By Mike Manzoni
The campaign got even nastier and more personal in the last two weeks, as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) underwent public scrutiny last week when his long-time pastor was revealed on the Internet as having a history of making inflammatory remarks, and Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) account of an overseas trip during her husband’s administration was proven inaccurate by video from CBS News.
Transcripts of sermons reveal that Obama’s long-time pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity Church of Christ, a protestant church in Chicago, has given sermons that blame the United States for the Sept. 11 attacks, among other indictments.
In a 2003 sermon, Wright spoke out against the treatment of blacks in America.
“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strikes law and then wants us to sing ‘God bless America,’ No, no, no, not ‘God bless America,’ God damn America – that’s in the Bible, you’re killing innocent people, God damn America for treating us citizens as less than human.”
In an effort to distance himself from Wright, Obama delivered a speech last Tuesday on race and politics from the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pa.
“I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy,’ he said, continuing, “For some, nagging questions remain. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.”
Clinton, who had initially chosen to abstain from criticizing her rival for his connection to Wright, addressed the issue in an interview with the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
“You don’t choose your family, but you choose the church you want to attend,” she said.
In an about-face, the public spotlight was turned on Clinton early this week after her recollections of a trip she made to Bosnia-Herzegovina contradicted those of others, including journalists and celebrities, who had accompanied her.
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama, said in a statement that her speech about the trip “joins a growing list of instances in which Senator Clinton has exaggerated her role in foreign and domestic policymaking.”
Clinton has said that her scheduled tarmac ceremony was cut short due to security concerns, but photos and video surfaced that show the then-first lady, along with first daughter Chelsea, greeting young children, appearing to be in no danger.
Throughout her campaign she has touted her March 1996 visit to the when asked about her foreign policy experience, but her most recent comment came at a speech on March 17.
“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base,” Clinton said.
Clinton retracted her statements on Tuesday, saying she “mis-spoke.”
“I did make a mistake in talking about it last time and recently,” she said.
Clinton’s communications director, Howard Wolfson, played down criticism of Clinton.
“This is something that the Obama campaign wants to push cause they have nothing positive to say about their candidate,” he wrote in a statement.
Late Wednesday, a NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll revealed that the events of the past two weeks have hurt both the candidates’ favorability ratings, with Clinton’s positive rating dropping eight points in the last two weeks, from 45 percent to 37 percent, and her unfavorable rating increased from 43 percent to 48 percent. Obama’s favorability rating dropped from 51 percent to 49 percent, and his unfavorable rating increased from 28 percent to 32 percent.
Among Democrats, Obama and Clinton are deadlocked at 45 percent, according to the poll. But when each candidate is pitted against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the putative Republican nominee. Clinton is behind him by two points, and Obama is ahead of McCain by two points, both within the margin of error.