Having The Wright Alibi

By Jim Lynch on Mar 17, 2008 in 2008

The whole blogosphere is abuzz with talk about Barack Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright, Bill Kristol’s column, and the dispute over Obama’s attendance.

But has anyone else noticed the irony of his “alibi”? He was speaking to La Raza.

So let me get this straight. He couldn’t be listening to his racist pastor because he was speaking to a racist group. Isn’t that like claiming you couldn’t have robbed the bank because you were busy sticking up the liquor store at the time?

2 Comment(s)

He was in Chicago in the morning.
Can he attend the session at 7:30, fly a private jet to Miami, and have speech at 13:30 ???

aa | Mar 17, 2008 | Reply
aaon 17 Mar 2008 at 5:01 pm
He was in Chicago in the morning.
Can he attend the session at 7:30, fly a private jet to Miami, and have speech at 13:30 ???

Short answer, it’s possible. Time for some math, with the caveat that the math neither proves nor disproves where in Chicago he was (the WaPo confirms that he was in both Chicago and Miami that day for campaign purposes, but we only have a time frame for the Miami appearance):
- It’s a tick over 1,200 miles as the crow flies between Chicago and Miami, so figure about 2 1/2 hours from Chicago to Miami by private jet (jets don’t quite fly a straight line).
- Throw in 1 hour of ground travel from the south side of Chicago to Midway airport, and from the Miami airport to the La Raza conference, and that’s 3 1/2 hours. More time would be needed if he were to have flown out of, say, Palwaukee (in the northwest suburbs).
- In order to make it to the conference by 1:30 pm (Eastern)/12:30 pm (Central), he would have had to leave Chicago by about 9 in the morning. It’s doable.
It’s just as doable for Obama to make it back to Chicago in time for the 6 pm (Central) service. The next speaker at La Raza was scheduled to start at 3:30 pm (Eastern)/2:30 pm (Central), which, assuming Obama left at that time, would have left 3 1/2 hours for the return trip.
Since the author of the original piece back in August 2007 noted there was a Secret Service detail, I guess an entrepeneuring blogger/journalist could make a FOIA request to see when his detail was in Chicago, and possibly where in Chicago that detail was.

steveegg | Mar 17, 2008 | Reply