Sen. Barack Obama’s (Ill.) campaign criticized Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) Tuesday afternoon for belatedly weighing in on the controversy over remarks made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
{mosads}Bill Burton, Obama’s spokesman, said in a statement that Clinton made disparaging remarks about Obama’s pastor in an effort to divert attention from the growing flap over the former first lady’s claim that she once dodged sniper fire in Bosnia. Clinton later said she “misspoke.”
“After originally refusing to play politics with this issue, it’s disappointing to see Hillary Clinton’s campaign sink to this low in a transparent effort to distract attention away from the story she made up about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia,” Burton said.
Clinton told reporters in Pittsburgh Tuesday that she would have left a church if the pastor had made inflammatory remarks like those Wright has made.
“He would not have been my pastor,” Clinton said. “You don’t choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.”
Obama found himself in a major controversy last week after video surfaced of Wright, the Illinois senator’s former pastor and spiritual adviser, making inflammatory remarks to a congregation about whites and the U.S.’s role in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The episode garnered so much media attention that Obama felt compelled to deliver a televised address on race and religion last week.
"The truth is, Barack Obama has already spoken out against his pastor’s offensive comments and addressed the issue of race in America with a deeply personal and uncommonly honest speech,” Burton said. “The American people deserve better than tired political games that do nothing to solve the larger challenges facing this country."