Reverend Jeremiah Wright gives a one on one interview to PBS’s Bill Moyers. It will air Friday night but PBS has released parts of it and The Associated Press reports below:
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor to Barack Obama, said that publicizing sound bites of sermons in which he condemned U.S. policies was "unfair" and "devious," and done by people who know nothing about his church, according to excerpts of a PBS interview released Thursday.
The interview, scheduled for broadcast Friday night, is the first the pastor has given since video of his preaching gained national attention in March, putting Democratic presidential hopeful Obama on the defensive.
Among the most remarked upon sound bites was Wright proclaiming from the pulpit "God damn America" for its racism. He accused the government of flooding black neighborhoods with drugs.
"The blowing up of sermons preached 15, seven, six years ago and now becoming a media event, not the full sermon, but the snippets from the sermon ... having made me the target of hatred, yes, that is something very new," Wright told "Bill Moyers' Journal."
"I felt it was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt — for those who were doing that — were doing it for some very devious reasons," he said.
More here.
There are certain controversies that fade from the 24/7 media blitz. The Jeremiah Wright controversy was not one of those. It has hung around and that’s not good news for the Obama campaign. In a way, Pastor Wright had to do an interview like this but he’s really in a no win situation. For people determined to keep this story alive, the criticism will not got away no matter what he says.