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Barack Obama looks on as he is introduced during a town hall-style meeting in Hickory, N.C., Tuesday, shortly after he addressed the controversy over his former pastor at length. (AP Photo)

Barack Obama went on a new offensive against his former pastor Tuesday, calling the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.’s remarks “appalling” and effectively breaking ties with him.

Obama used his strongest language to date to denounce Wright at a time when he’s still struggling to shake Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary race. Looking ahead to the nine remaining contests, analysts say Obama’s move could either pay dividends for the Illinois senator and douse the Wright controversy — or backfire.

“People are going to say that Barack Obama should have done this a long time ago, but what’s important in a political campaign is that you have done the right thing, and I think most Americans would agree that Barack Obama now has done that,” Democratic strategist Steve Murphy told FOX News.

Obama spoke at length about Wright between campaign stops in North Carolina. He said he was “outraged” by Wright’s remarks the day before at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

“All it was was a bunch of rants that aren’t grounded in truth,” Obama said, putting substantial distance between himself and the pastor, whose sermons put Obama’s campaign in a near-crisis state last month.

The last time Obama addressed the Wright controversy in such detail was March 18 in Philadelphia. But at the time, he said Wright still was “like family” and that he could not disown him. Wright officiated at Obama’s wedding, and one of his sermons was the inspiration for the title of Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope.”

Obama’s language was much tougher Tuesday, and he repeatedly said Wright wasn’t the same man he had met 20 years ago before joining Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Former Bill Clinton adviser and columnist Dick Morris said Obama’s stand Tuesday was a “good move,” because Wright continued to threaten his non-racial image as “a guy running for president who happened to be dark-skinned.”

“Wright has become the poster child for everything that white Americans fear in a black politician or pastor,” he said.

But Morris warned that Obama could still be held “hostage” by any member of his church’s congregation who might claim to have seen Obama listening to Wright’s controversial sermons.

Wright attracted criticism for telling his congregation that the government was responsible for afflicting the black community with HIV and for suggesting America provoked the Sept. 11 attacks with its foreign policies.

“Isn’t politics fun?” Morris added. “A couple months ago Obama was trying to prove he wasn’t a Muslim, and now the more he can prove that he doesn’t go to church, the better he’s going to do.”

Another trouble spot for Obama could be that he reacted in large part to what he saw as a personal affront by Wright. Obama said he was “angered” by Wright’s suggestion that he was engaging in political posturing by denouncing his sermons.

“What seems to be most insulting to him was that he was insulted by Rev. Wright, more than the comments that some people see as being unpatriotic,” Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers said.

Conservative critics continued to hammer Obama on Tuesday for staying with the church for nearly two decades, and again questioned whether he was really unaware of Wright’s controversial views before he spoke out on them.

Roll Call Editor Mort Kondracke said Obama now risks more backlash from Wright, thereby prolonging the unwelcome attention.

“It would not do Obama any good if Wright comes back and starts having a fight with Obama,” he said. “I’m not convinced it’s the end of the story.”

Wright has in fact shown a new willingness to take on the media, and to challenge Obama, over the public treatment of his sermons.

Wright, whose remarks first stirred national controversy more than a month ago, broke his silence on the matter Friday in an interview on PBS. He followed up with an appearance at an NAACP dinner in Detroit and then his address Monday before the National Press Club.

There he taunted reporters and claimed the furor over his sermons was an attack on the black church.

Obama disputed that Tuesday and said Wright only caricatured himself.

Even before Wright’s public appearances, the issue was gnawing at Obama’s campaign. At the Philadelphia debate before the Pennsylvania primary, Obama again endured questions about his ties to his former pastor. And the North Carolina GOP produced an ad last week that hit Obama for his relationship with Wright.

It is unclear whether Clinton will raise the Wright issue again before the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. As the controversy developed, the New York senator eventually made Wright a point of her campaign, saying she would not have stayed in the church if Wright were her pastor.

It’s also not clear whether Obama is considering leaving his church. He said Tuesday he was still a member, but that his relationship with the church has been strained as a result of the Wright controversy.

“When I go to church it’s not for spectacle. It’s to pray and to find to find a stronger sense of faith. It’s not to posture politically. It’s not to hear things that violate my core beliefs … and I certainly don’t want to provide a distraction to those who are worshiping at Trinity,” he said.

“As of this point I’m a member. I haven’t had a discussion with Reverend [Otis] Moss (the current minister) about it so I can’t tell you how he’s reacting and how he’s responding.”

Click here to read more about Obama’s criticism of Wright.

Click here to read a full transcript of Obama’s press conference Tuesday.

FOX News’ Bonney Kapp contributed to this report.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, North Carolina, Top Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.