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The Spectacle Blog
Back in the old days of 2007-2008 when Illinois Senator Barack Obama was on the rise, I wrote from time to time about his affiliation with the United Church of Christ — and his minister, Jeremiah Wright.
I did this for two reasons.
One, I am a member of the UCC myself. And knowing the denomination well, having served as president of my local church council as well as a member of the board of the regional Penn Central Conference, I felt compelled to explain that unlike, say, the Catholic Church, the UCC — home of the Congregationalists and the Pilgrims — has a bottom to top structure. Which is to say every individual church in the UCC runs itself and makes its own choices on everything from ministers to church policy and politics. Meaning then-Senator Obama’s choice of membership in Chicago’s Trinity UCC indicated to me at least the potential that his local church could be extremely left-wing and politically controversial. Or not.
The way I learned about Trinity and the soon-to-be famous Reverend Jeremiah Wright was the dogged persistence of Sean Hannity, who had himself picked up the trail from writer Erik Rush. If one was watching, Hannity had Fox all over this story — including getting an early appearance from Rev. Wright himself.
This is another way of saying that the rest of the media, like Brian Ross of ABC, were, for whatever reason, totally not in the chase.
Eventually, as Obama began to gain on Hillary Clinton and the liberal media’s efforts on his behalf became apparent, Mr. Ross finally stepped up to the plate. Good for him.
But for whatever reason tonight, Bill O’Reilly mentioned in passing during a talk with Laura Ingraham that Ross was out front on the story of Jeremiah Wright. A minor thing, perhaps, on the night of a big debate with other issues at stake. But for the record — as a UCC member actively following the Wright story and trying to determine the leanings of Obama’s local church and any implications coming from this — there is no question whatever that Hannity had this story cold right from the get go. He dug, he dug, and he dug some more — and still takes grief for persisting with it.
But he was right about Wright. And in retrospect was sending up a signal flare as to how an Obama Administration would approach governing the country.
And neither Brian Ross — nor anyone else in the mainstream media — was anywhere close to being out front on this.
Just sayin’.
Back to the issues.
View all comments (19) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Jeffrey Lord
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/01/19/hannity-not-brian-ross-out-fro
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Dan| 1.19.12 @ 11:25PM
Ben Shapiro just observed that the next reporter who locates, who finds, who dredges up just one, JUST ONE female that ever dated Obama, --------- will be the first.
Then he speculated maybe all those "girl friends" were in Pakistan...........
albert constantine jr.| 1.19.12 @ 11:30PM
except it would be pronounced "Pok-ee-ston" (with the short o vowel sound)
Bob K.| 1.19.12 @ 11:26PM
O'Reilly would rather kiss a pig than say something complimentary about another talk show host. He has a Ted Baxter Anchor Man personality and he never really got into the relaxed Talk Show Host shtick. It probably goes back to his days as an Anchor Man in Scranton, Pa.
WL| 1.19.12 @ 11:54PM
Scranton.........
I can think of another person who hails from there too....
BIDEN.
Biden and BILL are both ignorant blowhards.
NVA Patriot| 1.19.12 @ 11:29PM
The Big O doesn't like Hannity & they feud often over guests. O tried to take credit for the Wright story, got called on it and now does what he can to diminish Hannity's reporting - it 's too bad...
WL| 1.19.12 @ 11:56PM
O'Reilly...what a bad joke...
I'm surprised that Bill the Shill doesn't go and tape himself talking to Wright at the church in Chicago...and talk about the "interview" for 6 weeks...
Bill O'reilly is as phony as anyone you will ever watch on TV.
W| 1.20.12 @ 8:29AM
I agree they do not like each other. O'reilly does not do any introduction or ad for Hannity whose show starts after O'reilly. O satshe is not conservative or liberal but some made up category that exists only in his mind "looking out for you."
O regularly defends Obama and Hillary and Michelle. He gets invited to Obama's Christmas party but not Hannity.
beebop2| 1.20.12 @ 5:25AM
I think the POINT here is that 0bama still remains largely unexamined and unexposed because it is in the interests of the left that it be so. When someone does attempt to pull the curtain aside, he or she is immediately called either a racist or an Uncle Tom. Why hasn't the first "post racial" president actually promoted racial healing? Because it suits him perfectly to work Americans against each other.
PattyMor| 1.20.12 @ 7:37AM
Rev. Wright has been hiding in plain site. In fact, the Rev. was sooooo proud of his sermons, that he put them on tape and sold them in the gift shop. The Marxist Media will not cover Obama objectively. But they will re-dredge up the Gingrich divorce and the exwife. This is the same media that got scooped by the National Inquirer over the John Edwards affair. Like the ostrich that puts its head in the sand. If they don't look, they don't have to report.
