Sharpsville = Waterloo

Get ready to hear that word --- Sharpsville --- over and over. It may prove to be Obama's undoing.

Earlier tonight on Fox News, Obama reiterated that he had never heard Wright's questionable sermons.

Earlier in the segment, they ran a bunch of new Wright video. You've seen "GD America" and "US invented AIDS" --- these clips were new. Now, I don't have the video here in front of me, but I clearly remember hearing Wright pound the pulprit about various grievances and one word thundered out.

"Sharpsville."

I'll find a transcript and or video later. For now take my word.

Why is this important? Look what Rich Lowry found in Barack Obama's memoir Dreams From My Father (pub. 1995):

The title of Reverend Wright’s sermon that morning was “The Audacity of Hope.” He began with a passage from the Book of Samuel—the story of Hannah, who, barren and taunted by her rivals, had wept and shaken in prayer before her God. The story reminded him, he said, of a sermon a fellow pastor had preached at a conference some years before, in which the pastor described going to a museum and being confronted by a painting title Hope. 

“The painting depicts a harpist,” Reverend Wright explained, “a woman who at first glance appears to be sitting atop a great mountain. Until you take a closer look and see that the woman is bruised and bloodied, dressed in tattered rags, the harp reduced to a single frayed string. Your eye is then drawn down to the scene below, down to the valley below, where everywhere are the ravages of famine, the drumbeat of war, a world groaning under strife and deprivation.

“It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!” 

And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded, though, the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate. The reverend spoke of the hardship that the congregation would face tomorrow, the pain of those far from the mountaintop, worrying about paying the light bill…

Obama said he never heard the offensive sermons Wright gave. Obama wrote that he heard Wright talk about Sharpsville.

Obama just lied to you.

(Of course, his fall back is the definition of "those controversial statements he never heard" and whether the Sharpsville one is included. He'll say it's not.)

UPDATE: Thanks, Ace. Dont' worry, no matter what Wright said, when he said it, or whether Obama heard it, Mickey Kaus pegs Obama's defense --- Void If Controversial:

"All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn." -- Barack Obama

How convenient. And utterly amateurish.

UPDATE (3-19-08): Wright's Sharpsville sermon found (video).

Comments

[Henry]

Nice job catching this lie by Obama. I just knew he was trying to play the fool on this one.

[Jon]

The audio for this sermon is available! Crazy stuff in there.

http://mp3.christianity.com/mp3/mp3repos32/MMYSEES/317_60682_JeremiahWright__TheAudacitytoHope82A.32.mp3

[Jon]

Link was broken. Click on my username to get the mp3 file.