Free Republic

We are part of the many Democrats that will definitely vote for John McCain if Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination to run for president. We would love to have our economy and national image restored to at least what it was during the Clinton years of presidency, but Barack Obama is not the answer. Obama speaks politics and not what he believes. He only says what he must to win. Actions speak louder than words. He does not respect America -- won't wear a flag on his lapel, won't put his hand over his heart during the pledge of...

In August 1999, Barack Obama strolled amid the floats and bands making their way down Martin Luther King Drive on Chicago’s South Side. Billed as the largest African-American parade in the country, the summer rite was a draw over the years to boxing heroes like Muhammad Ali and jazz greats like Duke Ellington. It was also a must-stop for the city’s top politicians. Back then, Mr. Obama, a state senator who was contemplating a run for Congress, was so little-known in the community’s black neighborhoods that it was hard to find more than a few dozen people to walk with...

Will Barack Obama's presidential candidacy serve his state and city by finally drawing national attention to the sleazy and corrupt politics of Illinois and Chicago? It is all about context. The presumptive Democratic presidential candidate's politics were born in Chicago. Yet he is presented to the nation as not truly being of this place, as if he floats just above the political corruption here, uninfected, untouched by the stain of it or by any sin of commission or omission. It is all so very mystical. Perhaps viewing Obama as a Chicago political creature would conflict with the established national media...

Within just the last few weeks, there was a female MSM journalist [as I recall, she may have been covering the Obama campaign] who said something to the effect that Obama & William Ayres were "much friendlier" or "much more friendly" than the American people realized, and that "everyone in the press" knew about it [but with the implication being that those in the know were determined to censor the knowledge and keep it from being disseminated to the American people]. I only saw this reported on one obscure blog site somewhere [maybe within the last ten days or so],...

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Activists fear gay African-Americans are being targeted for murder. Two openly gay men were killed recently on the South Side, as CBS 2's Mike Parker reports. African-American gay and lesbian groups are talking about the murders of two openly gay Black men in the past month. On November 17, 24-year-old Larry Bland was shot to death in his Englewood home. Bland, a security guard at Northwestern Hospital was shot more than once after struggling with a man who had entered the house through an unlocked basement door. Then on December 23, 47-year-old Donald Young, the choir director...

HOW DO we even begin to measure the degree of crassness embodied in Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s failure to show up at Wednesday’s Days of Remembrance Holocaust Observance at the Old State Capitol? There simply is no metric for an act of omission that so clearly demonstrates this governor’s lack of respect for so many things: for those who planned and participated in Wednesday’s event, for the history it represents, for the very office that he holds. The Holocaust observance is a 27-year tradition that, until 2004, always had featured the governor in attendance. Blagojevich missed it in 2004 because he...

A Chicago pol's wife gets a 200 grand salary bump (almost tripling her compensation) and a year later hubby seeks to channel a million bucks to the wife's employer. Good old time Chicago poltics, right? Apparently not, because the candidate in question is running on a platform of change, and he seems like such a nice fellow. Leon H. Wolfe of Redstate is being awfully judgmental here isn't he? Barack Obama, allegedly decent guy and agent of "change" in Washington, requested an earmark in 2006 for $1 million taxpayer dollars for the hospital where his wife works. Said hospital, by...

CHICAGO -- Michelle Obama gave a hint of what her portfolio may be if she becomes first lady at a fund-raiser Friday for Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). Former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson -- of Plamegate fame -- who has been stumping for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) -- was also a featured speaker. Obama suggested that if she were to become first lady, she would take on women's and family issues, prompted by the stories she has been hearing from females on the campaign trail. "And if I have the honor of becoming the next first lady, I want...

Both sides rest at Rezko trial; no defense witnesses calledBy MIKE ROBINSON Associated Press Writer Posted on Mon, May. 05, 2008 CHICAGO --Less than two hours after prosecutors rested their case Monday in political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko's fraud trial, defense attorneys did the same without calling a single witness. It is not unusual for the defense portion of a major criminal trial to be fairly short, though attorneys often call at least a few witnesses. "We do not believe the government has met their burden in proving the charges against Mr. Rezko," chief defense counsel Joseph J. Duffy told...

