Before going off half cocked condemning Barack Obama for what someone told you that Jeremiah Wright said at the National Press Club, sit down and listen to what he actually said. Here is a link to a video of his entire speech. There is a transcript which includes his remarks in the question and answer period afterward, also.

Video

I would be proud to have Rev. Wright speak in my church. His is a message of inclusion and reconciliation. He is not angry, unpatriotic, racist or any of the other things he is being accused of in various right wing or Clintonista blogs.

Update: Obama has issued a statement calling Wright’s statements “outrageous” and saying “When he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS, when he suggests Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st centuries, when he equates the United States’ wartime efforts with terrorism — there are no excuses . . .” I must have missed some of that, maybe Wright said some of those things somewhere else. He did make a number of appearances over the weekend.

The urban legend about the government creating AIDS and spreading it among black people has been going around for years. It shows a lack of critical thinking on Wright’s part to repeat it, but also a healthy distrust of government. Wright cites theTuskegee Study as his source for that comment, in the Q&A period at the National Press Club. That studies of the progress of untreated syphilis on black men did continue until 1972. It isn’t AIDS but it sure makes you wonder about the good old US Government.

I see that most of the comments on this post have been favorable toward Wright. It kind of makes me wonder where my readers come from. Nobody wants to argue with me?

Updated again, watch Wright’s interview with Bill Moyers: .