David Squires from the Daily Press to Rev. Jeremiah Wright: Did you vote for Barack Obama?Wright: Of course I voted for him. He's my son. I'm proud of him. I've got five biological kids and they all make mistakes and bad choices. I don't stop loving none of them. He made a bad mistake. He made bad choices. I've got kids who listen to their friends. He's listening to those around him. He made a mistake. I did not disown him.
Squires: Right. Have you spoken with him since he's been in the White House?
Wright: Them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter that he'll talk to me in five years from now, when he's a lame duck, or eight years, when he's out of office.
Of course, Wright was spinning his inane comments by the next day. But his spin was just as offensive and dopey as the original statement. Wright claimed he wasn't really referring to "them Jews" but rather to "them Zionists."
But as Daniel Treiman reminds us, "It was Martin Luther King Jr. who wrote: 'When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews — this is God’s own truth.' I always thought that King was perhaps painting with a bit too broad a brush, but his statement does seem rather apt in the case at hand."
