And just yesterday it was revealed that the leader of The New Black Panther Party, Malik Shabbaz has endorsed Obama. Shabbaz said a few interesting things. Apparently the Nation of Islam believes that Obama is the chosen one spoken about in their theology. They believe he is the black man that will rule the world and restore Africa and black people to their rightful place as rulers over everyone else. And if that isn’t troubling enough, Shabbaz made it clear that his mentor Farrakhan has not only endorsed Obama, he is backing and supports him “”from a safe distance”.

So why hasn’t the media covered these revelations? What is it about Obama’s past that he finds the need to either hide from or run away from as fast as he can? Could it be his past experiences with Muslim theology? His father was Muslim. And we know that as a young child he was registered as a Muslim and bragged that he was able to speak Indonesian. Then when he matured a little and moved back to the United States his favorite book was The Autobiography of Malcolm X. In Obama’s autobiography, Dreams of My Father, he reminisced fondly about reading the official organ of the Nation of Islam, The Final Call.

I would occasionally pick up the paper [The Final Call] from these unfailingly polite men, in part out of sympathy to their heavy suits in the summer, their thin coats in winter; or sometimes because my attention was caught by the sensational, tabloid-style headlines (CAUCASIAN WOMAN ADMITS: WHITES ARE THE DEVIL). Inside the front cover, one found reprints of the minister’s [Farrakhan’s] speeches, as well as stories that could have been picked straight off the AP news wire were it not for certain editorial embellishments (”Jewish Senator Metzenbaum announced today…”).

“Dreams From My Father,” page 201

So we know that he is at least VERY familiar with the religion of Louis Farrakhan, long time friend of Obama spiritual mentor Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And both of these larger than life religious leaders have nothing but contempt and hatred for white people. And very probably Obama shares some of that belief, belonging to a supposedly Christian Church that believes above all else in the supremacy of Black Liberation Theology.

Perhaps that is why Obama now claims to the people in Kentucky that he is an active member in the Trinity Unity Church of Christ. Because if he can hoodwink the good people of Kentucky into believing that he is one of them he believes he can turn things around. But I wonder how many of the average Kentuckians accept that the Black Value System and Black Liberation Theology are the same things they learn and sing about on Sunday mornings?

Was Jesus really Black?

Nonetheless, this is Obama’s new strategy.

Obama Campaign Responds to Cross Flyers

“These fliers are part of the Obama campaign’s sincere effort to communicate the values of Senator Obama’s own Christian faith and the hope that people of all faiths and moral backgrounds will come together to address the needs of the ‘least of these’ in our nation and in our world. We’re using them (the fliers) primarily at American Values forums and other campaign events. We are very careful to not campaign within houses of worship and respect both the philosophical boundaries between the church and the campaign, and the very real Internal Revenue Service restrictions related to campaigns and houses of worship.”

So apparently Obama has decided that the bitter people clinging to guns and religion isn’t exactly the most appropriate campaign slogan. Obama is probably following an Axelrod maxim: When in doubt lie. So Barack now LOVES people that go to church. He respects them so much he is one of them now. He is an active member in church except for when anything controversial or insulting to ordinary Americans is going on. Then he is always somewhere else. Nothing like a cross in the background to add a little legitimacy to one’s credentials. Even if the real credentials are membership in a radical Afrocentric church with strong ties to The Nation of Islam.

I think it is about time that the press did it’s job and started asking Obama some legitimate questions . So that we can ALL put this Muslim thing behind us.

Here are a few sample questions to help them get started.

1) Has Barack Obama ever met Louis Farrakhan? If so, what did they talk about.

2) Does he admire Farrakhan like his spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright does?

3) Does Obama have members of the Nation of Islam employed on his Campaign or Senate staffs?

4) And finally, does Barack Obama agree with this characterization of Louis Farrakhan?

Transcript: Rev. Wright at the National Press Club

Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains. He did not put me in slavery. And he didn’t make me this color.

Perhaps the good people of the Kentucky press will ask Barack Obama these questions. After all, they deserve to know whether Obama is serious about his religion. Or is he just using the thought of it to hoodwink the folks of Kentucky into believing that he is one of them?

