Conservatives charge that Obama used racially divisive language while addressing black clergy in 2007, and point to newly released video clips as proof. Democrats denounce the video as a ploy to counter
Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remarks.
Do newly released clips of a 2007 speech by then-
Sen. Barack Obama show him using racially divisive language? That's what conservatives are charging Wednesday after the right-leaning Daily Caller posted online the tape of the address, which Mr. Obama made to black clergy at
Hampton University in
Virginia.
In the speech Obama suggests that the Bush administration discriminated against hurricane Katrina victims by, among other things, not providing as generous terms for federal aid as
Washington did to
New York after 9/11 and to
Florida after hurricane
Andrew, because they were disproportionately minorities. That, he says, led to a "quiet riot" among
US blacks in the storm's aftermath. He gives a shout-out of welcome to his then-pastor, the Rev.
Jeremiah Wright. (The Rev. Mr. Wright's racially tinged rhetoric caused Obama to later renounce their association.)
Overall, Obama delivered his words in a preacher-like style he has seldom used in other public forums. Conservatives say that is yet more evidence that in 2007 he was pandering to his audience...