To the question of the moment--What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it?--I answer, Obama knew everything, and he's known it for ages. Far from succumbing to surprise and shock after Jeremiah Wright's disastrous performance at the National Press Club, Barack Obama must have long been aware of his pastor's political radicalism. A careful reading of nearly a year's worth of Trumpet Newsmagazine, Wright's glossy national "lifestyle magazine for the socially conscious," makes it next to impossible to conclude otherwise. Wright founded Trumpet Newsmagazine in 1982 as a "church newspaper"--primarily for his own congregation, one gathers--to "preach...

Heavens to Murgatroyd! Chris Matthews has reduced Hillary Clinton to a cartoon character. Snagglepuss to be precise. "Exit stage left" was one of the Hanna-Barbera animation's catchphrases, and Matthews used it to wonder whether Hillary was prepared to leave the presidential race, given her flagging political fortunes. Here's how Matthews put it at the top of today's Hardball: CHRIS MATTHEWS: Meanwhile, listen carefully. That sound you hear is the slow falling of electoral delegates, of superdelegates, to Barack Obama. Seven more came aboard today. So with Obama way ahead in elected delegates, now trails Hillary Clinton by only four-and-a-half superdelegates....

Postcards with a picture of a handgun and children as targets started appearing in mailboxes and on windshields in a few central Lake County towns this week. The postcards, distributed by representatives of the Brady Campaign, a national gun control advocacy group, criticize Republican state Rep. Sandy Cole of Grayslake for voting against legislation that would require background checks on all handgun sales. "She is against universal background checks," said Jennifer Bishop, Illinois Million Mom March national program director for victims and survivors while handing out leaflets Thursday outside Cole's Grayslake office. "This bill is an extra layer of protection."...

The Chicago Tribune, which once employed Barack Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, is refusing to publish the truth about a Weather Underground terrorist bombing that killed a policeman. The paper apparently does not want to tarnish the image of Obama friends Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who were allegedly part of or had direct knowledge of the bombing plot that also injured several other police officers. The Tribune considers Ayers an education expert and has published various articles by him. Please help Accuracy in Media expose the Tribune's cover-up. I sent a copy of the following email message to Tribune...

Rockford, IL, May 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Rockford abortuary has made the demonic side of the abortion industry readily apparent to the public by decorating its facility with a nun in a coffin, a crucified rubber chicken, and a set of sacred images arranged in a voodoo-style altar.Kevin Rilott, an Illinois pro-life activist who has often prayerfully protested in front of the Rockford Northern Illinois Women's Center (NIWC) abortuary that features the sacrilegious display, hopes that images of the offensive exhibition will expose the evil carried out at the facility."This clinic affects the lives of thousands of Rockford...

Barack Obama has finally distanced himself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright after a 20-year relationship, but the pastor who is replacing Wright at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ is likely to be just as controversial. New Trinity pastor Otis Moss has called Biblical patriarch Abraham a “pimp” and made other statements many would consider offensive. After Obama called Wright’s comments “divisive and destructive,” a questioner noted that Rev. Moss has defended Wright and asked if Obama would continue attending the church.

Americans are well acquainted with presidential candidate Barack Obama’s legendary pledges to bring “change” to America’s political and social landscape. (For example, see here and here and here.) Indeed, “Change We Can Believe In” is the slogan that adorns the homepage of his campaign website and so many of the placards displayed by the supporters who attend his speaking engagements. His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, is also well practiced at issuing calls for change. Her “Change and Experience” ad campaign was but an outgrowth of her 1993 declaration, as First Lady, that “remolding society is one of the great challenges...

"...Obama, to be sure, does not seem to share the racial hang-ups of his South Side supporters. In his often-insightful autobiography, Dreams From My Father (1995), he dismisses the black-power movement as a “corrosive force” that denies individual identity in its vision of blacks as constant victims. But if Obama is unwilling to accept all the convictions of the black community, neither is he prepared to sever his ties with those who, like Fr. Pfleger, shamelessly stoke racial tensions and undermine Obama’s sincere efforts to move past the struggles of old." "...And there may be more at issue than the...