To this day, Barack Obama continues to insist he was shocked and surprised to discover that Reverend Jeremiah Wright had bizarre racist views.

Now Tom Blumer has discovered images of Wright’s radical newsmagazine Trumpet—and look who was featured on the cover of that magazine at least three times: BizzyBlog – Attention Stanley Kurtz, Re Obama, Wright, Trumpet: I’ve Got You Covered.

Here’s one of the images, featuring pictures of Barack Obama, Rev. Wright — and Louis Farrakhan. Isn’t that cozy?

And if you think Barack Obama didn’t know he was featured on this cover, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. — Via LGF blog

BELOW: THE NAMES OF ALL in that montage:

LGF readers have identified several of the other people on this cover:

Adam Clayton Powell — 1st row, 1st from left
Dick Gregory — 1st row, 2nd from left
Shirley Chisholm — 1st row, 4th from left
O. J. Simpson attorney Johnny Cochran — 1st row, 5th from left
Rosa Parks — 1st row, 6th from left
Rapper “Common” — 2nd row, 1st from left
Is that Robert Mugabe? 2nd row, 2nd from left
Luther Vandross — 4th row, 1st from left
Ozzie Davis — 4th row, 2nd from left
Lou Rawls — 4th row, 3rd from left
Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad — 4th row, 5th from left

Notice who’s missing? Martin Luther King, Jr.

Readers, who else?

NOW, more work must be done. We have that audio from last night — about which we are writing much more (and should have for you later today).

With this above in mind, listen again to this audio:

“Obama, The Fulfillment of Black Liberation”

Not my words or title. Those are the words of Malik Shabazz, head of the New Black Panther Party. Barack’s election will be the fulfillment of Nation of Islam theology. “As it was in the begining so it will be in the end.” So when a black man becomes President it is the sign that Africa will rise. Don’t take my word, hear the words for yourself.

malikzulushabazesq-2.mp3

LISTEN ESPECIALLY FROM 7:45 to end. To his description of the “Nation of Islam Theology.” THEY PLAN TO RULE ALL — and Obama’s faith and his spiritual advisers believe he is the new leader they have been expecting! …

[...]

Barack, at least while he was living in Indonesia, was raised as a muslim. But he left Islam behind. He was at best an agnostic during his teenage and young adult years. It was only after Harvard that he joined the church of Reverend Wright. But Barack did not join a Christian Church. He joined a church founded on the principle of black liberation. A theology that is the anti-thesis of mainstream Christianity. He was not taught, “in Christ there is no east or west, in Him no north or south.” To the contrary, he was taught and believed that there is a north/south split–a division between the white haves and the black have nots.

There is no denying Barack Obama is eager to put distance between himself and the likes of Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, and Malik Shabazz. But those gentlemen now know that they must hide their true feelings and understandings. They know that most Americans would not support the Barack Obama they know. But their rhetoric goes beyond seeking justice and equal rights for all black Americans. They embrace a theology that puts blacks above whites.

This is the disaster of Barack. Instead of transcending race, he has embraced and lived in the heart of a radical theology that preaches racial division and black dominance. I’ll stick with Martin Luther King. I want to be judged by the content of my character, not the color of my skin. Malik Shabazz certainly does not believe that. ..

ALSO in “Obama, The Fulfillment of Black Liberation” you will find links to previous stories we have done on the New Black Panther Party.

The filmmaker “hinted at a political conspiracy behind Wright’s recent, contentious attempts to justify his remarks.” Lee said, “It looks like he’s being paid to keep talking.”

“Jeremiah Wight needs to be quiet,” Lee said yesterday. “If he loves Obama he needs to shut up right now. It makes me question his motives for talking. I’m starting to wonder whether somebody has been contributing to the building funds of his church. Seriously.”

Of Wright’s sermon before a Dallas church on Sunday morning, before the evening Detroit NAACP dinner — in which Wright described his “public crucifixion” — the church’s minister told reporters that his congregants were thrilled to hear Wright again and enthusiastically supported his stands. So much for Spike’s conspiracy theory, although such “imaginative,” rationalizing explanations are common among Obamabots, and we do find them amusing.

