Just as coverage of Barack Obama’s pastor and his controversial sermons began to fade, Hillary Clinton took a stand on the issue for the first time Tuesday, saying she would have left the congregation if her pastor behaved like Obama’s.

Clinton’s entry into the firestorm over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. came as she was forced to backpedal on her claims that she had landed under sniper fire during a goodwill trip to Bosnia in 1996. Obama’s campaign quickly accused Clinton of weighing in on the pastor issue only to distract attention from her own mis-statements on Bosnia.

“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,” Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said.

Though Obama has come under intense scrutiny for the anti-U.S. and racially charged sermons of his long-time pastor, until now Clinton has declined to make a political point of it.

She broached the topic twice Tuesday, first in a newspaper interview and later at a press conference.

“He would not have been my pastor,” Clinton told reporters in Greensburg, Pa.

“You know, we don’t have a choice when it comes to our relatives. We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend,” she said. “Everyone will have to decide these matters for themselves. They are obviously very personal matters … I think the choice would be clear for me.”

Echoing comments she made earlier in the day to The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the New York senator likened Wright to radio talk show host Don Imus, who was fired by CBS radio a year ago for calling members of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos” and who drew criticism for the remarks from both Obama and Clinton.

“I gave a speech at Rutgers, about a year ago, that was triggered by the Don Imus comments. And I said that it was time for standing up for what is right, for saying enough is enough, for urging that we turn a culture of degradation into a culture of empowerment, for saying that, while we, of course, must protect our right to freedom of expression, it should not be used as a license or an excuse to demean and humiliate our fellow citizens,” she told reporters.

FOX News contributor and Washington Examiner reporter Bill Sammon said Clinton likely entered the Wright fray because she was “having trouble extracting herself” from the criticism over her account of the Bosnia trip.

“I think it shows you how desperate she was to change the subject,” he said.

“Senator Clinton started the morning on defense … she went on offense on this,” Time magazine’s Mark Halperin told FOX News.

Some polls showed Obama’s support slipping at the height of the Wright controversy a week ago, when the Illinois senator gave a major speech in Philadelphia on race that addressed his church ties. Obama decried Wright’s sermons for not recognizing the progress that’s been made with regard to racial equality, but would not denounce the pastor himself.

Obama has said he was not in church when many of Wright’s anti-U.S. statements were made, but admits hearing remarks he found objectionable and knowing that Wright was controversial.

However, Obama is not the only politician this campaign season who has had brushes with the Chicago pastor. A photo posted on The New York Times’ Web site Thursday night showed Bill Clinton and Wright shaking hands at a White House prayer breakfast 10 years ago.

Meanwhile, Obama’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, is fighting back against the criticism heaped on Wright. Wright’s successor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, used his Easter sermons Sunday to compare Wright’s treatment by the media to the crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of the Romans. Church members claim Wright’s sermons, in which he said “God damn America” and blamed the U.S. government for introducing HIV into the black community, have been taken out of context.

Click here to read the article about Clinton’s take on Wright in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Click here to read about Wright’s canceled appearance at a Tampa church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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