Right now Illinois and Wisconsin are the only two states in the U.S. that entirely outlaw citizens carrying concealed firearms. But two board members are pushing a proposal to change that, starting with Winnebago County. Looking back at recent tragedies like the N.I.U. shooting prompts many of us to ask what could have been done differently. "If there had been a person there, who was of age and who had met the qualifications and chose to have concealed carry and the campus didn't have a problem with it, you might not have as many people dead today as you do...

CHICAGO — Chicago police say a man died as he tried to shield his four-year-old daughter from an auto allegedly driven by a man under the influence of a controlled substance. Joseph Richardson was walking his daughter Kaniyah to a McDonald's for burgers late Monday when a car jumped the curb. Police say the 39-year-old Richardson grabbed his daughter just before the car slammed the two into a fence.

When some parents at Prairie View Middle School asked for a separate lunch table for their children during the Ramadan fast, Principal Joel Martin thought the request seemed reasonable. As long as the gathering of fasting students didn't disrupt and didn't cost the district anything, Martin had no qualm with offering the religious accommodation. » Click to enlarge image Ryan Vandewiel collected about 60 signatures on a petition at Prairie View School to have the administration set aside lunch tables for practicing Catholics during the Lenten season. (Carol Dorsett/SouthtownStar) If you go ... The Kirby School District 140 board will...

Until recently, Barack Obama's presidential campaign was premised on the future. The senator from Illinois orated floridly about bringing "change" to the country; a New Political Man, he pledged to soothe the feuds of old and usher in a national reconciliation amid troubled times. With the emergence of divisive figures like Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's longtime friend and acerbically Afro-centric pastor, the focus has shifted to the past, and with good reason. As FrontPageMag.com senior editor Jacob Laksin discovered in his recent reporting from Chicago's South Side, the predominantly black community where Obama launched his political career in the eighties...

There is a huge blogswarm going on about this photo, from Chicago Magazine, of Obama's unrepentant terrorist associate, Bill Ayers stomping on the American flag. The photo was taken in 2001, the same time Obama served on the Woods Fund Board with Ayers. This was also the same time that Ayers donated to Obama's campaign. ... many political bloggers are saying it is long past due for Obama to disown his association with this controversial radical. ... It's worthy of recycling this to further probe into Obama's judgment, the one thing he says he should be measured by.

Listen up drivers! If you're planning routes that include highways in Illinois, be especially alert through construction areas. That's because a state program there has assembled a squadron of white photo speed enforcement vans that are loaded up with the latest in photo radar technology that are to be used in those locations. The vans are set up to record the speed of vehicles and "capture clear images of the driver and the license plate." The result, state officials say, is like other photo radar programs in that citations for speeders are sent by certified mail requiring a court appearance,...

Barack Obama made an impassioned appeal to voters last night to end Hillary Clinton's dreams of another comeback in the race for the White House. The Illinois senator told Democrat voters heading to the polls today in Indiana and North Carolina: "I need help." With less than a month to go before the state-by-state vote ends, the Obama camp is desperate to finish off Mrs Clinton's campaign to become the Democrat's presidential nominee. Barack Obama is desperate to beat Hillary Clinton, so much so that he is counting on support from celebrities including Tom Hanks. Mr Obama, 46, also broke...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama's standing has been significantly damaged by the controversy over his former pastor, according to USA Today/Gallup poll published on Monday. The poll showed Hillary Clinton leading Obama 51 percent to 44 percent nationally among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent voters, in contrast to a CBS News/New York Times survey released on Sunday that had Obama leading Clinton by 12 points. Clinton and Obama face voting contests on Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana, the next steps in their battle for the Democratic presidential nomination to take on presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in...

In the 1990s, it was often noted that a great many of Bill Clinton's friends were either dead or in jail. Similarly, Barack Obama seems to curry favor with some very questionable characters ... Granted, in some cases Obama disavows them (he sort of did this with Rev. Wright's comments). In other cases, he has not sought their endorsement (such as anti-semite Louis Farrakhan) -- but ultimately, people have to wonder what it is about Obama that attracts the support of Hamas, Communists, and domestic terrorists to him .... This subject came up in last night's debate when a question...