Spike Lee is correct, however, that Wright should keep quiet (although we all know that Wright is so angry with Obama, he’s ready to do him in). Last night, Fox News anchor Brit Hume correctly noted that some truly shocking elements of the NAACP speech — including that black children’s brains work differently from white children’s brains, and that white college marching bands use “excellent European precision” — were overshadowed by the reporting of Wright’s Monday National Press Club Q&A. Therefore, Hume’s pundit panel discussed some of Wright’s Sunday NAACP speech — which, astonishingly, CNN “pundit” Roland Martin gave a “B” grade:

_______________________

Of note: We posted a four-part video of Wright’s NAACP speech in “Rev. Jeremiah Wright on PR Tour to Fight ‘Public Crucifixion’,” and CNN has a full transcript.

_______________________

A number of shocked experts have weighed in on the destructive, racist nonsense about left brain/right brain, including in this op-ed in the WSJ by Heather Mac Donald, a contributing editor of City Journal and the John M. Olin Fellow at the Manhattan Institute:

At the NAACP meeting, Mr. Wright proudly propounded the racist contention that blacks have inherently different “learning styles,” … [...]

How one learns from a teacher as “subject” by climbing on her, as opposed to learning from her as “object” — by listening to her words — is a mystery.

[O]ne thing is clear: Embracing the notion that blacks shouldn’t be expected to listen attentively to instruction is guaranteed to perpetuate into eternity the huge learning gap between blacks on the one hand, and whites and Asians on the other.

I can’t begin to describe how shocked I am by Wright’s racist differentiation between black and white children.

ALSO: It is clear, from the transcript of the NAACP speech, that these are theories that Wright has studied extensively, for years and years, and has SURELY spoken about before, probably countless times in his own sermons at Trinity — including sermons that both Barack and Michelle Obama had to have heard — and endorsed by their continuing presence, not to mention their many large donations to Wright’s church, the last in the amount of $26,000+ in 2007.

This portion of the Wall Street Journal article, “The Wright Side of the Brain” gets into Rev. Wright’s rationalizations for self-destructive behavior, crime, and the incarceration of blacks:

Approving of self-destructive behavior in school is just one part of the vast academic project to justify black underclass dysfunction. The academy has also singled out crime as authentically black, another poisonous idea that Mr. Wright appears to have embraced. In his NAACP speech, he mocked the tendency of “those of us who never got caught” to treat “those of us who are incarcerated” with disrespect. In other words, we all commit crime, but only some of us get nabbed for it.

This leveling argument recalls the bizarre doctrines of University of Pennsylvania law professor Regina Austin. In a widely reprinted California Law Review article from 1992, Ms. Austin asserted that the black community should embrace the criminals in its midst as a form of resistance to white oppression. People of color should view “hustling” as a “good middle ground between straightness and more extreme forms of lawbreaking.” Examples of hustling include “clerks in stores [who] cut their friends a break on merchandise, and pilfering employees [who] spread their contraband around the neighborhood.” It never occurs to Ms. Austin that these black thieves may have black employers who suffer the effects of crime — as do the larger neighborhoods of which they form the essential fabric. Officially incorporating crime into the black identity, as Ms. Austin and Mr. Wright do, is a pathetic admission of defeat and marginalization.

it was a shock, to me, to learn from Ms. Mac Donald that these nonsensical, racist, and divisive theories actually penetrate the mainstream, even the pages of the New York Times:

To understand how such ideas become mainstream, one need only read the front page of yesterday’s New York Times. There, television critic Alessandra Stanley thrills to the authentic voice of black America: Mr. Wright “went deep into context—a rich, stem-winding brew of black history, Scripture, hallelujahs and hermeneutics,” Ms. Stanley effuses. “Mr. Wright, Senator Barack Obama’s former pastor, was cocky, defiant, declamatory, inflammatory and mischievous.”

One might think that Mr. Wright’s promotion of the idea that black kids can’t sit still in class would raise some worries, even in a television critic. Surely Ms. Stanley would expect her own children to listen to their teachers. But the white elite’s desire to avoid charges of racism cancels out all reasonable reactions to dangerous nonsense when such nonsense comes out of black mouths. The coverage of Mr. Wright’s speeches beyond the Times has been just as silent about their crackpot Afrocentric pedagogy, meekly following the agenda that Mr. Wright set by asking instead whether the black church, and not Mr. Wright, was under attack.

