On the issue of race, both the McCain and Clinton campaigns have teamed up to pile up on Obama. It's ironic that Bill Clinton was gushing praise for Obama's minister in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, according to the New York Times. The photogrpah was provided to the Times by the Obama campaign, the newspaper wrote, noting: "In providing the photograph to The New York Times, the Obama campaign appeared to be trying to divert some attention to the Clintons after a week in which Mr. Obama’s relationship with Mr. Wright has left him facing one of the biggest challenges of his campaign. "

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and President Bill Clinton
at a prayer breakfast at the White House in September 1998.

During one of the most difficult periods in the presidency of Bill Clinton, he addressed a group of clerics at an annual prayer breakfast in September 1998 just as the Starr report outlining his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was about to be published.

Among those in attendance, was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who is seen shaking hands with Mr. Clinton in a photograph provided today by the Obama campaign. Mr. Wright’s relationship with Senator Barack Obama, as his longtime pastor, has been the subject of considerable controversy in recent days because of incendiary excerpts of sermons Mr. Wright gave at their church, Trinity United Church of Christ, in Chicago.

In providing the photograph to The New York Times, the Obama campaign appeared to be trying to divert some attention to the Clintons after a week in which Mr. Obama’s relationship with Mr. Wright has left him facing one of the biggest challenges of his campaign. There is nothing in the picture or the note that addresses whether Mr. Clinton had met Mr. Wright prior to the White House meeting or whether he or Mrs. Clinton knew anything about Mr. Wright’s views.

Asked for a response tonight through email, Howard Wolfson, a top aide to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, wrote, “Urgent indeed — a picture — oooooooo!”

Senator Clinton’s spokesman, Phil Singer, sent along this reply to a request for comment:

In the course of his two terms in office, Bill Clinton met with, corresponded with and took pictures with literally tens of thousands of people.

[NOTE: This is the same response Hillary gave when a photo turned up of her, Bill and Tony Rezko.]

Mr. Wright was invited to the 1998 prayer breakfast, and in addition, he received a thank-you note from former President Clinton for his expressions of support about six weeks later.

[NOTE: The Clinton documents clearly show the President regarded Rev. Jeremiah Wright as a religious "leader."]

According to an account by James Bennet, former White House correspondent who has since left The Times:

With tears in his eyes, President Clinton told a roomful of clerics this morning that he had sinned, speaking just hours before the world was presented a painstaking account by prosecutors of when, where and how.

Addressing an annual prayer breakfast at the White House, Mr. Clinton drew on the New Testament, the Yom Kippur liturgy and Ernest Hemingway as he made his most abject confession yet of personal failure, while declaring that he would defend and redeem his Presidency.

‘’I don’t think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned,'’ he admitted softly, saying that after resisting expressions of contrition he had reached ‘’the rock-bottom truth of where I am.'’
For the first time, Mr. Clinton also asked for forgiveness from Monica S. Lewinsky, on the day that the details of their intimate relationship — details that he had denied and struggled to suppress — poured out through the Internet, whose wonders as a tool of communication he has so often extolled.

Mr. Wright is not mentioned in the article. Also visible in the photograph is Vice President Al Gore.

And according to the newly released schedules of Mrs. Clinton by the National Archives of her years as first lady, she was in attendance, too.

Her schedule reads:

“Religion Leaders Breakfast (w/POTUS)” in the East Room from 9-10:30 a.m.

Format:
- The President and First Lady are announced into the East Room and proceed to their tables.
- The Vice President makes remarks and introduces The President.
- The President makes remarks and introduces Dr. Reverend Gerald Mann.
- Dr. Reverend Gerald Mann gives blessing.
- Breakfast is served.
- Following breakfast, The President opens discussion.
- Upon conclusion of the discussion, The President introduces Dr. Reverend James Forbes.
- Dr. Reverend James Forbes gives benediction.
- The President, First Lady, and Vice President depart.
PARTICIPANTS: Approx. 130 guests to attend.

The wording of Mr. Clinton’s thank-you note to Mr. Wright, dated Oct. 28, 1998:

Dear Pastor Wright:

Thank you so much for your kind message.
I am touched by your prayers and by the many expressions of encouragement and support I have received from friends across our country.

You have my best wishes.