A 2001 photo of William Ayers, an associate of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, shows the former terrorist stepping on an American flag. The photo was taken to promote Ayers’s book, “Fugitive Days” and published by Chicago Mag for their August 2001 issue. As Obama has gained national prominence as a Democratic presidential contender media figures have questioned his relationship with Ayers. Ayers once hosted a fundraiser for Obama and the two have served together on the board of a philanthropic organization. In a nationally televised debate Obama compared his friendship with Ayers to that of conservative Republican Sen. Tom...

WASHINGTON—In March, inspectors checking Chinese seafood arriving at U.S. ports made some unsettling discoveries: fish infected with salmonella in Baltimore and Seattle, and shrimp with banned veterinary drugs in Florida. Meanwhile, a shipment intercepted in Los Angeles on March 19 and labeled "channel catfish" wasn't catfish at all, though records don't say what it was. "A lot of those products coming in from overseas, you have no clue as to what is in them," said Paul Hitchens, an aquaculture specialist in Southern Illinois, where cut-rate Chinese catfish are threatening the livelihood of fish farmers. China rapidly has become the leading...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq on Monday signed two deals worth $5 billion to buy 40 planes from Boeing and 10 planes from Canada's Bombardier to upgrade Iraqi Airways' aging fleet. The deals were signed by Finance Minister Bayan Jabr in a ceremony attended by Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as well as U.S., British and Canadian diplomats. The first Boeing plane will be delivered in 2013, Jabr said, while the Canadian company will start delivering the planes later this year.

Black Liberation Theology... "Black Theology refuses to accept a god who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against the white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of the Black theology is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community..." ...I'm not sure how much of this theology that Obama is aware of and subscribes to, however I severely doubt that he is clean of this theology since he has apparently been going to this church for 20...

May 4, 2008 -- The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's loose cannon of a spiritual adviser, stole the wife of a parishioner - after the man sought Wright's help in saving his troubled marriage, the former husband told friends. Delmer Reed, 59, confided to pals that he believed the minister moved in on his wife while Wright was counseling the couple at his Chicago church in the early 1980s, The Post has learned. "That's exactly how he said it," Reed's divorce lawyer, Roosevelt Thomas, told The Post. "It looks like Delmer might have been right," he said, because after Delmer...

Corruption trial hears of plot to fire prosecutor By Andrew Stern Reuters CHICAGO A witness at the trial of political fundraiser Antoin Rezko testified on Thursday that then-White House aide Karl Rove was asked to replace the federal prosecutor in Chicago to abort a probe of Illinois corruption. Rove has denied knowledge of any discussion to replace Patrick Fitzgerald, the widely respected U.S. attorney in Chicago, when Rove was one of President George W. Bush's top advisers. Rove, who left the White House last year, could not immediately be reached on Thursday. A spokesman for Fitzgerald, who was appointed in...

Jeremiah Wright's recent media blitz has complicated Barack Obama's efforts to secure the Democratic presidential nomination. To describe Jeremiah Wright as charismatic is to understate his extraordinary magnetism, which drew Barack Obama to Christianity twenty years ago. Sure, Wright is a divisive figure, but he's a uniter as well - embracing embracing gays and lesbians as well as militant Black Muslims, and building a kind of rainbow coalition of the excluded, which inspired Obama (and countless others) to go forth and perform good works. In turning on his pastor, Obama claims that Wright has changed. Could it be that Obama...

Fifty-four shootings in two weekends. Shot-up bodies recovered in groups of three and five. Is this Ramadi? Basra? No. Welcome to Chicago. After a recent outbreak of gun-related violence, Mayor Richard Daley is now pushed into supporting a plan by new Police Superintendent Jody Weis to arm 13,000 Chicago police officers with assault rifles. Depending on how many weapons are eventually deployed, this may develop into the largest militarization of police patrol officers in United States history. If the department arms 10,000 of their officers with M4s, the police will have 9,900 more assault rifles in Chicago than the U.S....