Mr. Wright’s speeches have shown how quickly academic insanity becomes incorporated into practice. And now we may be on the verge of seeing such madness spread into the White House. The mainstream media have had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into questioning Mr. Obama’s affiliation with Mr. Wright. By now, Mr. Wright’s 9/11 and AIDS diatribes are well-worn — and Mr. Obama’s repudiation of them a no-brainer. It is imperative that someone ask Mr. Obama whether he, too, believes that the way to “fix the schools” is through Afrocentric curricula and double standards in student discipline, and whether he, too, believes that blacks only think with the “right side” of their brains. …

::::::::::::

Op-ed contributor Roland Nethaway wrote in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Wright’s point that the races are different, not deficient, brings up discredited theories of genetic differences among different races.

The American Anthropological Association declared years ago that all human beings are members of the same species, Homo sapiens, and that differentiating species into biologically defined “races” is a meaningless and unscientific way to explain differences and traits.

Nicholas Stojakovich wrote for Op-Ed News that “Rev. Wright’s remarks to NAACP on closer examination further polarize discussions of racism.”

Countless other experts have objected strenuously to Wright’s wild theories in his NAACP speech.

The core problem for us — as voters — is that Barack Obama, as well as his wife Michelle Obama, sat in that church for 20 years and listened to that gibberish and never saw fit to walk out.

I am left to conclude that — by their presence, their marriage by Wright, their children’s baptisms by Wright, the blessing of their $1.6M mansion by Wright, and their large financial gifts to Wright and his church — that the Obamas agreed with their pastor’s divisive, racist theories.

I am also left with the realization that Mr. Obama’s supporters have ready excuses for Obama’s active participation in such a racist, divisive culture.

Charles Krauthammer takes to task the “liberals” who’ve bought the various versions of Obama’s statements on Rev. Wright, and who make excuses for him:

On Tuesday, Obama declared that he himself was surprised at Wright’s outrages. But hadn’t Obama told us that surprise about Wright is a result of white ignorance of black churches brought on by America’s history of segregated services? How then to explain Obama’s own presumed ignorance? Surely he too was not sitting in those segregated white churches on those fateful Sundays when he conveniently missed all of Wright’s racist rants.

Obama’s turning surprise about Wright into something to be counted against whites– one of the more clever devices in that shameful, brilliantly executed, 5,000-word intellectual fraud in Philadelphia — now stands discredited by Obama’s own admission of surprise. But Obama’s liberal acolytes are not daunted. They were taken in by the first great statement on race: the Annunciation, the Chosen One comes to heal us in Philly. They now are taken in by the second: the Renunciation.

Obama’s newest attempt to save himself after Wright’s latest poisonous performance is now declared the new final word on the subject. Therefore, any future ads linking Obama and Wright are preemptively declared out of bounds, illegitimate, indeed “race-baiting” (a New York Times editorial, April 30).

“On what grounds?,” asks Krauthammer, echoing the common-sense reaction of most Americans.

This 20-year association with Wright calls into question everything about Obama: his truthfulness in his serially adjusted stories of what he knew and when he knew it; his judgment in choosing as his mentor, pastor and great friend a man he just now realizes is a purveyor of racial hatred; and the central premise of his campaign, that he is the bringer of a “new politics,” rising above the old Washington ways of expediency. It’s hard to think of an act more blatantly expedient than renouncing Wright when his show, once done from the press club instead of the pulpit, could no longer be “contextualized” as something whites could not understand and only Obama could explain in all its complexity.

There’s that word “expediency” again. And the American people get that too.

I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back while you tear down Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright. How dare you. How dare you. How dare you seek to reduce Jeremiah Wright, who’s one of the greatest Biblical scholars this nation has, to a 30-second sound bite and try to demonize him and trivialize him. You cannot do that.

Why does Barack align himself with so many radical religious leaders? Besides Rev. Wright, there are Father Michael Pfleger, closely associated with Wright and Farrakhan, and Rev. James Meeks, also close to Obama’s spiritual advisers. [PHOTO: Father Pfleger together with Louis Farrakhan.]

