Poll: Voters approve of Obama's handling of Rev. Wright situation

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Most voters think US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has done a good job handling the controversy surrounding his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, according to a poll released Sunday. In a CBS News/New York Times poll, 60 percent of voters - and 68 percent of Democratic primary voters - said they approved of the way Obama handled the situation. At a press conference in Washington last Monday, Wright praised Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and reiterated his beliefs that the US government may have developed the AIDS virus to infect the black community and that it had invited the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Obama denounced the remarks the next day. Three-quarters of voters polled said Wright's statements had not changed their opinion of Obama. And a majority of those polled - 56 percent - said the news media have spent too much time covering the controversy.