“Most recently, you heard some statements from my former pastor that were incendiary and that I completely reject, although I knew him and know him as somebody in my church who talked to me about Jesus and family and friendships.” Obama said that pointing out racial differences only makes it harder to “deliver on the big issues we face in this country,” which he said include health care, the slumping economy, terrorism and caring better for veterans.  Obama, whose mother’s family was from Kansas and his father from Kenya, said he was speaking “as someone who has little pieces of America all in me.”  He said schools should do a better job of teaching all students African-American history “because that’s part of American history,” as well as women’s struggle for equality, the history of unions, the role of Hispanics in U.S. and other matters that he suggested aren’t given enough attention.  “I want us to have a broad-based history” taught in schools, he said, even including more on “the Holocaust as well as other issues of oppression” around the world.

 And as to the Rezco issue  Chicago Tribune article

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama waited 16 months to attempt the exorcism. But when he finally sat down with the Tribune editorial board Friday [March 14, 2008], Obama offered a lengthy and, to us, plausible explanation for the presence of now-indicted businessman Tony Rezco in his personal and political lives. The most remarkable facet of Obama’s 92-minute discussion was that, at the outset, he pledged to answer every question the three dozen Tribune journalists crammed into the room would put to him. And he did.  Read interview