In a CNN interview aired April 28th, in defense of his close friend Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Fr. Michael Pfleger — whose church is in Chicago’s Southside — said that we must allow Rev. Wright to demonstrate who he “really is”:

Here’s a video sampling of who Fr. Pfleger really is.

As Larry Johnson wrote when he posted this video recently, it “speaks for itself”:

Larry wrote:

And let’s not forget the “Reverend” James Meeks. A homophobe who believes “nigger” is a term of endearment.

[...]

Each of these men have been listed by Barack’s campaign as religious advisers. So we are not talking about merely constituents who support Barack. We are talking about people that Barack has invited to be a part of his campaign. Which raises the more important question. Barack says he disagrees with their views. Okay. Then what are they advising him on? Fashion tips? Ethnic cuisine? Movies? And it is only as media attention is focused on their bizarre behavior that Barack’s campaign starts scrambling to erase them from the Obama website.

These clips demonstrate that it ain’t just a black thing. Pfleger looks like your typical white man to me. So we can conclude that saying crazy things from a pulpit is not caused by one’s skin color. It goes to the issue of character. Senator Obama has demonstrated a consistent pattern of reaching out to clergy who occupy the most extreme fringes of Christianity. Why does he do that?

To date, the only reason that Barack Obama hasn’t had to hold press conferences about his longtime relationships with these extremists is that the MSM hasn’t latched on to his associations.

But, the names of these extremists — and their words and the video clips — are being disseminated by the hundreds of thousands in e-mails among the nation’s voters, to both Republicans and Democrats.

Most Democrats who see these videos and hear about these extremists’ beliefs are aghast, and a sufficient minority of Democrats are so shocked that they realize that they cannot vote for Barack Obama in a general election, given these relationships.

All Republicans who see these videos realize one thing: That Barack Obama cannot, and will not, win the presidency, and that John McCain will be POTUS 44.

Unless we somehow get the Democratic leadership to wake the hell up, and realize that — even if they’re still dreamily imagining an Obama candidacy — they have not vetted this man sufficiently, and that they need to take a cold hard look at Obama. Before it’s too late.

:::::::::

Special thanks to V4Hill for securing the Red Lasso video of Fr. Pfleger on Monday’s CNN Situation Room.

________________________________

That’s right folks. We twisted his words. It’s all your fault. And it’s Hillary’s fault he said what he said too. He didn’t really say what he said. You twisted it! You twisted his twisted words. It’s really nice stuff, not bad stuff. You just are too stupid to understand Black Liberation Theology, dammit. No I mean GODDAMMIT. How could you twist all that loving stuff? You are despicable! Cut it out! All you goddamn Americans should apologize to Reverend Wright right now!

In his first wide-ranging interview since video clips of his inflammatory sermons were aired, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. defended himself over the controversy, saying that his words were twisted. [NO QUARTER READERS: The full interview will air Friday night on PBS's Bill Moyers Journal; Rev. Wright will also speak at a National Press Club breakfast Monday at 8:30 a.m.]

“I felt it was unfair,” Mr. Wright said, according to excerpts of the interview released Thursday. “I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons.”

In Mr. Wright’s sermons, he suggested that Americans bore some responsibility for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, saying “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” He also
blamed the government for the spread of AIDS among African-Americans, characterized the United States government as corrupt and referred to the “U.S. of K.K.K. A.”

He did not apologize or back away from his remarks in the interview, instead saying that people wanted to paint him as “some sort of fanatic.”

That settles it. It’s our fault.

Gee, Reverend Wright, we are sorry we stupid people got it all wrong and were a little bit put out. Let’s take another look so that we might get it right. We wouldn’t want to twist your words or anything. After all, we really appreciate that you removed the Hamas Manifesto from your web site now. No offense, Reverend Wright, but you don’t need any “paint” to look like a fanatic.

We know you didn’t really say these things.

We know you didn’t really say these things either.

Now, we don’t want to misunderstand that the Return to “68″ Movement stuff that’s being dropped all over the net has anything to do with the 1968 origination of your theology that you mentioned below a few months ago. We are just stupid that way, so let us know. We don’t want to twist it or anything. So thanks for correcting us.

