WRONGING WRIGHT

UPDATE: America's most influential blogger follows in Milbank's footsteps.

Dana Milbank of the WaPo goes out of his way to promote the FAUX News misinterpretation of Pastor Wright. One of the worst comes in this passage:

Wright seemed aggrieved that his inflammatory quotations were out of the full "context" of his sermons -- yet he repeated many of the same accusations in the context of a half-hour Q&A session this morning.

His claim that the September 11 attacks mean "America's chickens are coming home to roost"?

Wright defended it: "Jesus said, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic divisive principles."

Milbank omits the fact that Wright was paraphrasing a former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Edward Peck. (Wright does claim he was "quoting" but as far as I can tell, that's a mistake.) This is the relevant excerpt:

MODERATOR: We do want to get in our questions. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.

I do want to repeat again, for those of you watching us on C- SPAN, that we do have a number of guests here today. And so the applause and the comments that you hear from the audience are not necessarily those of the working press, who are mostly in the balconies.

You have said that the media have taken you out of context. Can you explain what you meant in a sermon shortly after 9/11 when you said the United States had brought the terrorist attacks on itself? Quote, "America's chickens are coming home to roost."

REVEREND WRIGHT: Have you heard the whole sermon? Have you heard the whole sermon?

MODERATOR: I heard most of it.

REVEREND WRIGHT: No, no, the whole sermon, yes or no? No, you haven't heard the whole sermon? That nullifies that question.

Well, let me try to respond in a non-bombastic way. If you heard the whole sermon, first of all, you heard that I was quoting the ambassador from Iraq. That's number one.

But, number two, to quote the Bible, "Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever you sow, that you also shall reap." Jesus said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive principles.

I have not found a transcript of Ambassador Peck's remarks but Brit Hume does say that he mentioned countries that the U.S. mistreated:

Peck did make some foreign policy references in speaking about bombing Haiti, Cambodia and Panama — but said nothing about Hiroshima or Nagasaki as Reverend Wright also claimed.

For those of you who don't recall what we did to Cambodia during the Vietnam War, here's a little information.