RUSH: Barack Obama was on Nightline last night, and the cohost, Terry Moran said, ‘If I went to a church where white supremacy was preached, what would you think of me?’
OBAMA: I disagree with you, though, Terry, that’s not what’s preached at Trinity, and that I think — that is an easy equivalence that is not at all what is taking place there. If you look at the sermons, even the most offensive ones that are at issue, he is condemning white racism as he defines it, but he’s not condemning the white race. He is not suggesting that blacks are superior. What he’s saying is that this — that white racism — is endemic in this society.
RUSH: Probably got a point there. A better question would have been, ‘What if I went to a church that preached separatism? What if I went to a church and my preacher was just filled with rage and hate, what would you think about that?’ But clearly whites are the problem, as far as Jeremiah Wright is concerned. Then Obama says this about the O.J. Simpson trial.
OBAMA: You remember when, during the O.J. trial, there was a similar moment when the culture — you know, black and white culture just had these completely opposite reactions, and nobody understood it. And, by the way, I’m somebody who was pretty clear that O.J. was guilty. And I was ashamed for my own community to respond in that way. But I also understood what was taking place, which was that reaction had more to do with a sense that somehow the criminal justice system historically had been biased so profoundly that a defeat of that justice system was somehow a victory.
RUSH: Yaw, well, it wasn’t good for unity. That’s not the kind of stuff that promotes unity, Obama. It isn’t. He’s right, it was jury nullification, the jury says, ‘Screw you, we’ve been lynched. One of our guys is going to get away, and you see how you like it,’ and so forth. But two wrongs don’t make a right. There’s any number of arguments against that. But see, here again, Obama, he condemns and then takes the condemnation back. ‘I condemn it, but I understand it.’ And once again he falls back on the notion that it’s the country’s fault that the O.J. jury did what it did, that the jury had no complicity in their own verdict whatsoever, which takes us where? To liberalism. Nobody is responsible for what they do. There’s always somebody else to blame or some institution to blame that makes people victims. So when you strip away all of the rhetoric and the flowery language and the inspirational syllables, what you’re left with here is that this guy is as liberal as any Democrat who’s ever run for the White House and is trying to mask it like every other liberal tries to mask it, he’s masking it in his own way. The mask has come off now, or is in the process of it. Now, I am the one out there yesterday who said, actually, I gotta give Snerdley credit for this, because it was Snerdley’s analysis, but up until yesterday, Obama was a candidate, a black candidate who transcended race, and that was one of his strengths. In the speech yesterday, he became the candidate of race. Terry Moran’s question, ‘There’s a political risk for you, isn’t there, by embracing race? You might become the race candidate, and that’s a limiting thing.’
OBAMA: Absolutely. So hopefully this is something that we have talked about, we’ve lifted up, it will spur discussion, you know, like Robert Kennedy’s wonderful metaphor, ripples of hope, you know, you throw a rock into a pond, and those ripples will go out. We don’t know where those ripples will go. No, I have no idea how this plays out politically. But I think it was important to do.
RUSH: So that’s Obama, yeah, running a risk here, becoming the race candidate. That’s why we’ve lifted it up. It will spur discussion. You know, like Robert Kennedy’s wonderful metaphor, ripples of hope, you throw a rock into a pond, those ripples will go out. This is what Obama wishes his campaign could return to, ladies and gentlemen. Computer froze. Maybe it’s sabotage, but we’ll get the computer unfrozen. You know, the commercial that we have played parodying Obama’s speeches and lofty rhetoric and people’s reaction to it, this is what he would wish that his campaign could return to.
(playing of A Vote for Obama spoof)
We had everybody buffaloed. Agent of change, transcending race. Obama didn’t speak about race prior to yesterday, when the Reverend Jeremiah Wright controversy hit, out of necessity — not courage — had to be addressed. Finally Terry Moran, Nightline last night says, ‘Is there a difference between black patriotism and white patriotism?’
OBAMA: The African-American community is much more familiar with some of the darker aspects of American life and American history. I think that they understand America much less as a marching band playing, you know, John Philip Sousa. They understand America much more as a jazz composition with blue notes, and I think those are different things. And so the African-American community can express great rage and anger about this country and love it all the same.
RUSH: That would be great if we saw evidence of the love. It would be great if we saw evidence of the love. Well, you know, it’s a thin line between love and hate. It really is. Relationships, it’s sometimes said that you can’t really hate somebody ’til you love ’em first because the emotion of hate requires a significantly strong emotion on the other side. You can dislike somebody — to really, really, really get mad and hate their guts, you gotta love ’em, because only people you love can disappoint you that much, or make you that mad. So I can understand this. I can understand hating your country and loving it at the same time. I just want to see evidence of the love from people that Obama hangs around, that’s all.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, Deval Patrick is the governor of Massachusetts. He is an African-American. He was on CNN last night, and the fill-in host for Anderson Cooper was Campbell Brown. She said, ‘He knew how controversial Reverend Wright’s views were. Why did Obama seem so surprised when they became public and this turned into such a furor?’
PATRICK: It reminds me a little bit of that wonderful saying of, I think it was Louis Pasteur,[sic] that education is learning to listen to anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. There are candidates I’m sure who listen to the most virulent of the conservative radio talk show hosts. I know occasionally my wife listens to that stuff while she’s driving in the car, but it doesn’t mean that she accepts those points of view.
RUSH: Oh, so now what happens on this program is no different than what happens in the church where the preacher is the reverend Jeremiah Wright. Here’s the moral equivocation. Folks, we could not ask for more. We could not ask for more of this kind of illustration of just how liberals think and who they are, running around insulting millions of Americans who listen to talk radio. I just wanted you to hear that.