I know you will be speaking to the National Press Club and you will be getting all cuddly with Bill Moyers this Friday night. So, I am just wondering: Will you tell them what you said below…or will you be changing it for now? I mean we want to know just how much we need to apologize for what you have said.

Give Barack Obama his due.  He has revived feelings and emotions that recall the Sixties.  But not all of the feelings and emotions of that era are good or decent.  Unless you are at least 53 years old, you have no real clear memory of the struggles of the period.  So I am guessing that most folks reading this blog only know the Sixties through movies and TV shows.

We are proud to present Flineo’s latest work.  It is brilliant.  It combines images of today with the words of yesterday.  

It is important to acknowledge that Barack is able to run for President today because of the civil rights movement that came to full flower in 1968.  It was a movement born in blood—Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy are among the most prominent and best-known martyrs.  But the Sixties also stands as the Ying and Yang of good and bad political movements.  On the one hand, King and Evers preached non-violence and defied the racists to attack them with clubs, dogs, guns, and mobs.  On the other hand there were groups like the Weather Underground, the Students for a Democratic Society, and the Black Panthers.  They advocated violence.

As a young boy living in Indonesia, Barack had no firsthand experience with, or knowledge of, this period of upheaval in the United States.  He learned about it later, in large measure from Frank Davis, a black activist and communist who favored the tactics of the Black Panthers over the non-violence of Martin Luther King.

And here is the critical point for us today.  Barack Obama has not surrounded himself with those who represent and espouse the views and vision of Dr. King.  He has cast his lot with the likes of Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers.  The hope he offers is not the hope of Dr. King.  Dr. King saw beyond skin color.  Barack has embraced a religious movement that is Africentric and prone to sharpen divisions between black and white.  That’s a movement I can live without.

From Good Morning America today on the ABC network:

Obama’s Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11
Obama’s Pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Has a History of What Even Obama’s Campaign Aides Say Is ‘Inflammatory Rhetoric’

By BRIAN ROSS and REHAB EL-BURI
March 13, 2008—

Sen. Barack Obama’s pastor says blacks should not sing “God Bless America” but “God damn America.”

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s south side, has a long history of what even Obama’s campaign aides concede is “inflammatory rhetoric,” including the assertion that the United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own “terrorism.”

In a campaign appearance earlier this month, Sen. Obama said, “I don’t think my church is actually particularly controversial.” He said Rev. Wright “is like an old uncle who says things I don’t always agree with,” telling a Jewish group that everyone has someone like that in their family.

Rev. Wright married Obama and his wife Michelle, baptized their two daughters and is credited by Obama for the title of his book, “The Audacity of Hope.”

An ABC News review of dozens of Rev. Wright’s sermons, offered for sale by the church, found repeated denunciations of the U.S. based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans.

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

In addition to damning America, he told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda’s attacks because of its own terrorism. [MORE BELOW.]

MORE FROM the ABC News story:

… the United States had brought on al Qaeda’s attacks because of its own terrorism.

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost,” he told his congregation.

Sen. Obama told the New York Times he was not at the church on the day of Rev. Wright’s 9/11 sermon. “The violence of 9/11 was inexcusable and without justification,” Obama said in a recent interview. “It sounds like he was trying to be provocative,” Obama told the paper.

[...]

“He has impacted the life of Barack Obama so much so that he wants to portray that feeling he got from Rev. Wright onto the country because we all need something positive,” said another member of the congregation.

Rev. Wright, who declined to be interviewed by ABC News, is considered one of the country’s 10 most influential black pastors, according to members of the Obama campaign.

Obama has praised at least one aspect of Rev. Wright’s approach, referring to his “social gospel” and his focus on Africa, “and I agree with him on that.”

Sen. Obama declined to comment on Rev. Wright’s denunciations of the United States, but a campaign religious adviser, Shaun Casey, appearing on “Good Morning America” Thursday, said Obama “had repudiated” those comments.

In a statement to ABCNews.com, Obama’s press spokesman Bill Burton said, “Sen. Obama has said repeatedly that personal attacks such as this have no place in this campaign or our politics, whether they’re offered from a platform at a rally or the pulpit of a church. Sen. Obama does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms. Like a member of his family, there are things he says with which Sen. Obama deeply disagrees. But now that he is retired, that doesn’t detract from Sen. Obama’s affection for Rev. Wright or his appreciation for the good works he has done.”

