Rev. Jeremiah Wright Is At It Again

Tuesday, September 02, 2008
By Brit Hume

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Loose Lips

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is at it again. Barack Obama's fiery former pastor Sunday made a salty reference about race and sex in the White House.

The New York Post reports that during a sermon at the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, Wright said: "This ordinary boy — Obama — just might be the first president in the history of the United States to have a black woman sleeping at 1600 Pennsylvania legally."

Wright was referring to Obama's wife — Michelle Obama. Not clear was whether he was also making a reference to prostitution, old miscegenation laws or interracial sex under slavery.

Wright's controversial sermons caused an uproar in March, when they emerged on video. He blamed the United States for the September 11 attacks and creating the virus that causes aids.

Intimidation Tactics?

The Obama campaign had its supporters confront WGN Radio in Chicago last week for having a critic of the Democratic presidential nominee on its air.

The Chicago Tribune reports Obama supporters besieged the station with thousands of phone calls and e-mails in an effort to force the cancellation of an interview with columnist Stanley Kurtz. The campaign e-mailed supporters saying: "WGN Radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist fears... pushing lies, distortions and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers."

A producer at WGN Radio said, "I got the feeling they were trying to intimidate us." It didn't work. The interview aired.

Kurtz — a Harvard PhD who is now a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford — has written for The Wall Street Journal and The Weekly Standard. A recent article he wrote for The National Review drew the ire of the Obama campaign because it examined Obama's ties to Ayers, a 1960s and '70s terrorist leader whose followers — among other things — tried to blow up the U.S. Capitol.

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Still Undecided?

The only woman nominated by a major party as its vice presidential candidate has left open the possibility of voting for the Republican ticket — even though she is a Democrat.

Geraldine Ferraro — who's also a FOX News contributor — told National Public Radio, "I'm... working on my decision."

Ferraro was Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984. She dismissed concerns about John McCain's choice for vice president — Alaska Governor Sarah Palin — and her foreign policy knowledge, saying: "What she doesn't know so far she will learn very quickly — she seems smart enough."

For the Birds

Among the thousands of demonstrators in Saint Paul for the Republican National Convention, there is one group protesting bird-watching.

The group known as the Good Conduct Society says it considers bird-watching to be voyeurism. It says research suggests that those 48 million people who enjoy bird-watching across the country are more sexually active than the general population. The society's director says, "most disturbing are the groups of bird watchers seeking vicarious sexual gratification in the woods. Shamelessly, they blatantly observe God's defenseless creatures mating."

The group refuses to say if their protest is serious or a send-up.

FOX News Channel's Zachary Kenworthy contributed to this report.


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