Political Quote of the Day

From the April 30, 2007 NY Times, Rev. Jeremiah Wright speaking:

“If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me,” Mr. Wright said with a shrug. “I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen.”

It's going to happen sooner than that, Rev. He's trying to back away from your statements, and in tomorrow's speech he may have to go further and back away from your altogether (if he's smart).

Lisa Schiffren suggests he's now in a box he can't get out of:

If he repudiates his affiliation to Wright's church he is sure to suffer with his African-American base, who will see him as too willing to listen to white critics. If he defends it, whites who felt comfortable with him, in part because he wasn't throwing anger and guilt at them, will leave.

So much for "hope" and "change".

And in a particularly comic moment, Byron York is reporting that Sen. Dick Durbin is offering a new excuse for Obama:

The Obama campaign has just wrapped up a conference call with reporters. On the call, top Obama supporter Sen. Dick Durbin claimed that "many" of the controversial statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright were made before Barack Obama joined Trinity United Church of Christ. "Many of the quotes that have been disclosed publicly were made by Reverend Wright at a time before Barack Obama became part of his congregation and in places where Barack Obama was not even present," Durbin said. Later, asked about fallout from the Wright affair among Democrats, Durbin said, "Let me just say that the people I have spoken to understand, as I hope we all do, that to hold Sen. Obama accountable for speeches and sermons that were given before he joined the church is fundamentally unfair."

To my knowledge, Wright's statements "God damn America," "America's-chickens-are-coming-home-to-roost," and "U.S. of KKK A" were made while Obama was part of the Trinity congregation, although the senator says he was not present in church for any of them. I don't believe Obama has claimed that they were made before he joined the church, and I'm not sure why Durbin is using that argument now.

The Obama campaign quickly ended the call after the second Wright question.

Obama has been at that church for over 20 years. That excuse is going nowhere.