JERUSALEM – More pastor problems for Sen. Barack Obama? The man slated to become chief pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ has called blacks "lepers" with a "skin disease," claimed U.S. entertainment corporations operate with "disdain" for black people, and in a fiery sermon claimed retired pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright was "lynched" by the media and compared the embattled pastor to Jesus. Otis Moss III, lauded this week by Obama as a "wonderful young pastor," also recently refused to deny claims by Wright that the U.S. government was involved in distributing illegal drugs to minorities or spreading the...

Our country is stuck in a quagmire. Unrelenting terrorism and violence mean families are held hostage in their own homes as gun-toting thugs sweep neighborhoods. The collateral damage is staggering. Twenty shootings in government-run schools have left innocent children dead. With 336 confirmed shootings in three and a half short months, we should ask for an immediate withdrawal of all law enforcement and first responders because they seem to do not much good, and there is a pervasive sense that we have lost. Perhaps America should echo the words of Barack Hussein Obama regarding Iraq. Pull our forces out –...

A new poll concludes that Arizonans believe Sen. Barack Obama poses the biggest challenge to John McCain in the presidential race, but that the Arizona senator will ultimately win the White House. The poll of 577 registered voters found that voters favored McCain over Obama 47 percent to 38 percent. They favored McCain over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 53 percent to 37 percent. The voters polled said they believe McCain likely will beat Obama in November. A similar February poll showed Arizonans thought Obama would beat McCain. The poll was conducted April 24-27 by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism...

I come from a religious tradition where we shout from the sanctuary and march on the picket line! Where we give God the glory and give the devil the blues! — Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Sunday night in Detroit. The black church in America has long lived between the glory and the blues, between the ecstasy of worship and the exigencies of politics. It is a place concerned with both the sacred and the profane, both a religious and a political institution. It is for that reason that an ambitious young Barack Obama first sought out Reverend Wright twenty years ago....

During the April 16 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, moderator George Stephanopoulos brought up “a gentleman named William Ayers,” who “was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He’s never apologized for that.” Stephanopoulos then asked Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers. Obama’s answer: “The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.” Obama was indeed only eight in...

MARION (AP) — Bruce Pitts had a feeling something was wrong when the newspapers began piling up ... outside the ... home of Fred and Blanche Roberts. So on Sunday, the worried newspaper carrier cracked open an unlocked side door and saw 84-year-old Blanche Roberts helplessly looking back at him, her right leg pinned beneath the body of her 77-year-old husband — who apparently had been dead for days. "The good Lord was with her. She was not scared, wasn't panicking. Nothing," Pitts said Tuesday .... "She was conscious, talking. Just peaceful. It was remarkable." ... Pitts said he began...

You know what Barack Obama is thinking? It's not about Iran outlawing Barbie dolls; or the price of rice; or how many Crown Royal shots Hillary Clinton will knock back in Indiana. Obama can't worry about Clinton's troubles. He's got a few of his own. And he'll be thinking what every one of us would be thinking, if we were running for president as Barack Obama:How the heck will "Saturday Night Live" ridicule me and Jeremiah Wright? Wright, Obama's ridiculously controversial longtime pastor, torpedoed the Obama campaign by releasing copious amounts of natural gas in separate speeches, one at an...

N.B. bold red-letter emphasis is mine. The original article's emphasis is making the case that Barack Obama is a Muslim. My emphasis is that Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ claims to have "many Muslim members." --Dajjal http://www.sonsofapesandpigs.org/2008/02/press-release-america-is-being.html Press Release: America is being fooled by Barak Hussein Obama!! [posted by] ibn Misr on February 15, 2008 We ask for your immediate attention, and viral dissemination of this news. America is being fooled by Barak Hussein Obama!! "YES, MUSLIMS ARE MEMBERS IN OUR CHURCH." "WE HAVE MANY MEMBERS IN OUR CHURCH WHO ARE MUSLIMS." I am Usama K. Dakdok,...

