Barack Obama said he gave his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the benefit of the doubt when Obama earlier repudiated comments excerpted from some of Wright’s old sermons. But after Wright’s incendiary comments Monday, Obama tried to leave no doubt today that he was repudiating both Wright and his views. “His comments were not only divisive and destructive but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church,” Obama said. “They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs.” Obama specifically denounced Wright’s “ridiculous proposition” that the U.S. government was involved in creating AIDS, Wright’s support of National of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and Wright equating U.S. wartime efforts to terrorism. If Wright thinks Obama’s previous denunciation was “political posturing,” then “he doesn’t know me very well,” Obama said, adding later that Wright’s comments are “completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country.”
Obama said he wanted to be very clear that “Rev. Wright does not speak for me.” But Obama’s political opponents won’t be so willing to cut those ties.
Hillary Clinton has surged ahead of John McCain by 9 percentage points in a hypothetical general election match, according to a new Associated Press/Ipsos poll. Barack Obama leads McCain by 2 points in the poll.
The poll strengthens her argument that she is the most electable. However, other surveys and exit polls indicate that Obama would get most of Clinton’s supporters if he faced McCain. The New York Times reported that according to surveys of Pennsylvania voters leaving the polls last week, “Mr. Obama would draw majorities of support from lower-income voters and less-educated ones - just as Mrs. Clinton would against Mr. McCain, even though those voters have favored her over Mr. Obama in the primaries. And national polls suggest Mr. Obama would also do slightly better among groups that have gravitated to Republicans in the past, like men, the more affluent and independents, while she would do slightly better among women.”
Criticizing the “breathtaking incompetence” of GOP leaders and saying “Let’s light a candle for change in Kansas,” Democrat Jim Slattery officially launched his campaign today against Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. Slattery, who served Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District from 1983 to 1994, must first win the Democratic nomination over Lee Jones of Overland Park in the August primary. To win in the general election, Slattery would need to overcome Roberts’ popularity and flush campaign fund, as well as Slattery’s 14-year absence from the state to work as a D.C. lobbyist. But Slattery is a credible challenger and could make this the state’s first competitive Senate race in a dozen years.
Most members of Congress realized the glaring unfairness of expecting employees to know and formally complain about wage discrimination within 180 days of their employers’ decision to discriminate against them, the upshot of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear. But the majority support in the Senate last week was insufficient to put the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to a vote, with senators including Kansas Republicans Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, to their discredit, among those standing against the bill. Similarly, when the law passed the House last summer, it did so without the votes of Kansans Todd Tiahrt, Jerry Moran and Nancy Boyda.
Opponents, mostly Republicans, say the bill would invite lawsuits - a phony argument, as columnist Clarence Page explains on the Opinion pages today. In fact, because salary comparisons are impossible for most American workers to obtain, what the failure to pass the bill invites is more wage discrimination.
It’s disappointing that Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., has refused to condemn an inflammatory campaign ad sponsored by her state’s GOP. The ad, which John McCain repeatedly has condemned, tries to tar two Democratic gubernatorial candidates by linking them to Barack Obama and his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. “I’m just not going to get into refereeing a third-party political ad that has nothing to do with my race,” Dole said. But the North Carolina Republican Party has plenty to do with her race. And as the state’s highest-ranking GOP leader, she should have the standing to stop the ad and the moral courage to criticize it.
President Bush took his last turn at the mike at a White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday, also conducting the Marine Band. Noting his daughter Jenna is getting married in two weeks, he said: “Please excuse me if I’m a little sleepy. At 3 a.m. this morning, the red phone rang. It was the damn wedding planner.”
Other highlights:
- “Sen. McCain is not here. He probably wanted to distance himself from me a little bit. You know, he’s not alone. Jenna is moving out, too. The two Democratic candidates aren’t here either. Sen. Clinton couldn’t get into the building because of sniper fire, and Sen. Obama is at church.”
- “It’s an interesting crowd. You know, just think: Pamela Anderson and Mitt Romney in the same room. Isn’t that one of the signs of the apocalypse?”
