Obama camp long feared reverend flap
By Daphne Retter
Insiders with Barack Obama’s http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3657 his lightning rod of a spiritual adviser would inflict on Obama’s bid for the White House.
Obama’s http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3756, David Axelrod, said that Rev. Jeremiah Wright was yanked from Obama’s official campaign-announcement lineup in January 2007 because of concerns that he would harm the candidate’s message.
“There was no doubt that there was http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3811 and make him a distraction on the day that Sen. Obama was going to announce his candidacy.” Axelrod only made that explanation when pushed by a reporter on a conference call. First, he blamed the weather.
“Part of what happened there is that it was 7 degrees in Springfield in that day and we truncated the program,” Axelrod said.
Recordings that surfaced this week of Wright preaching that the United States brought the 9/11 attacks on itself and that blacks should be singing “God Damn America” re-ignited interest in Obama’s relationship with his pastor of 20 years.
Obama has said he was not aware of many of Wright’s now-famous sermons, but Axelrod said he was “made aware” of some of them during the course of the campaign.
Rival Hillary Clinton’s surrogates resisted the opportunity to add fuel to the fire, having spent last week distancing themselves from incendiary comments made by former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03172008/news/nationalnews/holy_terror_102346.htm