Definition of "Hypocrite:"
1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
Barak Obam originally invited his Reverend of 20 years to give a prayer at his public Presidential Announcement in Illinois. He then calls him and disinvites him because according to Obama, Wright is "kind of rough in the sermons." However, just before the public ceremony Reverand Wright meets with Barak Obama and his wife and children and he leads them in a private prayer.
Jeremiah Wright on Barack Obama, the man who mentored him for over 20 years:
"He’s a politician, I’m a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they’re two different worlds.”
From New York times News story dated March 5 2007
CHICAGO, March 5 — The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., senior pastor of the popular Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and spiritual mentor to Senator Barack Obama, thought he knew what he would be doing on Feb. 10, the day of Senator Obama’s presidential announcement.
But Mr. Wright said Mr. Obama called him the night before the Feb. 10 announcement and rescinded the invitation to give the invocation. ....
Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said the campaign disinvited Mr. Wright because it did not want the church to face negative attention. Mr. Wright did however, attend the announcement and prayed with Mr. Obama beforehand.
“Senator Obama is proud of his pastor and his church, but because of the type of attention it was receiving on blogs and conservative talk shows, he decided to avoid having statements and beliefs being used out of context and forcing the entire church to defend itself,” Mr. Burton said.
Instead, Mr. Obama asked Mr. Wright’s successor as pastor at Trinity, the Rev. Otis Moss III, to speak. Mr. Moss declined.....
Mr. Wright said that in the phone conversation in which Mr. Obama disinvited him from a role in the announcement, Mr. Obama cited an article in Rolling Stone, “The Radical Roots of Barack Obama.”
According to the pastor, Mr. Obama then told him, “You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.”
Part of the Transcript of Reverand Wright at the National Press Club today in Washington DC.
MODERATOR: Senator Obama has been in your congregation for 20 years, yet you were not invited to his announcement of his presidential candidacy in Illinois. And in the most recent presidential debate in Pennsylvania, he said he had denounced you. Are you disappointed that Senator Obama has chosen to walk away from you?
REVEREND WRIGHT: Whoever wrote that question doesn't read or watch the news. He did not denounce me. He distanced himself from some of my remarks, like most of you, never having heard the sermon. All right?
Now, what was the rest of your question? Because I got confused in -- the person who wrote it hadn't...
MODERATOR: Were you disappointed that he distanced himself?
REVEREND WRIGHT: He didn't distance himself. He had to distance himself, because he's a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American. He said I didn't offer any words of hope. How would he know? He never heard the rest of the sermon. You never heard it.
I offered words of hope. I offered reconciliation. I offered restoration in that sermon, but nobody heard the sermon. They just heard this little sound bite of a sermon.
That was not the whole question. There was something else in the first part of the question that I wanted to address.
Oh, I was not invited because that was a political event. Let me say again: I'm his pastor. As a political event, who started it off? Senator Dick Durbin. I started it off downstairs with him, his wife, and children in prayer. That's what pastors do.
So I started it off in prayer. When he went out into the public, that wasn't about prayer. That wasn't about pastor-member. Pastor- member took place downstairs. What took place upstairs was political.
So that's how I feel about that. He did, as I've said, what politicians do. This is a political event. He wasn't announcing, "I'm saved, sanctified, and feel the holy ghost." He was announcing, "I'm running for president of the United States."
Do we really know what Barak Obama belives ?
