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Sunday: Barack Obama, left, arrives at Indianapolis International Airport. (AP Photo)

Barack Obama said Sunday he never sought Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s counsel on political issues and would “absolutely not” seek his advice on policy if he gets to the White House.

The Democratic presidential candidate said his retiring pastor built a wonderful church that “lived out the social gospel,” but ultimately Wright’s comments about the United States “over the last several months and over the last several years … are contrary to what I stand for and who I am.”

Obama has faced weeks of scrutiny over his relationship to his pastor of 20 years, and last month delivered a speech on race relations in the U.S. that grew out of demands that he define that relationship. At the time, Obama said he could no more divorce himself from the chief pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago than he could his white grandmother.

But after Wright appeared last week at the National Press Club and reaffirmed many of the anti-American positions he espoused from the pulpit — including blasting the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism and blaming the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on U.S. foreign policy — Obama denounced his former pastor.

“I did what I thought was right, which was denounce the words, not denounce the man,” Obama said of his earlier speech. “I think what really changed was he was going to double down on the statements he made before.”

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama repeated that he had not heard many of those positions while a congregant at the church, but he thought that Wright’s using the national platform that was given to him showed that “he didn’t have much regard for the moment that we’re in right now in the United States.”

“He put gasoline on the fire,” Obama said, describing Wright as someone who felt attracted to the national spotlight, but who used that position to divide the country, not unite it. He added that he disagrees with Wright’s views about the country, and considers the U.S. “a force for good in the world” despite its troubled history of race relations.

Obama said as a presidential candidate he thinks it’s fair for people to use this episode as an opportunity to “lift the hood and check the tires.”

The weeks of focus on Wright is in part responsible for a drop in the polls by Obama to Hillary Clinton among white voters. The latest polls show the gap has closed between the two candidates nationally, and polling in the two states holding primary elections on Tuesday show Clinton narrowing Obama’s lead in North Carolina and building her own lead in Indiana.

He also gave credit to Clinton for running a consistent race and said “she has one of the best brand names in Democratic politics.” But Obama criticized his Democratic opponent for promoting a summer gas tax holiday that he says will go right into the pockets of the oil companies.

Clinton said Sunday that she believes oil companies are manipulating the market to raise oil prices, and they should pay for the cost of a proposed gas tax holiday through a windfall profits tax.

“I am absolutely convinced that these record profits of the oil companies are a result of a number of factors beyond supply and demand. I think there has been market manipulation,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.” Clinton added that as president she would launch an investigation through the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, quit buying oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and “go directly at OPEC.”

Obama said he opposes the gas tax holiday because he supported a similar plan while a state senator in Illinois, and found that retailers just raised prices and consumers never benefited. He said the gas tax holiday just panders to voters, and noted that this is the second time Clinton has said she would use windfall oil company profits to pay for her proposed programs.

Asked to name an economist that agrees with her plan, Clinton said, “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”

The two candidates also clashed Sunday on foreign policy, with Obama joining Iran in condemning Clinton for saying the United States would “totally obliterate” Iran if it attacks Israel.

“It’s not the language we need right now, and I think it’s language reflective of George Bush. We have had a foreign policy of bluster and saber rattling and tough talk and in the meantime have made a series strategic decisions that have actually strengthened Iran,” Obama said.

Last week, Iran’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Mehdi Danesh-Yazdi, called Clinton’s April 22 comment “provocative, unwarranted and irresponsible” and “a flagrant violation” of the U.N. Charter.

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Clinton said in an interview with ABC. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Asked about her comments, Clinton said Sunday she had no regrets about her comment.
“Why would I have any regrets? I’m asked a question about what I would do if Iran attacked our ally, a country that many of us have a great deal of, you know, connection with and feeling for, for all kinds of reasons. And, yes, we would have massive retaliation against Iran,” Clinton said. “I don’t think they will do that, but I sure want to make it abundantly clear to them that they would face a tremendous cost if they did such a thing.”

Obama suggested Clinton’s comments were politically motivated.

“Senator Clinton during the course of the campaign has said we shouldn’t speculate about Iran, we’ve got to be cautious when we’re running for president, she scolded me on a couple of occasions on this issue, yet a few days before an election, she’s willing to use that language,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 at 11:43 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Top Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.