• The Reverend Wright, Obama's press conference.
• Guest: Former Alabama governor Don Siegelman. Hour long interview. Transcript. Will this finally get Karl Rove frogmarched out of the White House (or out of Texas) in chains?
• High Crimes and Misdemeanors rant. Election fraud and voter ID. Transcript.

Topics, guests, upcoming events, quotes, links to articles, audio clips, books & bumper music.

Tuesday 29 April '08 show

• Article: Wright corrodes the message.
• Article: Is Jeremiah Wright a colossal disaster for Barack Obama or a press trick?
• The right wing is having a field day with the Reverend Wright, interesting at lots of levels. Obama's predicament now resembles McGovern's in 1972. His vice president turned out to have had ECT. But the Reverend Wright is not his running mate. Publishers offer much more to authors if they can get a publicity tie in, like the Reverend Wright. What can Barack Obama do?
• Hillary Clinton asking for Lincoln-Douglas style debate - i.e. a series. Thom says he should agree, under their rules - 1 hour each to speak, half an hour each to rebut, half an hour each to wrap up.
• Bumper Music: Give Me Some Truth, John Lennon.
• Article: The Pastor Casts a Shadow. "The Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Monday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him."
• Bumper Music: Learning to Fly, Tom Petty.
• Clip:
  "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'." Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson's Interview with Jerry Falwell, 15 September 2001 edition of The 700 Club.
• Clip:
  "What we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact, if in fact God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve." Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson's Interview with Jerry Falwell, 15 September 2001 edition of The 700 Club.
• Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson apologized later, the reverend Wright has not; it is defensible in context but not in sound bites.
• Upcoming Event: On Saturday, May 03 2008, 17:00 - 21:00 Thom is speaking on "State of Affairs for Progressives and Hopes and Dreams" at the Annual Recognition Dinner - Coos County Dem Party, Community Center Coquille, OR.
• Reverend Wright. AIDS. Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. It's political poison, swiftboating Obama.
• Bumper Music: Life Is A Highway, Tom Cochrane.
• Why did Obama stay in that church? It's an extraordinary church in the community he was working in. The AIDS and "God damn America" episodes were anomalous. Read some of his sermons on the web, similar to Robert Schiller's. Press Club Q&A problematic.
• Guest: Former Alabama governor Don Siegelman. Hour long interview. Transcript. Will this finally get Karl Rove frogmarched out of the White House (or out of Texas) in chains?
• Bumper Music: Say What You Need To Say, John Mayer (video).
• Bumper Music: Citizen of the Planet, Simon & Garfunkel.
• Transcript: Obama’s Remarks on Wright. What made Obama angry about Wright's remarks; saying that that he was simply posturing politically, when he is all about reaching across the divide. He's nor affiliated with AIDS conspiracies or divisiveneess, and disavowed Minister Farrakhan. He understands that the Reverend Wright was pained and angry, that he felt villified and attacked and wanted to defend himself. The timing and some of Wright's statements were a political diaster. Are other politicians being held to these standards?

  "You know, after seeing Reverend Wright's performance, I felt as if there was a complete disregard, for what the American people are going through and the need for them to rally together to solve these problems.

  You know, now is the time for us not to get distracted. Now is the time for us to pull together.

  And that's what we've been doing in this campaign. And, you know, there was a sense that that did not matter to Reverend Wright. What mattered was him commanding center stage...

  I want to use this press conference to make people absolutely clear that obviously whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this. I don't think that he showed much concern for me. I don't -- more importantly, I don't think he showed much concern for what we are trying to do in this campaign and what we're trying to do for the American people and with the American people.

  And obviously, he's free to speak out on issues that are of concern to him and he can do it in any ways that he wants. But I feel very strongly that -- well, I want to make absolutely clear that I do not subscribe to the views that he expressed. I believe they are wrong. I think they are destructive. And to the extent that he continues to speak out, I do not expect those views to be attributed to me."

• Thom ranted on the High Crimes and Misdemeanors of Karl Rove and the Bush Administration, violations of the oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and particularly election fraud and voter ID. Transcript.
• Bumper Music: Shout Out Loud, Amos Lee.
• Bumper Music: Talk to me, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac.
• While it may feel like Rove and Libby, who outed Valerie Plame, deserve to be in Guantanamo, it ought to be shut down. They should be in federal prison. We are civilized people and mete civilized punishment. They are incivilized.
• Bumper Music: Democracy is coming to the USA, Leonard Cohen.