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July 1, 2008

Volume 2, Number 9


ROBIN ROBERTS HAILS PRIEST, SKIPS AMERICA-RAPES SERMON


Do the media believe in racial peace? Or do they enjoy pumping up their audience with racial tensions? Or is there a third option – that political correctness demands that tension can only go one way, and that white Americans are to be singled out as chronically racist?

On June 26, ABC Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts interviewed Father Michael Pfleger, a close friend of Barack Obama’s longtime minister, Jeremiah Wright. Roberts asked the "maverick priest" about how some were offended by his remarks from Wright’s pulpit mocking Hillary Clinton’s alleged feelings of white entitlement. But Pfleger only apologized for style, not substance: "I apologize for my mannerism of what I said. I don't apologize for speaking about-- I think [white] entitlement is a reality in this society."

Roberts accepted that and moved on to hailing Pfleger as an activist for the poor, inspired by Martin Luther King. Her on-air questions were very soft: "In 2008, are you surprised that race is still such a hot-button issue?" Pfleger replied: "I'm not surprised. I have to say I'm saddened, though." ABC implied Pfleger wants racial peace, and not bitter clinging to old wounds.

[Audio/video (0:42) mp3 (192 kB) and Windows Media (2.55 MB)]

But in the same sermon in which he mocked Hillary, Pfleger also screamed: "In America, you have to understand that to say to people of color, 'Well, you gotta get over it' ... or 'It's time to move on,' it's like saying to a woman who has been repeatedly raped over and over and over and over and over, 'You need to get over it.' The HELL I do! Get the sucker who's been rapin' me and make him pay! America has been raping people of color and America has to pay the price for the rape!" Roberts called him "passionate about the Word." (Click here for the full transcript of the sermon.)

Roberts also tried to build sympathy by urging Pfleger to confirm death threats against him. But she skipped the inflammatory priest’s own death threats: last year, he told a crowd about a Chicago gun-store owner: "John Riggio. R-i-g-g-i-o. We're going to find you and snuff you out."

Roberts added: "And what if Obama loses the White House due in part to religious controversies involving Reverend Jeremiah Wright or Father Pfleger? He makes no apologies." Pfleger replied: "I think that would be a cheap shot to blame Reverend Wright or myself." ABC totally ignored how Pfleger was on the other end of a shocking string of cheap shots beyond mocking Hillary.

For more, see the June 27th CyberAlert:  




 

 


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