Sincerely,
Bill Clinton

It is ironic that Hillary Clinton's campaign has made it quite clear that they are doing everything possible to spread the race-tinged controversy in hopes of getting Obama's super-delegates and uncommitted delegates to vote for her.

ABC News' Eloise Harper Reports: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign has strictly maintained a public position not to comment on Sen. Barack Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Many times, questions have been answered with -- "you will have to ask Senator Obama about that."

However at a Thursday press availability in Terra Haute, Indiana after a report surfaced that the Clinton campaign was pushing the Wright story to superdelegates arguing that the relationship hurt Obama's electibility -– Clinton refused to deny that her campaign was pushing the story.

When asked, Clinton ignored the Wright portion of the question and said “well my campaign has been making the case that I am the most electable that I have said that for a year or more that I am the person best able to make the challenges that our country faces as commander in chief.”

When Clinton was then asked specifically if her campaign was pushing the Wright story –- she shrugged and took the next question, ignoring the reporter.

Watch the VIDEO HERE.

Later, Clinton spokesperson Doug Hattaway told ABC News:"She was and is unaware of anyone on the campaign pushing [the Wright] issue with superdelegates. She wants anyone who is talking to superdelegates to focus on our message, which is that she's best prepared to be president and beat John McCain."

When asked if Clinton had asked her surrogates and those reaching out to superdelegates on her behalf to stay away from the Rev. Wright issue specifically, Hattaway told ABC News: "Since she is unaware of anyone doing that, I assume it hasn't come up."

"Clinton Doesn’t Deny Campaign is Pushing Wright Story to Superdelegates", ABC News, Mar. 20, 2008

Clinton Facing Narrower Path to Nomination

Mrs. Clinton’s advisers had hoped that the uproar over inflammatory remarks made by Mr. Obama’s longtime pastor that has rocked his campaign for a week might lead voters and superdelegates to question whether they really know enough about Mr. Obama to back him. Although it is still early to judge his success, the speech Mr. Obama delivered on race in Philadelphia to address the controversy was well received and praised even by some Clinton supporters.

In truth, in interviews, Mrs. Clinton’s advisers said that task was tough and growing tougher and that the critical questions were what would happen with Florida and Michigan and the possibility of developments involving Mr. Obama’s relationship with his spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

Finally, Mrs. Clinton’s aides hope that disclosures about Mr. Obama’s past like the one involving Mr. Wright could give superdelegates’ pause. ...

Mrs. Clinton’s advisers said they had spent recent days making the case to wavering superdelegates that Mr. Obama’s association with Mr. Wright would doom their party in the general election.

That argument could be Mrs. Clinton’s last hope for winning this contest.

"Clinton Facing Narrower Path to Nomination" by Adam Nagourney
with Kitty Bennett and Patrick Healy, New York Times, Mar. 20, 2008

It's also ironic that, despite years of blatantly racist Republican commercials against Democrat candidates, it took a Republican, Mike Huckabee, to stop and say "give Rev. Wright a break."

Huckabee says cut Jeremiah Wright 'some slack'

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who won Tennesee’s Republican primary, said that Americans should remember the South’s segregated past before judging the Rev. Jeremiah Wright too harshly.

Speaking yesterday on MSNBC's Morning Joe program, Huckabee said that statements made by Senator Barack Obama’s former pastor were unacceptable but understandable.

“I'm going to be probably the only conservative in America who's going to say something like this,” he said, “but I'm just telling you: We've got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, "You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus."

Huckabee, a former pastor, said that Obama should not be held accountable for his pastor’s “vitriolic” statements.

But he also said that Wright’s statements were lifted out of context.

“Sermons, after all,” he said, “are rarely written word-for-word by pastors like Rev. Wright, who are delivering them extemporaneously, and caught up in the emotion of the moment. There are things that sometimes get said, that if you put them on paper and looked at them in print, you'd say, ‘Well, I didn't mean to say it quite like that.’ ”

Huckabee, who grew up in the segregated South, added that if he had experienced the kind of discrimination African Americans have in American history, he would probably have become bitter.

“Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment,” he said. “And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had a more, more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.”

"Huckabee says cut Jeremiah Wright 'some slack' ", The Tennessean, Mar. 20, 2008