BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

I have watched the interview of Reverend Jeremiah Wright on Bill Moyers Journal several times in its entirety.  I find it extremely enlightening.  Of course, I am more than aware that no matter what the circumstances… or what the full text really was… some people are going to continue to believe and condemn the snippets played ad infinitum on television.  In fact, I have noticed that any time there is a discussion of Rev. Wright… pro or con… the same snippet is played.  The media is well aware that the words they show cut from the total sermon and out of context are inflammatory.  And, there is nothing more exciting than getting ratings by inflaming the public.

Unfortunately, in this case, it is my belief that a severe injustice has been done to Reverend Wright and by association to Barack Obama.  It plays well into the hands of the media who still persist in trying to manipulate the minds of those who rely on the 30 second sound bites to determine the outcome of the presidential race.

I have listened to the sermon, the post 9-11 sermon, in its entirety.  And, as an AARP card carrying white woman, I have to say that I find nothing offensive about the sermon.  In fact, I am inclined to agree with most of what Reverend Jeremiah Wright said.

Of particular interest… the lines about the “chickens coming home to roost” were not originally Rev. Wright’s lines, but rather he was quoting from a speech made by the white Ambassador Edward Peck. 

His name is Ambassador Edward Peck. And he is a retired, white, career U.S. diplomat who served 32-years in the U.S. Foreign Service and was chief of the U.S. mission to Iraq under Jimmy Carter — hardly the black-rage image with which Wright has been stigmatized.

In fact, when Wright took the pulpit to give his post-9/11 address — which has since become boiled down to a five second sound bite about “America’s chickens coming home to roost” — he prefaced his remarks as a “faith footnote,” an indication that he was deviating from his sermon.

“I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday,” Wright declared. “He was on Fox News. This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end. He pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Muhammad was in fact true: America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

I, once again, encourage anyone who has not seen the interview with Bill Moyers to click the link on the sidebar to the right to go directly to the Bill Moyers Journal interview.  And, for those who may not have seen the entire Reverend Wright sermon, please watch it now.  A reasonable person will conclude that FOX News and the media in general have set out to discredit both Rev. Wright and Senator Obama by selectively showing snippets of a well worded and important sermon.