OBAMA DENOUNCES AND DUMPS REV. WRIGHT: Presidential candidate under heavy attack for pastor's inflammatory comments.

We don't say this lightly, but Reverend Jeremiah Wright could be the downfall of Barack Obama's bid for the presidency.

On Friday, Obama who's under heavy attacks from political rivals denounced inflammatory remarks from Wright, his former pastor, who has railed against the United States and accused its leaders of bringing on the Sept. 11 attacks by spreading terrorism.


In a blog posted on the Huffington Post, Obama wrote that he's looked to Wright for spiritual advice, not political guidance, and he's been pained and angered to learn of some of his pastor's comments for which he had not been present.


A campaign spokesman said later that Wright was no longer on Obama's African American Religious Leadership Committee, without elaborating.


"I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies," Obama wrote. "I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Reverend Wright that are at issue."


In a sermon on the Sunday after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Wright suggested the United States brought on the attacks.


"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Wright said. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."


In a 2003 sermon, he said blacks should condemn the United States.


"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."


Questions about Obama's religious beliefs have dogged him throughout his candidacy. He's had to fight against false Internet rumors suggesting he's really a Muslim intent on destroying the United States, and now his pastor's words uttered nearly seven years ago have become an issue.


Obama wrote on the Huffington Post that he never heard Wright say any of the statements that are "so contrary to my own life and beliefs," but they have raised legitimate questions about the nature of his relationship with the pastor and the church.


He explained that he joined Wright's church nearly 20 years ago. He said he knew Wright as a former Marine and respected biblical scholar who lectured at seminaries across the country.


"Reverend Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life," he wrote. "... And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn."


He said Wright's controversial statements first came to his attention at the beginning of his presidential campaign last year, and he condemned them. Because of his ties to the 6,000-member congregation church - he and his wife were married there and their daughters baptized - Obama decided not to leave the church.