Media Mythbusters Blog

Cross-posted at Confederate Yankee:

It isn’t “what did he know, and when did he know it,” but instead appears to be “he knew it all along, and is trying to hide it.”

That is the impression left when reading this article in the NY Post today.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright would be happy to see Barack Obama’s presidential campaign derailed because the pastor is fuming that his former congregant has “betrayed” their 20-year relationship,

The Post has learned. “After 20 years of loving Barack like he was a member of his own family, for Jeremiah to see Barack saying over and over that he didn’t know about Jeremiah’s views during those years, that he wasn’t familiar with what Jeremiah had said, that he may have missed church on this day or that and didn’t hear what Jeremiah said, this is seen by Jeremiah as nonsense and betrayal,” said the source, who has deep roots in Wright’s Chicago community and is familiar with his thinking on the matter.

And perhaps most damning:

“Rev. Wright, as well as other senior members of his church, believe that Obama has betrayed over 20 years of their supposed friendship.”

If the source is correct, other senior leaders of Trinity United Church of Christ know that Barack Obama was familiar with the radical content of Jeremiah Wright’s sermons. For Obama to say otherwise is a betrayal of the pastor and the church.

The obvious implication is that Obama knew precisely what Wright’s views and positions were for 20 years, and Obama “never batted an eye” until Wright’s positions became too much political baggage for the Senator’s presidential aspirations.

The implication is obvious. Either:

• Barack Obama believes in the angry, paranoid and racist teachings of Jeremiah Wright and the Marxist liberation theology of his church, and is lying about it in public in hopes of getting elected, which is essentially the betrayal Rev. Wright accused him of in front of the National Press Club Monday morning, or;
• Barack Obama’s membership in Trinity United Church of Christ and his relationship with the pastoral staff and congregation were nothing more than a 20-year lie of convenience and exploitation of the Church and Wright of Homeric proportions.

No matter how you slice it, Obama is guilty of an epic deception in his quest for power, and potential supporters should start to wonder just how much he’s willing to lie to them to get elected if he’s already betrayed a 20-year-old relationship in that pursuit.

I don’t know if the United Church of Christ has a process for excommunication, but it would be interesting as an intellectual exercise to speculate about Trinity excommunicating Obama for his actions. He has obviously embarrassed the church and the man who grew it into what it is today, and has done as much as he possible can to separate himself from the church, short of locking the door and burning the congregation inside (a tactic, by the way, actually used by his cousin’s supporters in Kenya this past January).

Exit Question: If TUCC did excommunicate Obama, would it hurt him or help him as a candidate?