Michael Smerconish: SERMONGATE: WHAT DID HE KNOW . . . ?

3.18.08

Daily News Opinion Columnist

MIGHT Barack Obama have a Watergate problem?

Is his campaign headed for a tailspin not because of an underlying incident involving his pastor, but because of the way he responded to the maelstrom?

History is full of such mistakes. Richard Nixon wasn't forced to resign because of the Watergate break-in but because of the cover-up. The House impeached Bill Clinton for lying under oath, not for his sexual peccadillos. Larry Craig got jammed up not for his men's-room two-step, but for his ludicrous denial.

Since last week's YouTube eruption about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama has been clear that he wasn't present for the fiery rhetoric that is everywhere in the media. If someone can show that he was indeed there, that could doom his candidacy.

For two decades, Barack and Michelle Obama have worshiped at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which has until recently been under the direction of the Rev. Wright. Theirs goes beyond the typical parishioner-preacher relationship.

Rev. Wright delivered Obama to Jesus, presided over Barack and Michelle's wedding, baptized their daughters and delivered a sermon that was the inspiration for Obama's second book.

And until last week, the reverend served on an Obama campaign committee.

Wright's brand of fire and brimstone has the candidate scrambling.

He used words like:

"We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki. And we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost!"

Video of the Rev. Wright in a television report by ABC's Brian Ross catapulted this controversy from talk radio into the mainstream media. By Friday night, Sen. Obama had no choice but to address it.

Keith Olbermann on MSNBC and Major Garrett on Fox News interviewed him. In both, Obama said he'd never been present for the type of sermon that has made his preacher big news.

Sen. Obama then blogged at HuffingtonPost.com: "The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation."

Fair enough.

It would be wrong to hold Barack Obama the churchgoer accountable for the words of a preacher spoken outside of his presence.

But look out if in the face of these blanket denials someone can show otherwise. In the Internet/YouTube age in which we live, no doubt individuals are already combing the data.

"Dreams from My Father," the senator's first book, was written when he was 33, far before his presidential campaign. It offers a terrific, unmuzzled glimpse into the thinking of a younger Barack Obama.

On page 291, Obama describes a sermon delivered by the Rev. Wright called "The Audacity to Hope" (itself the inspiration of his second book and its now-famous title, "The Audacity of Hope") during which Wright recounted the sermon of a fellow pastor who described a painting he had once seen titled "Hope."

The painting depicts a harpist, Obama recalls the Rev. Wright explaining, who sits "bruised and bloodied" atop a mountain. Chaos in the form of famine, war and deprivation reign in the valley below, Wright says.

Obama quotes Rev. Wright: " 'It is a world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere . . . That's the world! On which hope sits.' "

Obama continues: "And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Rev. Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded, though, the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate."

Rest assured Obama's recollection of that sermon is getting a closer reading.

". . . white folks' greed runs a world in need . . ."

". . . Rev. Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House."

Are those references when Obama was in the pew similar to those that have caused Obama to distance himself from Wright?

No. He was describing the woman in the painting as looking as if she'd been in Hiroshima: bleeding, bandaged and with tattered clothing, and yet she had hope. Re-recordings of this sermon by Wright are circulated online and reflect a very measured, thoughtful presentation.

Too bad Rev. Wright's references to Hiroshima didn't end there.

This whole topic is - no doubt - to be continued . . . *

Listen to Michael Smerconish weekdays 5-9 a.m. on the Big Talker, 1210/AM. Read him Sundays in the Inquirer. Contact him via the Web at www.mastalk.com.