That was via Hot Air. And now U.S. News & World Report has added its own video:

And check out the Black Agenda Report, Obama’s privatizin’ Social Security adviser, and Hillary Clinton’s endorsement by Sen. John Glenn for her progressive space exploration policy:

• “blackagendareport.com – Holding Barack Obama Accountable“: “The presidential campaign of Barack Obama has become a media parade on its way to a coronation.” (BlackAgendaReport, another truthteller group, has been trying to hold Obama’s “feet to the fire” since 2003. The image alone is worth a click.)

• “Audiology of Hope 360: Special Topics in Health Care Reform,” by RonK Seattle: “[Obama's] Social Security wingman is an avid privatizer” — Harvard’s Jeffrey Liebman. “Liebman’s reputation: centrist alarmist and moderate privatizer.” (Yup, that’ll “unite the country” alright.)
• “HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM“: The diarist discusses Clinton’s detailed space policy plan, and Sen. John Glenn explains why he’s for Hillary Clinton: “Hillary released a science policy a month ago that includes a section on space policy. She is the first major presidential candidate that I am aware of to articulate in any detail what the government’s role in space should be…”

You know things are getting weird when you read Karl Rove’s op-ed in today’s WSJ and find your head nodding affirmatively! (I know that Rove is a rat, but he’s not stupid, and he’s a longtime observer of the political scene.) Rove believes that Obama “pivoted” on Tuesday night because he’s facing more effective accusations from both John McCain and Hillary Clinton on his readiness and his experience. Rove adds:

Mr. McCain can now question Mr. Obama’s promise to change Washington by working across party lines. Mr. Obama hasn’t worked across party lines since coming to town. Was he a member of the “Gang of 14″ that tried to find common ground between the parties on judicial nominations? Was Mr. Obama part of the bipartisan leadership that tackled other thorny issues like energy, immigration or terrorist surveillance legislation? No. Mr. Obama has been one of the most dependably partisan votes in the Senate.

Mrs. Clinton can do much more to draw attention to Mr. Obama’s lack of achievements. She can agree with Mr. Obama’s statement Tuesday night that change is difficult to achieve on health care, energy, poverty, schools and immigration — and then question his failure to provide any leadership on these or other major issues since his arrival in the Senate. His failure to act, advocate or lead on what he now claims are his priorities may be her last chance to make a winning argument.

Mr. McCain gets a chance to question Mr. Obama’s declaration he won’t be beholden to lobbyists and special interests. After Mr. Obama’s laundry list of agenda items on Tuesday night, Mr. McCain can ask why, if Mr. Obama rejects the influence of lobbyists, has he not broken with any lobbyists from the left fringe of the Democratic Party? Why is he doing their bidding on a range of issues? Perhaps because he occupies the same liberal territory as they do.

The truth is that Mr. Obama is unwilling to challenge special interests if they represent the financial and political muscle of the Democratic left. He says yes to the lobbyists of the AFL-CIO when they demand card-check legislation to take away the right of workers to have a secret ballot in unionization efforts, or when they oppose trade deals. …

[...]

These stands represent not just policy vulnerabilities, but also a real danger to Mr. Obama’s credibility and authenticity. He cannot proclaim his goal is the end of influence for lobbies if the only influences he seeks to end are lobbies of the center and the right.

Unlike Bill Clinton in 1992, Mr. Obama is completely unwilling to confront the left wing of the Democratic Party, no matter how outrageous its demands, no matter how out of touch it might be with the American people.

[...]

In recent days, courtesy of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Mr. Obama has invoked the Declaration of Independence, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Franklin Roosevelt to show the power of words. But there is a critical difference between Mr. Obama’s rhetoric and that of Jefferson, King and FDR. In each instance, their words were used to advance large, specific purposes — establishing a new nation based on inalienable rights; achieving equal rights and a color-blind society; giving people confidence to endure a Great Depression. For Mr. Obama, words are merely a means to hide a left-leaning agenda behind the cloak of centrist rhetoric. That garment has now been torn. As voters see what his agenda is, his opponents can now far more effectively question his authenticity, credibility, record and fitness to be leader of the free world. …