media in effect selected Obama as the Democrats' nominee.

Wright appeared in a Bill Moyers interview on Friday, gave a talk to the NAACP in Detroit on Sunday, and spoke to the National Press Club this morning. As a result, clips of Wright denouncing America and claiming the country introduced the AIDS virus to kill off blacks have been blanketing the airwaves.

Moreover, at the NAACP, Wright in effect ratified the black culture of failure by saying African-Americans' brains are different than those of whites: If they speak differently from whites, they are not wrong — just different, he said, implying that they should not be corrected.

If the Obama-loving media had picked up on stories that Newsmax started running in January before the primaries began about Obama and his relationship with his pastor, Hillary Clinton undoubtedly would be ahead today in delegates and votes.

After the media finally ran the stories, Obama's double-digit lead over Clinton in national polls vanished. At the same time, John McCain shot up in the polls.

As Ken Blackwell, a black columnist, recently wrote, the media have covered Obama "as if he were in a beauty pageant." In doing so, they have done a disservice to Democrats by not telling the truth about Obama and his pastor until most of the primaries were over.

By not reporting how Obama is using bogus claims about Wright's upbringing to excuse his "God damn America" tirades, the media are continuing the coverup.

Louisiana Governor Before Katrina: "We're in Good Shape"

Touring devastated areas of New Orleans last week, Sen. John McCain said that if he had been president when Hurricane Katrina hit, the first thing he would have done is fly out to the nearest Air Force base to view the scene. McCain rightly pointed out that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was unaware of developments which anyone watching television saw.

"Never again, never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way that it was handled," McCain told reporters. But as McCain also pointed out, the response to Hurricane Katrina was "a perfect storm" of mismanagement by federal, state, and local governments.

The Sunday before the hurricane hit, Bush's longtime friend James B. Francis Jr. and his wife Debbie were staying with the president at the Crawford ranch. That morning, Francis tells me, he was with Bush as he made calls from a phone at the dock on Bush's lake.

"One call was to Governor Kathleen Blanco," Francis says, referring to the then-governor of Louisiana. "He apparently had talked with her the day before. He asked her if she had everything she needed. He asked if the mandatory evacuation was going to take place. He said, 'I want to make the assets of the federal government available to you. I want you to tell me if there is anything you need.'''

"No, we're in good shape," Blanco responded.

John Fund's VP Prediction

After the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner receptions, John Fund of the Wall Street Journal and other friends repaired to Ruth's Chris Steak House for dinner. Asked whom John McCain will pick as vice president, Fund said Rob Portman is gaining momentum as the most likely choice.

Portman has served in the House and in both Bush administrations, most recently as director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is from Ohio, a key swing state.