Matthew Quigley| 1.20.12 @ 11:01AM
I have just a few words to say about the LameStream Media (to include Ted Baxter), Gingrich's past marriages and how newsworthy those marriages are(n't):
Juanita Broaddrick
Kathleen Willey
Gennifer Flowers
Paula Jones
Monica Lewinsky
Since we were admonished that all those "incidents" were Clinton's "personal life" and "not reflective of his ability to do his job," those of us on the Right should say the same thing to the HYPOCRITES and LIARS on the left and FIGHT BACK USING THEIR OWN WEAPONS AGAINST THEM!
Sorry for hollering, but this crap really pisses me off!
Brian Richard Allen | 1.20.12 @ 9:36PM
There are a few more of those, Mr Quigley:
You list only a few of the very many attempted and actual sexual assaults by Clinton that go back 30 years. Among the other incidents:
Eileen Wellstone, 19-year-old English woman who said Clinton sexually assaulted her after she met him at a pub near the Oxford where the future President was a student in 1969. A retired State Department employee, who asked not to be identified, confirmed that he spoke with the family of the girl and filed a report with his superiors. Clinton admitted having sex with the girl, but claimed it was consensual. The victim's family declined to pursue the case;
In 1972, a 22-year-old woman told campus police at Yale University that she was sexually assaulted by Clinton, a law student at the college. No charges were filed, but retired campus policemen contacted by Capitol Hill Blue confirmed the incident. The woman, tracked down by Capitol Hill Blue last week, confirmed the incident, but declined to discuss it further and would not give permission to use her name;
In 1974, a female student at the University of Arkansas complained that then-law school instructor Bill Clinton tried to prevent her from leaving his office during a conference. She said he groped her and forced his hand inside her blouse. She complained to her faculty advisor who confronted Clinton, but Clinton claimed the student ''came on'' to him. The student left the school shortly after the incident. Reached at her home in Texas, the former student confirmed the incident, but declined to go on the record with her account. Several former students at the University have confirmed the incident in confidential interviews and said there were other reports of Clinton attempting to force himself on female students;
Broaddrick, a volunteer in Clinton's gubernatorial campaign, said he raped her in 1978. Mrs. Broaddrick suffered a bruised and torn lip, which she said she suffered when Clinton bit her during the rape;
From 1978-1980, during Clinton's first term as governor of Arkansas, state troopers assigned to protect the governor were aware of at least seven complaints from women who said Clinton forced, or attempted to force, himself on them sexually. One retired state trooper said in an interview that the common joke among those assigned to protect Clinton was "who's next?". One former state trooper said other troopers would often escort women to the governor's hotel room after political events, often more than one an evening;
Carolyn Moffet, a legal secretary in Little Rock in 1979, said she met then-governor Clinton at a political fundraiser and shortly thereafter received an invitation to meet the governor in his hotel room. "I was escorted there by a state trooper. When I went in, he was sitting on a couch, wearing only an undershirt. He pointed at his penis and told me to suck it. I told him I didn't even do that for my boyfriend and he got mad, grabbed my head and shoved it into his lap. I pulled away from him and ran out of the room."
Elizabeth Ward, the Miss Arkansas who won the Miss America crown in 1982, told friends she was forced by Clinton to have sex with him shortly after she won her state crown. Last year, Ward, who is now married with the last name of Gracen (from her first marriage), told an interviewer she did have sex with Clinton but said it was consensual. Close friends of Ward, however, say she still maintains privately that Clinton forced himself on her.
Paula Corbin, an Arkansas state worker, filed a sexual harassment case against Clinton after an encounter in a Little Rock hotel room where the then-governor exposed himself and demanded oral sex. Clinton settled the case with Jones recently with an $850,000 cash payment.
Sandra Allen James, a former Washington, DC, political fundraiser says Presidential candidate-to-be Clinton invited her to his hotel room during a political trip to the nation's capital in 1991, pinned her against the wall and stuck his hand up her dress. She says she screamed loud enough for the Arkansas State Trooper stationed outside the hotel suite to bang on the door and ask if everything was all right, at which point Clinton released her and she fled the room. When she reported the incident to her boss, he advised her to keep her mouth shut if she wanted to keep working. Miss James has since married and left Washington. Reached at her home last week, the former Miss James said she later learned that other women suffered the same fate at Clinton's hands when he was in Washington during his Presidential run.
Christy Zercher, a flight attendant on Clinton's leased campaign plane in 1992, says Presidential candidate Clinton exposed himself to her, grabbed her breasts and made explicit remarks about oral sex. A video shot on board the plane by ABC News shows an obviously inebriated Clinton with his hand between another young flight attendant's legs. Zercher said later in an interview that White House attorney Bruce Lindsey tried to pressure her into not going public about the assault.
Kathleen Willey, a White House volunteer, reported that Clinton grabbed her, fondled her breast and pressed her hand against his genitals during an Oval Office meeting in November, 1993. Willey, who told her story in a 60 Minutes interview, became a target of a White House-directed smear campaign after she went public.
And on -- and on -- and on .....
