Saint Sabina Raises the Roof on Obama’s Den of Political Tricks and Corruption
By Truthteller on May 8, 2008 at 6:58 PM in Alexi Giannoulias, Barack Obama, Chicago politics, David Axelrod, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., Richard Daley
So Mayor Richard Daley and Reverend Michael Pfleger decided it was time for everyone to begin “Raising the Roof for St. Sabina.” Too bad their little fundraising scheme also raises the roof on the Barack Obama campaign’s den of political tricks and corruption.
Just view some of the names on this list of fundraisers (enlarged in the image to the right):
- Richard Daley, the corrupt Obama backer behind
the Hired Truck Scandal, an elaborate network of cronyism and corruption that rocked Chicago City Hall in 2004, 2005 and 2006;
- David Axelrod, Lead Strategist of the Obama campaign and Political Consultant to Richard “Hired Truck” Daley who also served as Consultant for Exelon, the Illinois nuclear giant whose lobbyists convinced Obama not to regulate companies that contaminated groundwater with radioactive toxic waste; and
- Illinois state Treasurer Alexei Giannoulias, whose bank, the Broadway Bank, granted loans to known mobsters and to indicted political fixer and Obama patron Antoin “Tony” Rezko.
Mobster banker Giannoulias also moonlights as one of the Obama campaign’s top bundlers. Dirty money, it seems, does not travel far in the city of Chicago.
But this is not a story of the circulation of funds in an elaborate labyrinth of cronyism and corruption; this is also a narrative of the circulation of words in a coordinated network of events and characters who desire to elect Barack Obama President of the United States.
| You recall Father Michael Pfleger, the quack cum Catholic priest on Chicago’s south side who exhorted parishioners during a rally to “snuff out” legislators who defended the right to bear arms. Although Pfleger was admonished by the Chicago Archdiocese for his incendiary rhetoric, he remained a close affiliate of Daley, Giannoulias and Axelrod, all of whom are close associates of Barack Obama. |
Pfleger is also a close associate of Obama’s pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan, who spoke at St. Sabina Church on May 25, 2007.
In fact, Pfleger is so close to Wright, he has served as an intermediary between Wright and Obama after the two reached an impasse after Obama denounced Wright during the latter’s series of entertaining press conferences. Here is the report of CBS News Chicago:
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports Obama felt betrayed and Wright felt sand-bagged. Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church said he has been speaking to both men as the events of the past 24 hours unfolded.
He counseled Obama Tuesday morning, and while CBS 2 talked to him Tuesday evening, Rev. Wright called his cell phone.
“I don’t think he had any intention to hurt Barack. He loves Barack,” Pfleger said. “I think the pain and the moment took over.”
That moment was in a place Pfleger called “a lion’s den” – The National Press Club.
“The people who were close to him pleaded with him not to do it,” said WVON radio host Roland Martin. “We knew what the questions were gonna be, but it really was the antics, the looks the dismissive tone, the strut. It was being flippant, some say being pompous and arrogant.”
That appearance Monday was far from a pastor’s comfort zone, like St. Sabina on the South Side, the site of Wright’s first appearance after his words drove a wedge between him and Obama.
Fr. Pfleger says Wright’s first instinct Monday was to defend his reputation.
“Sometimes you get caught up in the emotional response because you’re hurt, because you’re injured,” Pfleger said.
Mayor Richard M. Daley called the current flap a dangerous distraction.
“You better believe it; you cannot have distractions in any campaign,” Daley said.
So Pfleger had to serve as mediator between Wright and Obama during the Wright spectacle last week, and Daley felt obliged to assess the whole affair. Not mentioned in this article is David Axelrod, the same Axelrod who simultaneously serves as Chief Strategist of the Obama Campaign and as a member of the “Raising the Roof for St. Sabina” board, the board that ensures that Pfleger’s house of worship and source of income will remain intact.
This fiduciary relationship between Pfleger, Obama, Wright, Axelrod and Daley raises a few questions:
- Did Axelrod coordinate the impasse between Wright and Obama?;
- Did Axelrod ask Wright to humiliate himself on national television in order to mobilize the African-American base while Obama placated white voters with his sanctimonious repudiations of Reverend Wright?; and
- Did Pfleger, an outspoken Obama supporter and Obama contributor who is the beneficiary of Obama’s state legislative activity and of Axelrod’s fundraising prowess, serve as intermediary between Obama and Wright as Axelrod coordinated their bifurcated strategy to mobilize African-American supporters while pandering to white voters who were abandoning Obama en masse after seeing Wright once again on their television screens?
And what is one to think of the membership of Axelrod, Daley and Giannoulias on the “Raising of the Roof for St. Sabina” fund when one learns that Pfleger donated to Obama’s various political campaigns after that church received state grants Obama announced?
Not only is money circulated within a tightly knit but complicated network of corruption and cronyism in Chicago; the actions of all those involved appear to be staged and coordinated by David Axelrod.
Just raise the roof of Pfleger’s St. Sabina Church. What one sees below is a snake pit of corruption starring Axelrod, Daley, Farrakhan, Obama, Pfleger and Wright. The chickens, I guess, come home to roost in Pfleger’s radicalized and marginalized St. Sabina Catholic Church.
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