House Dem: Obama lacked “the political courage” to leave Wright

Senior national correspondent Jake Tapper reports at ABC News. My comments follow below the star line.

Tapper’s report begins - - -

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, was down in Florida over the weekend, and one supposes that he thought he was helping Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., but it will ultimately be hard to make that case.

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugged has posted some video of Nadler at a synagogue in Boca Raton trying to explain why Obama was able to stay in Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years.

He starts off my saying he has no idea of what he's talking about. And then he proceeds to open mouth, insert foot.

Says Nadler: “I have no personal knowledge of what I'm about to say. What I'm about to say is my guess...”

Hoo boy.

“My guess,” Nadler said, “knowing how politics works, what I'm about to say is not particularly...”

He searches for the word. Rejects a couple suggestions.

“...not particularly complimentary towards Sen. Obama,” he says.

“Think of the history here,” says the six-term New York congressman. “You have a guy who's half-white, half-black. He goes to an Ivy League school, comes to Chicago ... to start a political career. Doesn't know anybody.

“Gets involved with community organizing -- why? Because that's how your form a base. OK. Joins the largest church in the neighborhood. About 8,000 members. ... Why did he join the church? ... Because that's how you get to know people.

“Now maybe it takes a couple years,” Nadler says, suggesting that soon Obama starts to think of Wright, “'Jesus, the guy's a nut, the guy's a lunatic.' But you don’t walk out of a church with 8,000 members in your district.”

Suggests a woman: “You don’t walk in though.”

“He didn't know it when he walked in, presumably,” said Nadler.

And then, the line that may haunt Nadler for four years or longer: “He didn't have the political courage to make the statement of walking out.

“Now, what does it tell me?” Nadler asked. “It tells me that he wasn't terribly political courageous. Does it tell me that he agreed with the reverend in any way? No. It tells me he didn't want to walk out of a church in his district.” …

The rest of Tapper’s report’s here.

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Comments:

Tapper provides sufficient commentary so I feel no need to say more about Nadler. Let the congressman enjoy his foot.

Two things came to mind as I read the report and looked at the video (see below) of Nadler’s bumbling:

First, McCain made a great mistake by not placing the Obama-Wright relationship front-and-center in his campaign. He should have done that no later than the RNC convention and asked the critical and legitimate questions that are still on the minds of millions of Americans.

Second, the Nadler incident is really not an ABC News story. It’s another You Tube story with a major news org playing catch up to blogger Atlas Schrugged.

It will be interesting to see how other major news orgs treat the story or even whether they cover it at all.

Hat tip: AC