UPDATE
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Politics Digest
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 04139.html
Friday, June 12, 2009
'ZIONISTS'
Wright Says He Didn't Criticize All Jews
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Obama's former pastor, on Thursday amended his comments blaming "them Jews" for keeping him away from the president.
He had meant to refer to "Zionists" and not all Jews, he said in an interview on Sirius Satellite Radio's "Make It Plain" with Mark Thompson.
"Let me say, like Hillary, I misspoke," said Wright, who was in Hampton for a ministers conference. "Let me just say: Zionists."
"I was walking from a worship service to my car, trying to talk rapidly, trying to explain, answer this guy and trying to get him off the Barack Obama kick," Wright said.
"Them Jews won't let him talk to me," Wright had earlier told columnist David Squires of the Daily Press in Newport News, Va. "I told my baby daughter, he'll talk to me five years from now when he's a lame duck or in eight years when he's out of office."
The partial retraction came on the heels of a news release Wednesday in which Wright pronounced himself, in all capital letters, "EXTREMELY DISTURBED AND DEEPLY SADDENED THAT ONCE AGAIN MY COMMENTS HAVE RESURFACED THIS DIVISIVE DEBATE ABOUT MY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MYSELF AND PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA." He continued: "I APOLOGIZE FOR THE WAY I FRAMED MY COMMENTS."