Attention-grabbing fact from Fred Siegal's must-read piece on Barack Obama in the dead tree edition: 90% of Obama's popular vote lead over Hillary Clinton was racked up in his home state of Illinois, and two-thirds of that 90% was accumulated in Cook County.

MARION, Ill. --- A southern Illinois newspaper carrier is credited with rescuing an elderly woman who apparently spent days trapped beneath her dead husband's body. Authorities say Blanche Roberts had been pinned by the body of 77-year-old Fred Roberts for at least two days before she was found by Bruce Pitts and his wife on Sunday. Pitts says he became concerned about the couple after seeing the Southern Illinoisan editions he'd delivered stack up in their mailbox. He found Blanche Roberts when he went into the couple's home to check their well-being. Williamson County Coroner Mike Burke says there's nothing...

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Unbeknown to the Republican Jewish Coalition, which stands against jihad, terrorism and bigotry, a Chicago candidate for Congress, a Jewish Republican for whom they are the second-largest contributor is enabling jihad terror and alienating a group that has stood on the front lines against it while being its most brutalized victims in the Balkans. Using the "Barack Hussein Obama" template, a news release from Chicago District 8 candidate Steve Greenberg recently referred to his Democratic opponent, incumbent U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL), as "Melissa Luburich Bean," sneeringly stressing her Serbian maiden name. Comically, the release blasted Bean for...

The Massachusetts Democratic primary, along with nearly two dozen other primaries and caucuses, was held on Feb. 5. Hillary Clinton won it by 15 points, one of her best showings anywhere this year, and Michael Dukakis voted in it—but he won’t say for whom. [SNIP] Mr. Dukakis has maintained an adamantly neutral public stance throughout the campaign, hoping instead to sell both candidates and their campaigns on the need for assembling a massive grassroots organizing effort—a captain and six block leaders in all 200,000 precincts in the country—for the fall. But he also said that Barack Obama will probably be...

NEWS RELEASE Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms 12500 N.E. Tenth Place Bellevue, WA  98005 CCRKBA BLASTS DALEY FOR GIVING COPS MACHINE GUNS BUT KEEPING CITIZENS DISARMED For Immediate Release: April 29, 2008 BELLEVUE, WA – Anti-gun Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has taken one more step toward turning his city into a police state by planning to give police fully automatic M4 carbines, while still fighting to block the gun rights of citizens not only in Chicago but throughout Illinois, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today. “Here’s one...

The two Jerrys are in the news again. One is a pompous ringmaster who appeals to the lowest common denominator, exploiting ignorance, and preying on people's irrational fears. The other one is Jerry Springer. Together, Jerrys Wright and Springer represent the most startling examples of a disturbing socio-political phenomenon where we are instructed to treat remorseless carnival barkers as serious contributors to civilized society. Barack Obama's ole, kooky uncle Jeremiah, a living, breathing Horn of Plenty for John McCain, spent yesterday giving David Axelrod heart palpitations by roosting his chickens before the National Press Club. Reverend Ocho Cinco tended to...

CHICAGO — The high-stakes courtroom drama was all about politics, patronage and payoffs. Illinoisans watched in fascination as George Ryan, the once-mighty Republican governor, fought to avoid a one-way ticket to federal prison but lost. And now they wonder: Will his Democratic successor, Rod Blagojevich, be next? “I think the governor is in extraordinarily big trouble,” Cindi Canary, director of the nonpartisan, foundation-funded Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said last week as Blagojevich’s problems grew. The governor’s name has surfaced repeatedly in the federal corruption trial of Antoin “Tony” Rezko, the Chicago real estate developer and fast-food tycoon who raised...

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright couldn't have done more damage to Barack Obama's campaign if he had tried. And you have to wonder if that's just what one friend of Wright wanted. Shortly before he rose to deliver his rambling, angry, sarcastic remarks at the National Press Club Monday, Wright sat next to, and chatted with, Barbara Reynolds. A former editorial board member at USA Today, she runs something called Reynolds News Services and teaches ministry at the Howard University School of Divinity. (She is an ordained minister). It also turns out that Reynolds - introduced Monday as a member of...