Barack Obama yesterday denounced his former pastor, saying the minister's "ridiculous propositions" about AIDS and the 9/11 terrorist attacks contradicted "everything that I'm about and who I am."

Calling the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.'s most recent comments "a bunch of rants that aren't grounded in truth," a visibly angered Obama, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, accused his former pastor of enjoying his recent three-day media blitz at the expense of the campaign and the issues that confront voters.

"The reason that our campaign has been so successful is that we had moved beyond these arguments," Obama said at a news conference in Winston-Salem, N.C. The state will hold its presidential primary Tuesday.

Wright first became an issue in the Obama campaign last month when video clips surfaced of some of his most controversial sermons. Obama, in response, gave a major speech in Philadelphia on race relations, saying that he denounced the pastor's ideas but not the man.

Yesterday Obama angrily denounced Wright for "divisive and destructive" remarks on race. Remarking that "I did not vet my pastor before I decided to run for the presidency," Obama said Wright's latest comments "offend me, rightly offend all Americans, and they should be denounced. That's what I'm doing very clearly and unequivocally today."

Obama said he viewed the pastor's entire appearance Monday night, and, "The outrageousness of his performance during the question-and-answer period [in Washington] shocked me. I don't think anybody could attribute those beliefs to me."

On Monday Wright criticized the U.S. government as imperialist and stood by his suggestion that the United States invented the HIV virus as a means of genocide against minorities. "Based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything," he said.

And Wright suggested that Obama, his former church congregant, secretly concurs.

"If Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected," Wright said. "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls."

Obama stated flatly yesterday that he doesn't share Wright's views.

"Obviously, whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed," Obama said. "I don't think he showed much concern for me; more importantly I don't think he showed much concern for what we're trying to do in this campaign."

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he's done enormous good. . . . But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS. . . . There are no excuses. They offended me. They rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced."