Questions about pastor fair game, Obama says

WASHINGTON — Sen. Barack Obama may have been hoping to move to the sunnier side of the campaign trail by declining to debate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton this week, but he discovered Sunday that won't necessarily do the trick.

In the same morning interview in which Obama said he wouldn't take his Democratic rival up on her challenge to debate for a 22nd time, he managed to engage presumptive Republican nominee John McCain on the subject of the economy.

And in the process of explaining his former pastor in that interview broadcast on "Fox News Sunday," Obama also allowed that the line of questioning was fair game, inspiring McCain to predict more to come.

The new round of arguing over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright came as the retired Chicago pastor launched a campaign to explain his pastoral philosophy, which he says has been unfairly characterized since Fox and other networks first began to air incendiary excerpts of his old sermons.

The subject is of special concern to the Obama campaign as it prepares for the Indiana and North Carolina primaries May 6. Polls suggest Obama may beat Clinton in Indiana, a feat that would go a long way toward deflating the argument he can't close the deal with white working-class Democrats. (Clinton was spending the day campaigning in North Carolina.)

But the Wright controversy is a hurdle for Obama in courting those voters and may have helped him decide to take questions from news reporter Chris Wallace on the Sunday morning program.

In that conversation, Obama said he thinks people were "legitimately offended by some of the comments" Wright made in the past, and he also said people have a right to consider those remarks in a political context.

"The fact he's my former pastor I think makes it a legitimate political issue," Obama said. "So I understand that."

McCain took him up on the offer immediately while campaigning in the Miami area, saying it was "beyond belief" that Wright had likened the Romans at the time of Jesus' crucifixion to the Marines and had suggested the United States was acting like al-Qaida under a different color flag.

Up to now, McCain had largely avoided talking about the incendiary views of Wright, saying he wanted to run a "respectful" campaign. He has even called on the North Carolina Republican Party to pull an ad that focuses on Wright.

But McCain took a different approach when he criticized Wright for, as the senator paraphrased him, "comparing the United States Marine Corps with Roman legionnaires who were responsible for the death of our savior, I mean being involved in that," and for "saying that al-Qaida and the American flag were the same flags."

McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, said he did not believe Obama shared those views and he was still against the ad in North Carolina. But he suggested the Democrat from Illinois had made the subject fair play.

McCain's remarks were a shift in tone. Just last week, he wrote to Linda Daves, the chairwoman of the North Carolina Republican Party, and said "in the strongest terms I implore you not to run this advertisement."

The party ignored his entreaty, prompting Democrats to question how hard McCain had tried to get the spot pulled. At the news conference Sunday, he said while he still did not believe the ad should run, he would not continue to try to be "the referee."

Some Republicans have worried that by not using the Wright issue, McCain was denying himself a potentially potent weapon.

But in recent days, McCain has stepped up his attacks on Obama on other fronts. He questioned Obama's association with William Ayers, a former member of the radical group Weather Underground.

And he also said of a supportive statement that a member of Hamas had made about Obama: "It's clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States."

He said that, while he wouldn't make an issue of Wright, he wouldn't be surprised if other people do.

"Sen. Obama himself says it's a legitimate political issue," McCain told Foxnews.com, "so I would imagine that many other people would share that view and it will be in the arena."

The Obama campaign said McCain had crossed the line of propriety he drew himself.

"By sinking to a level that he specifically said he'd avoid, John McCain has broken his word to the American people and rendered hollow his promise of a respectful campaign," spokesman Hari Sevugan said.

But McCain wasn't done there. He also went after Obama's stand on taxes.

"Sen. Obama wants to raise the capital-gains tax, which would have a direct effect on 100 million Americans," McCain said.

"That means he has no understanding of the economy and that he is totally insensitive to the hopes and dreams and ambitions of 100 million Americans who will be affected by his almost doubling of the capital-gains tax."

In the interview broadcast earlier, Obama said McCain's economics were amiss.

"He just went out there and not only wants to continue some of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations, he actually wants to extend them," Obama said.

Information from The New York Times was included in this report.