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Source: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05022008/watch.html

May 2, 2008
BILL MOYERS:Welcome to the Journal.

I once asked a reporter back from Vietnam, "Who's telling the truth over there?" "Everyone," he said. "Everyone sees what's happening through the lens of their own experience." That's how people see Jeremiah Wright. In my conversation with him on this broadcast a week ago and in his dramatic public appearances since, he revealed himself to be far more complex than the sound bites that propelled him onto the public stage. Over 2000 of you have written me about him, and your opinions vary widely. Some sting: "Jeremiah Wright is nothing more than a race-hustling, American hating radical," one viewer wrote. A "nut case," said another. Others were far more were sympathetic to him.

Many of you have asked for some rational explanation for Wright's transition from reasonable conversation to shocking anger at the National Press Club. A psychologist might pull back some of the layers and see this complicated man more clearly, but I'm not a psychologist. Many black preachers I've known — scholarly, smart, and gentle in person — uncorked fire and brimstone in the pulpit. Of course I've known many white preachers like that, too.

But where I grew up in the south, before the civil rights movement, the pulpit was a safe place for black men to express anger for which they would have been punished anywhere else; a safe place for the fierce thunder of dignity denied, justice delayed. I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated, whipped, and lynched. Or if my great-great grandfather had been but three-fifths of a person in a constitution that proclaimed, "We the people." Or if my own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Connor, and Jesse Helms. Even so, the anger of black preachers I've known and heard about and reported on was, for them, very personal and cathartic.

That's not how Jeremiah Wright came across in those sound bites or in his defiant performances this week. What white America is hearing in his most inflammatory words is an attack on the America they cherish and that many of their sons have died for in battle ? forgetting that black Americans have fought and bled beside them, and that Wright himself has a record of honored service in the Navy. Hardly anyone took the "chickens come home to roost" remark to convey the message that intervention in the political battles of other nations is sure to bring retaliation in some form, which is not to justify the particular savagery of 9/11 but to understand that actions have consequences. My friend Bernard Weisberger, the historian, says, yes, people are understandably seething with indignation over Wright's absurd charge that the United States deliberately brought an HIV epidemic into being. But it is a fact, he says, that within living memory the U.S. Public Health Service conducted a study that deliberately deceived black men with syphilis into believing that they were being treated, while actually letting them die for the sake of a scientific test. Does this excuse Wright's anger? His exaggerations or distortions? You'll have to decide or yourself. At least it helps me to understand the why of them.

But in this multimedia age the pulpit isn't only available on Sunday mornings. There's round the clock media — the beast whose hunger is never satisfied, especially for the fast food with emotional content. So the preacher starts with rational discussion and after much prodding throws more and more gasoline on the fire that will eventually consume everything it touches. He had help — people who for their own reasons set out to conflate the man in the pulpit who wasn't running for president with the man in the pew who was.

Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy; this is wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.

Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettle some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. We are often exposed us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this ? this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner before our very eyes. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".

I admire Jeremiah Wright and respect his views, his rights to those views and the absolute fact that he has served heroically in the US Navy. He's obviously an intelligent man caught in the politics of a presidential campaign.

I am a republican that believes that Jeremiah Wright is a man of substance representing himself and his congregation in his capacity as minister and is in no way representative of the Obama campaign or potential future presidency.

I am pleased that this controvercy has for the moment abated and seems to be a non-issue from here on out.

Thank you

I have just watched This Week and I note that Cokie Roberts said that Hillary Rodham Clinton has run a good campaign I guess Cokie thinks it is good to run a campaign with racist undertones , being destructive and distortive. Cokie also dismissed young voters in an earlier broadcast Newspapers such as the New York Times have commented on the low road that Mrs. Clinton has taken and this is what Cokie Roberts applauds. Cokie should note that Hillary's percentages decreased considerably amongst white working men, and women , from Pennsylvania and Ohio to Indiana and North Carolina. She did keep her percentages amongst older women voters.
It is people like Cokie Roberts who demonstrate why change is necessaary.

The name of the troops killed in Iraq go by so fast on sunday morning that one can't read them. Have some respect!!!!!!!!!!!

As a middle age woman, I am so angry that gender bias is allowed free reign, especially in the democratic party. I used to be frustrated that college age women thought that the battle was over and equal rights prevailed. Now they are learning that gender bias is alive and well in American politics. Most older women I talk with are debating voting for McCain, or writing in Clinton. I believe that there will be a backlash against a male democratic nominee. Dean should remember that older women outnumber older men and he should also know that we are sick and tired of business as usual.