Oldefarte| 1.20.12 @ 11:36AM
Hannity's outing of the Wright-Obama connection was more than enough [in addition to the numerous other alternative new sources] to expose this situation. It was simply a case of the American public's STUPIDLY ignoring what was right in front of their collective faces and the reality of this situation. Wright, combined with Ayres, Resco, Chicago community organizing and lawyering for Acorn, the Chicago college professor mentor [forget the name], the suspiciously huge amounts of political contributions both then and now, etc all should have been a gigantic wanting sign billboard to the voters of this country as to who/what awaiting them from this now present president!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brian Richard Allen | 1.20.12 @ 9:26PM
.... neither Brian Ross -- nor anyone else in the mainstream media -- was anywhere close to being out front on this ....
Thank you.
And it is an issue.
Mr O'Reilly strokes Brian Ross for the simple reason he is Brian Ross. And/or is his clone. And/or his as-evil twin.
And (also) points up the indisputable fact Mr O'Reilly always was and remains an envy-incited Lefty who but (poorly) plays a "conservative" on TV. At the very least mildly pathologically narcissistic, Mr O'Reilly, cannot handle that while he is watched, Mr Hannity is loved. As he could never and will never comprehend that genuinely conservative Rush Limbaugh -- who talks with peers and fellow thinkers -- and not to his inferiors -- makes a Hundred Million-odd per year while, after first running through the Millions it was spending for the air-time on most of its stations, Mr O'Reilly's radio show failed.
And then there is that other indisputable fact that Messrs Murdoch and Ailes are marketing geniuses who hired the Yellow-Press-TV-Watcher magnet Mr O'Reilly for the advertiser-attractive mouth-breather Lefty demographic Mr O'Reilly dragged with him from the simply awful Inside Edition.
Erik Rush | 1.21.12 @ 12:30PM
Personally, I appreciate those who remember and are willing to keep the truth out front (thank you , Mr. Lord). Of course, Brian Ross wasn't "out front" about anything, and Sean Hannity is the only one who has had the courage to have me on his show, and has given me credit on-air on more than one occasion for having broken the story on a national level. I guess O'Reilly was hiding under his desk all those times my camp tried to get in touch with him. I, in turn, try to credit the journalist who brought the Obama-Wright connection to my attention. Of course, I could go on about how I just adore helping these guys make 7 figures taking the credit for me, but it is what it is...
William Smyth| 1.23.12 @ 6:27PM
Back in Feb/March 2007, Erik Rush and Sean Hannity reported on Trinity UCC and Rev. Wright in a superficial manner. Rush's piece accused Trinity UCC as being a black separatist and/or supremacist church (or cult) and that "this organization worships things African to a far greater degree than they do Christ." Anyone who actually ever attended a service at Trinity or watched via an internet stream would know how ridiculous a charge of not being Christ centered was and is. Stephen Mansfield writing in his book wrote the following about Trinity:
"Yes, Jesus Christ is offered to sinners as the Son of God who died and rose again. Yes, the church calls men to be saved from death and hell through confessing their wrongs and submitting their lives to a crucified Christ. Yes, this is the "born-again, new birth, blood-washed, Spirit-empowered Christianity" that evangelicals know. "
But then Mansfield in his research actually attended multiple services at Trinity.
Trinity is a voluntary member of the UCC which is a denomination that is 94%+ white. Trinity, it is my understanding, voluntarily makes an annual tithe to the denomination. This would amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to the denomination. This is inconsistent with a group of separatists white or black.
Neither Trinity UCC nor Rev. Wright ever professed belief in black supremacy.
Rush and Hannity did a very poor job of reporting about Rev. Wright and Trinity. Brian Ross a year later didn't do much better. By then the story was not whether or not the depictions of Trinity and Rev. Wright were accurate, but what would Obama's reaction be to the reporting.
Kitt Keefe| 1.25.12 @ 2:44PM
After the reporting by Erik Rush and Sean Hannity, I watched the tapes of Rev.Wright myself, read everything I could on Trinity's website, and searched online for content directly attributed to Wright. Sorry, but Mr. Rush and Mr. Hannity are spot on. Wright was as described.
William Smyth| 1.26.12 @ 5:06PM
Why would a Black Separatist work practically his whole professional career for a 94%+ white denomination? Rush compared Trinity UCC to churches and sects that are racially exclusive. Trinity UCC is not racially exclusive in its membership and freely aligns itself with the overwhelmingly white UCC. These are not the actions of a separatist organization. Can you identify any other separatist racial organization which has members of all races?
J.C.Eaton| 1.25.12 @ 11:58AM
Well, Mr. Smyth. I'm not an investigative reporter and carry no brief for Messrs O'Reilly, Hannity, or Ross, but on the other hand, have watched the tapes of Mr. Wright and amidst all the shrieking, howling, caterwauling, and jiving, that fella makes explicit:he hates this country and many of its' people with a decidedly un-Christlike enthusiasm.
William Smyth| 1.26.12 @ 5:23PM
I personally don't equate being critical of particular polices of the United States government as hatred for the country in general or its people.
I find engaging in the prophetic tradition of "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable" to be very much a Judeo-Christian behavior.