Rev. Wright Beyond the Bite; See His Context for Yourself

April 24, 2008— -- Rev. Jeremiah Wright says his sermons were deliberately taken out of context by the news media "for a political purpose" and to "paint me as some sort of fanatic."

"When something is taken like a sound bite for a political purpose and constantly over and over again, looped in the face of the public, that's not a failure to communicate," he told Bill Moyers in his first interview since ABC News' "Good Morning America" first broadcast portions of his sermons. The Moyers interview will be broadcast tomorrow evening on PBS.

Wright says the use of his controversial statements -- saying the U.S. brought on the 9/11 attacks and that black Americans should sing "God Damn America" instead of "God Bless America" -- were "unfair" and "unjust" and were used "for some very devious reasons."

Click here to read a fuller version of the two Wright sermons, one from the first Sunday after 9/11, "The Day of Jerusalem's Fall," and the other delivered in April 2003, entitled "Confusing God and Government."

Left out of the original sound bites broadcast on "Good Morning America" were Wright's version of how America was built on terror, his description of the United States "as an arrogant, racist, military superpower," and comments on the wealth or success of Oprah Winfrey, Colin Power, Condoleezza Rice and Tiger Woods.

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