Dear Vancouver

You have been thoroughly brainwashed and taken in by Obama's deceptiveness and the media bias When Hillary Clinton was trying to take the high road in the beginning of the campain Barack Obama started the negative campaining by painting Hillary as dishonest and corupt and he actually used the word dishonest. He made personal attacks against her when she made none against him and he brought race into the campain. There were no racial undertones those were statements taken out of context and jumped on by the media and the democratic party leaders and he got indignant to get the African American vote away from Hillary. I have caught Barack Obama in several dishonest statements or refusals to fully disclose the answers to the questions asked because it would have hurt his campain. Hillary Clinton we know was the best candidate.In Barack Obama we are guessing and taking a chance. Those racial undertones have been thoroughly explained and were innocent statement's with no racial meaning at all. That is what Bill Clinton was talking about when he stated Obama's campain played the race card and for that he was called a racist. It is clearly obvious why African Americans would want to vote for Barack Obama just as I as a woman would want to vote for Hillary, however African American's need to remember the great political ally that the Clintons have been for them and stop being angry at the Clintons for Barack Obama's tactics in playing the race card for his own polictal gain. Hillary Clinton has been an agent of change in this country for 35 years and still brings about change. She deeply loves this country and wanted to bring it back to it's former greatness and to do better than ever before. The things that have been said about her are offensive, petty and small minded. Some of them uttered by Barack Obama's own mouth deeply offended woman. Take for example the desperate comment which he never would have thought to state about a male candidate. He has offended working class voters several times the last time it slipped totally under the radar of the pundits and others. Recently When asked why working class voters were not supporting him he stated that it was because he was different. Now that sounds like a polite way of stating that we are racist. His race has nothing to do with why I don't support him or why I do support Hillary.
I would not be so presumptious to state that all of these voters have pure motives and that racism does not come into play at all but given the race so far and how he is doing and my motives and the motives of lots of people I know I think the percentage not voting for him because of race is a very small percent.It is time for people to turn off the TV sets when the pundits are trying to influence the race and inflate or invent stories for there ratings and next time look at the candidates records instead. Judge Hillary Clinton not by the media but by her record and let her end this race with dignity and her reputation intact. Put aside small minded negative feelings and put this all in context It is a political race and both candidates have had there share of negative moments.

A hillary supporter in CT

George, I have trouble watching you moderate because you always 'step on' the end of comments by your guests; this is very rude and impossible to listen to as a viewer. I view it as a hyper-aggressive posture you must think is attractive, but in fact is bad manners. Please wait until people finish their speaking before you start. It is just good manners. How would you like to be interrupted like this?

It’s pretty obvious that ABC is very much pro republican if not racist. When Mr. Obama ex reverend went running his mouth you couldn’t get him off the air waves. But when Mr. McCain’s reverend went running theirs you gave it a small blurrrrrrp if that much and nothing else was said. You should be totally ashamed of yourself. I know it’s not an equal playing field and you just proved it.

Eric

Consider remembering Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger on "This Week"-'In Memoriam'. Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, was 94 (Dec. 19, 1913 - :May 25, 2008). Ernst Stuhlinger born in Niederrimbach, a small German village, attended university in Tuebingen, studying physics under Professor Hans Geiger. In 1939, he joined the German atomic energy program under Professor Heisenberg. He was drafted into the German Army; and was transferred to Wernher von Braun's rocket development center at Peenemuende, where he worked on the development of guidance and control systems. At the end of World War II, von Braun and 126 of his coworkers, including Stuhlinger, were invited by the U. S. Army to continue their rocket development work in the United States, first at Fort Bliss, TX, and from 1950 on in Huntsville. The team developed the Redstone, the Jupiter, and the Pershing missiles. On Jan. 31, 1958, the von Braun group, together with JPL launched Explorer I with a modified Redstone rocket. In 1961, a modified Redstone launched the first American astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, into space on a ballistic trajectory. In 1960, von Braun's team was transferred to NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. Stuhlinger's main areas of work included planning of satellite projects, instrumentation for scientific space investigations, and studies of electric space propulsion systems. In 1968, he was appointed associate director for science at the Marshall Space Flight Center. After retiring from NASA in 1976, he joined the UAH, teaching astrophysics and space sciences, and working on a project to develop electric automobiles. At the universities of Munich and Heidelberg, he worked out project plans for space probes to asteroids and comets with electric propulsion systems. Later, he joined Teledyne Brown Engineering in Huntsville participating in studies related to materials processing in space, instrumentation for space-borne experiments, rocket-propelled space planes, and manned missions to Mars.

drilling for oil in this country will not drop prices. it will just create bigger profits for the oil companies. quit trying to scam us.