Huckabee says Obama's former pastor needs him to lose

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Former Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Wednesday Barack Obama's bid for the White House is not being derailed because he is black, but because his former pastor does not want him to show the country's race relations have progressed. Obama, a Democrat, has struggled in recent weeks to distance himself from incendiary comments made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "His (Obama's) campaign is not being derailed by his race, it's being derailed by a person who doesn't want him to prove that we have made great advances in this country," Huckabee told reporters. Wright has claimed AIDS was created by the U.S. government to kill "people of color" and that the September 11, 2001, attacks were spurred by the United State's "terrorism" against minorities at home and abroad. "Jeremiah Wright needs for Obama to lose so he can justify his anger, his hostile bitterness against the United States of America," Huckabee said.