Fact Check

Buchanan to Obama

E-mail reproduces Pat Buchanan's criticism of Barack Obama's remarks on racial discrimination in the U.S..

Published May 26, 2008

Claim:

Claim:   E-mail reproduces Pat Buchanan's criticism of Barack Obama's remarks on racial discrimination in the U.S.


CORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED


Example:   [Buchanan, March 2008]

0
Did Pat Buchanan really write and publish this? I have my doubts.
 

How would he pull it off? I wondered.

How would Barack explain to his press groupies why he sat silent in a pew for 20 years as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered racist rants against white America for our maligning of Fidel and Gadhafi, and inventing AIDS to infect and kill black people?

How would he justify not walking out as Wright spewed his venom about "the U.S. of K.K.K. America," and howled, "God damn America!"

My hunch was right. Barack would turn the tables.

Yes, Barack agreed, Wright's statements were "controversial," and "divisive," and "racially charged," reflecting a "distorted view of America."

But we must understand the man in full and the black experience out of which the Rev. Wright came: 350 years of slavery and segregation.

Barack then listed black grievances and informed us what white America must do to close the racial divide and heal the country.

[...]

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America. Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America
needs to be heard from, not just lectured to. This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And
among them are these:

[Rest of article here.]



 

Origins:   In March 2008, one of the top stories in U.S. political news was the controversy over past remarks about racial issues delivered by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, and spiritual mentor of Democratic presidential Barack Obama). In response to the controversy, conservative commentator and MSNBC contributor (also a former Nixon press secretary and former presidential candidate) Pat Buchanan penned the above-cited article for his weekly syndicated column, criticizing the notion expressed by Rev. Wright and Senator Obama that the "legacy of discrimination" in the U.S. is "real and must be addressed."

Last updated:   31 July 2009

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