Obama Rejects Wright, Repudiates 'Outrageous' Behavior

April 29, 2008— -- Over the past few days, the controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has all but drowned out Sen. Barack Obama's message, upstaging the candidate at a time when he has been struggling to win over white, working class voters.

The fallout has also threatened Obama's electability in the eyes of many superdelegates.

On Monday, Wright defiantly defended his controversial remarks in a speech at the National Press Club. Today, just a week before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, Obama denounced Wright in his strongest terms yet, calling his behavior "outrageous" and a "spectacle."

"The person I saw yesterday was not the person I met 20 years ago," the Illinois senator said at a press conference in Winston-Salem, N.C. "His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but they end up giving comfort to those that prey on hate."

Clips of the pastor's controversial sermons have become a constant loop on television and the Internet, providing fodder for Obama's political opponents.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington on Monday, Wright called the recent criticism surrounding his sermons "an attack on the black church."

"This is not about Obama, McCain, Hillary, Bill or Chelsea, this is about the black church," Wright said, speaking before an enthusiastic audience of black church leaders at the start of a two-day symposium.

Throughout his speech and a subsequent question-and-answer session, Wright defiantly argued that many of his critics had not heard his whole sermons and that the media had twisted his words.

Wright vigorously defended himself against accusations he is unpatriotic, but in Washington he went on to compare U.S. troops to the Roman legions that killed Christ, to praise Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and to suggest that the AIDS epidemic was a racist plot.

Obama rejected those comments outright on Tuesday.

"When he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions, such as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS; when he suggests that Minister Farrakahn somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century; when he equates the U.S. wartime efforts with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me, they rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced," Obama said.