Year of Denial: Obama's Contradictory Statements

ABC News reports that Barack Obama remains plagued by a series of contradictory statements on his relationship to Jeremiah Wright, including his repeated denials of any knowledge of his pastor's incendiary anti-Americanism.

Obama's not off the hook. The longer questions of credibility and veracity remain, the less likely his Philadelphia speech will be seen as Kennedyesque:

Buried in his eloquent, highly praised speech on America's racial divide, Sen. Barack Obama contradicted more than a year of denials and spin from him and his staff about his knowledge of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial sermons....

His initial reaction to the initial ABC News broadcast of Rev. Wright's sermons denouncing the U.S. was that he had never heard his pastor of 20 years make any comments that were anti-U.S. until the tape was played on air.

But yesterday, he told a different story.

"Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes," he said in his speech yesterday in Philadelphia.

Obama did not say what he heard that he considered "controversial," and the campaign has yet to answer repeated requests for dates on which the senator attended Rev. Wright's sermons over the last 20 years.

Read the whole thing.

Apparently Obama's also been less the forthcoming on the extent of his relationship to Antoin "Tony" Rezko, his Chicago-area political fixer.

But staying with the denials of Wright's inflammatory hatred, be sure check out the latest from Vinegar and Honey:

Do you think that it really accomplished anything? I don't. I think it will serve only to stir up more bitterness and resentment on both sides, and I doubt that anyone was inspired to work on the issue of the great racial divide in this country....

The fact that he denied ever hearing any of the incendiary comments of Reverend Wright, or any knowledge of his strong anti-white establishment feelings, only made himself look worse. At least, today he finally did acknowledge that he knew of some of it, but still tried to justify it.

There you have it, straight from the heartland.

Also, check my big conservative blog roundup on the controversy, "Obama's Speech."

See more, as well, at Memeorandum.