Clinton Assails Wright Amid Pickup in Poll Numbers

The Los Angeles Times reports that Hillary Clinton has not let up her attacks on Barack Obama's relationship to his toxic pastor, Jeremiah Wright:

As Barack Obama sought to dampen the renewed controversy over his former pastor by announcing three superdelegate endorsements Wednesday, Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton kept the issue alive, calling remarks by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. "offensive and outrageous."

Appearing on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," Clinton said she wouldn't have remained in a church with such divisive sermons. She added that it would be up to voters to decide whether the controversy would affect the presidential campaign.

Wright, in a nationally televised speech Monday at the National Press Club in Washington, repeated some of the incendiary comments from videotaped sermons that ignited the controversy in March. They included assertions that the U.S. government may have played a role in the spread of AIDS among African Americans and that the nation's foreign policy actions led to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bill O'Reilly, host of the Fox News program on which Clinton appeared, asked the New York senator how she felt when she heard "a fellow American citizen say that kind of stuff about America."

"Well, I take offense," Clinton said. "I think it's offensive and outrageous."

But Clinton also said that she thought Obama "made his views clear, finally, that he disagreed, and I think that's what he had to do."

Clinton's comments came a day after Obama held a news conference to dissociate himself from Wright. The Illinois senator called his former pastor's National Press Club appearance a "spectacle," a "show of disrespect to me" and "an insult to what we've been trying to do" in his quest for the White House.

The Wright controversy's probably reached its half-life.

There's certainly been damage, as the new Pew survey indicates, "Obama's Image Slips, His Lead Over Clinton Disappears."

Gallup also has Clinton leading Obama in national polling, "Clinton 49%, Obama 45%."

In Indiana, Clinton's opening up a lead ahead of next Tuesday's primary, "Indiana Poll Shows Clinton With Big Lead Over Obama.

The Indiana numbers apparently reflect a steep revulsion with Reverend Wright.

Clinton needs a win in Indiana Tuesday to keep her nomination hopes alive (she's maintaining her lead in the superdelegate count, which is the key indicator to watch at the Democrats wrap up their last primaries next week), but I don't think she can rely on Wright to carry her along much longer.