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It seems to me that Obama did an exceptional illustration of loyalty when he refused to disown Wright at great political risk. Did he betray Wright for the sake of politics today? Honestly, that was my first thought until I caught up to speed with what Wright has been saying over the last few days.
But having watched an read Wright's comments, I was thunderstruck by how completely disloyal the pastor had been. Beyond reiterating crackpot theories about HIV, there was absolutely no reason for Wright to defend himself by suggesting that Obama was merely posturing. If anything, Obama was painfully contorting himself to give his pastor a broad and generous context for his outrageous statements.
Now, I'm pretty far out there politically. Aware of Agent Orange and the Bikini Island nuclear tests on its own soldiers, aware that the the foreign policies of United States going even before the 1954 CIA coup of Iran through the training of extremists like Bin Laden in Afghanistan had contributed to context of 9/11, aware that the government and the media have an extablished anti-Palestinian history, I still think that Wright has only served to confuse very important matters with poor explanations and mixing them with ridiculous conspiracy theories.
I know what America is capable of doing "without batting an eye," but that does not justify Wright's betrayal to both Obama and his vision for hope, peace and compassion. His recent talks were displays of both profound betrayal and egotism, which for Wright seems to represent his 40 pieces of silver.
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