“What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice,” Obama said. “He’s much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I’m not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that’s involved in national politics.”
- Obama Jan. 21, 2007 Chicago Tribune
“I can no more disown (Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.” – Obama
“Wright, who was my pastor in the past, has said some things that are considered controversial because he’s considered that part of his social gospel.” – Obama
Barack Obama told a group of reporters in Boston that the United States had an “absolute obligation” to remain in Iraq long enough to make it a success. “It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who have already died. . . . It would be a betrayal of the promise that we made to the Iraqi people, and it would be hugely destabilizing from a national security perspective.”
- Obama: July 2004
Obama still opposed “a date certain for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops.” “I don’t think it’s appropriate for Congress,” he said, “to make those decisions about what happens in the field.”
- June 2006
