Hillery supporter booked Wright for NPC event?

[dutch508]

Dirty trick by Hillery?

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....

Is Jeremiah Wright a colossal disaster for Barack Obama or a press trick?
Tuesday, April 29th 2008, 4:00 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/columnists/louis/index.html
 
Somodevilla/Getty
 
The Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright at the National Press Club event Monday, which was organized by Reynolds.
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright couldn't have done more damage to Barack Obama's campaign if he had tried. And you have to wonder if that's just what one friend of Wright wanted.

Shortly before he rose to deliver his rambling, angry, sarcastic remarks at the National Press Club Monday, Wright sat next to, and chatted with, Barbara Reynolds.

A former editorial board member at USA Today, she runs something called Reynolds News Services and teaches ministry at the Howard University School of Divinity. (She is an ordained minister).

It also turns out that Reynolds - introduced Monday as a member of the National Press Club "who organized" the event - is an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter.

On a blog linked to her Web site- www.reynoldsnews.com- Reynolds said in a February post: "My vote for Hillary in the Maryland primary was my way of saying thank you" to Clinton and her husband for the successes of Bill Clinton's presidency.

The same post criticized Obama's "Audacity of Hope" theme: "Hope by definition is not based on facts," wrote Reynolds. It is an emotional expectation. Things hoped for may or may not come. But help based on experience trumps hope every time."

In another blog entry, Reynolds gives an ever-sharper critique of Obama: "It is a sad testimony that to protect his credentials as a unifier above the fray, the senator is fueling the media characterization that Rev. Dr. Wright is some retiring old uncle in the church basement."

I don't know if Reynolds' eagerness to help Wright stage a disastrous news conference with the national media was a way of trying to help Clinton - my queries to Reynolds by phone and e-mail weren't returned yesterday - but it's safe to say she didn't see any conflict between promoting Wright and supporting Clinton.

It's hard to exaggerate how bad the actual news conference was. Wright, steeped in an honorable, fiery tradition of Bible-based social criticism, cheapened his arguments and his movement by mugging for the cameras, rolling his eyes, heaping scorn on his critics and acting as if nobody in the room was learned enough to ask him a question.

Wright has, unquestionably, been caricatured and vilified unfairly. The feeding programs, prison outreach and other social services he has built over more than 30 years are commendable, and his reading of the Judeo-Christian tradition as an epic story of people trying to escape slavery is far more right than wrong - and not something to be caricatured or compressed into a 10-second sound bite.

But Wright should have known - and his friend and ally Reynolds, a media professional, surely knew - that bickering with the press can only harm Wright and, by extension, Obama.

I hope that wasn't their goal.

elouis@nydailynews.com

a few comments

nananana2 Apr 29, 2008 10:52:59 AM Report Offensive Post
I patiently withheld my thoughts that this was done by a clinton surrogate. Thank you ms. Reynolds. You and the Rev. Wright have given us a way to deny Barack the nomination without one single charge of racism being leveled. Guess it's true, Clinton & Co. will do or say anything to win. Snap out of it America. We deserve better!

I thank Rev. Wright for speaking out. As he and his supporters say, he is merely saying what most if not all black folks know deep inside to be true but won't say around white folks. In short, "America" (aka "white people") are racist, greedy, evil and must atone for their collective race guilt. Black folks (who are by definition NOT "America") are oppressed by "America" (aka "white people"). "America" (aka "white people") invented AIDS and drug dealing as a way of exterminating black people. This truly is the "honorable tradition of social criticism" that you say Rev. Wright --- actually ALL black folk --- have been steeped in from birth. I think it is high time that white people (aka "America") knows what you all think of us white folks when you aren't making nice. Again, I thank Rev. Wright for his honesty and willingness to share and not to hide his beliefs, his willingness to be upfront and say that things that so many black folks believe but do not say about the in

Posted by snazzy on Apr 29, 2008 8:26 AM reply Report Offensive Post

My first thougth when I heard about Rev. Wright's newest press disaster was, "Who in the Clinton camp organized this?" My husband said the same thing when he got home. I'm sure we aren't the only ones thinking along these lines. Hillary will do anything to win. Anything. I hope she fails, just so I can watch the nuclear fallout around the Clintons, and there will be a huge "scorched earth."

Posted by sh33na on Apr 29, 2008 8:43 AM reply Report Offensive Post

 

[Lauri]

that is just amazing. so did Hilary strap a wire on Rev Wright and speak for him as well? lets say she did in fact set this up.. is Rev Wright beholden to her to act like such an ass?

what if he'd gone to the Press Club and acted like a sane, rational person? how would the Hilary Haters have spun that?

good Lord, these people can see a conspiracy in the way the milk comes out of the carton. 

[DixieBelle]

they just exploited his arrogance. Brilliant

[DumbAss Tanker]

The Dems are so busy stabbing each other in the back with moles, sleepers, and turncoats in each other's campaignes, it's impossible to say where the truth lies in something like this.

 

[dutch508]

The National Press Club, who are supposed to be not for any one candidate, hires a speaker whom they know will be damaging to Obama's campaign. It is just dumb luck the person in charge of the event is a rabid hillery supporter?

Why would the NPC even think to hire Wright, except for his controversal statements in the near past.

 

[franksolich]

The Dems are so busy stabbing each other in the back with moles, sleepers, and turncoats in each other's campaignes, it's impossible to say where the truth lies in something like this.

 

I dunno, maybe this Reverendess Reynolds is just a nice person.

Maybe someone asked her to do it, and being a nice person, she did it.

One can't discount that possibility.

For example, if the Democrats of Nebraska wished to have Jeremiah Wright speak here, and franksolich had access to the Chicago preacher despite differing political ideologies, as franksolich has nothing in particular against Nebraska Democrats, franksolich being a nice guy would be happy to get him here.

[DumbAss Tanker]

The Dems are so busy stabbing each other in the back with moles, sleepers, and turncoats in each other's campaignes, it's impossible to say where the truth lies in something like this.

 

I dunno, maybe this Reverendess Reynolds is just a nice person.

Maybe someone asked her to do it, and being a nice person, she did it.

One can't discount that possibility.

For example, if the Democrats of Nebraska wished to have Jeremiah Wright speak here, and franksolich had access to the Chicago preacher despite differing political ideologies, as franksolich has nothing in particular against Nebraska Democrats, franksolich being a nice guy would be happy to get him here.

Indeed; to me, though, it just borders on the impossible to separate their errors of ignorant self-righteous tunnel vision from those brought about through actual duplicity at this time.

[Tess Anderson]

that is just amazing. so did Hilary strap a wire on Rev Wright and speak for him as well? lets say she did in fact set this up.. is Rev Wright beholden to her to act like such an ass?

what if he'd gone to the Press Club and acted like a sane, rational person? how would the Hilary Haters have spun that?

good Lord, these people can see a conspiracy in the way the milk comes out of the carton. 

I see what you're saying, Laurie, and if the article is true, I don't see what was so dirty about what the guy did, either....as others have already pointed out, he didn't place a gun to the kook's head to make him agree to make the PR rounds. This is politics, and it's the junior senator from Illinois' own fault for not distancing himself from Wright. But, like many on the left, they have to go blame somebody else like the children they are mentally.

[Wretched Excess]

this is pretty well debunked here.

[Tess Anderson]

LOL, you found a promo clip of the Hillary- O'Reilly interview.

Heh, she's wearing that pepto-bismal pink jacket, priceless. From the excerpts, she looks and sounds "presidential" enough, and the Wright topic really isn't hers so much ---- the Wright/Obama debacle is looking like a family feud now.