Free Republic

"I'm sure," said Barack Obama in that sonorous baritone that makes his drive-thru order for a Big Mac, fries and strawberry shake sound profound, "many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed." Well, yes. But not many of us have heard remarks from our pastors, priests or rabbis that are stark, staring, out-of-his-tree, flown-the-coop nuts. ...snip... It is Barack Obama's choice to entrust his daughters to the spiritual care of such a man for their entire lives, but in Philadelphia the senator attempted to universalize his peculiar judgment – to claim...

Some 50 delegates were reportedly poised to unite behind Barack Obama if he had won by even 1 point in Texas. He lost the popular vote by 100,000 ballots, and now we learn that 100,000 Republicans voted for Hillary Clinton, probably not because of some change in party allegiance but because they thought she would be the easier candidate to beat. This kind of strategic voting often backfires (think Ralph Nader). The Texas crossovers are winners. By helping to prolong the Democratic race, they can claim credit for weakening the eventual nominee, whoever it turns out to be. Obama has...

Chicago's Trinity United tied to founder of black liberation theology WASHINGTON --Jesus is black. Merging Marxism with Christian Gospel may show the way to a better tomorrow. The white church in America is the Antichrist because it supported slavery and segregation. Those are some of the more provocative doctrines that animate the theology at the core of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Barack Obama's church.

Mr. Obama’s Philadelphia speech, in spite of its eloquent passages expressing his hope for better racial relations in America, is a mastery example of literary subterfuge, the broadening of the scenery whereby an object of inquiry becomes blurred and lost in the background, or more bluntly, the escaping of a slippery fish from a pond into a lake to hide in a wider expanse of water. His speech is essentially a sophisticated lawyerly defense of Rev Wright’s sin on the basis of self-defense. While Mr. Obama’s understanding on the root causes of America’s racial problems is quite apt, he attempts...

WASHINGTON - Even if Hillary Rodham Clinton and her aides do not mention Barack Obama's fiery-tongued spiritual mentor, don't expect the Illinois senator's well-publicized speech Tuesday to make the controversy disappear, political strategists said this week. Reporters, talk-show hosts and others will keep asking about Obama's close and long-standing relationship to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose most bombastic comments came to dominate the Democratic presidential contest recently, the strategists predicted in interviews. In video clips playing on Internet sites, Wright can be heard arguing that HIV-AIDS was a U.S. government plot to wipe out "people of color," and that God...

An interesting photo has surfaced (h/t Drudge): That's the Rev. Jeremiah Wright grippin' and grinnin' with President Bill Clinton on September 11th, 1998, at a meeting of various clerics where Clinton gave his "I have sinned" speech following the Lewinsky affair. I guess Rev. Wright didn't consider an invitation to the White House as "being treated the same way Clinton treated Lewinsky", to quote the good Reverend. The same day this photo popped up, the story leaked out that the Clintons are shopping the Rev. Wright controversy around to superdelegates in the hopes of getting them to abandon Obama While...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democrat Barack Obama suffered in the polls Thursday after a much-acclaimed speech on race that, pundits said, had failed to defuse voters' anger over rage-filled sermons by his former pastor. Waging an acrimonious battle against Hillary Clinton for the Democrats' White House nomination, Obama confessed to being bruised by the controversy surrounding his longtime Chicago preacher, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. "In some ways this controversy has actually shaken me up a little bit and gotten me back into remembering that, you know, the odds of me getting elected have always been lower than some of the other conventional...

For most white folks, indignation just doesn't wear well. Once affected or conjured up, it reminds one of a pudgy man, wearing a tie that may well have fit him when he was fifty pounds lighter, but which now cuts off somewhere above his navel and makes him look like an idiot. Indignation doesn't work for most whites, because having remained sanguine about, silent during, indeed often supportive of so much injustice over the years in this country--the theft of native land and genocide of indigenous persons, and the enslavement of Africans being only two of the best examples--we are...

Barack Obama delivered a speech on March 18th, just days after the firestorm created by the release of tapes in which his Pastor Jeremiah Wright repeatedly made the most incendiary anti-American statements. So to diffuse the issue he endeavored to deliver a speech on race relations in America. The problem with this speech was that the anger that Jeremiah Wright provoked in patriotic Americans had nothing to do with race. He filled his speech with platitudes about race relations, which while they may be true, have nothing to do with why people are angry. People were not deeply offended by...

Remember Me By Salena Zito Time punishes war. The war in Iraq is no exception; as each moment passes, public resolve, politics and passion erode its mission. Collectively, many Americans tend to remember the mistakes and politics that led us there, rather than the faces of the men and women who serve and defend us. Seven months ago, Lizzie Palmer, a young lady from Columbus, Ohio, barely over the threshold of childhood, felt compelled to do her part to remind people of those faces. The result is a stunning video that was showcased on Chris Wallace's Fox News Sunday last...

There was a time when patriotism and an outsize love of country was a given in anyone running for president of the United States. Not any more. Barack Obama and his wife have demonstrated that being black means never having to say you’re sorry about your — or your fellow blacks’ — conditional love for America. At two Wisconsin rallies last month, Michelle Obama declared, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.” For such transparent civic disdain, a white candidate’s wife would have been made to crawl over broken glass to beg forgiveness,...

THROW GRANDMA UNDER THE BUSMarch 19, 2008 Obama gave a nice speech, except for everything he said about race. He apparently believes we're not talking enough about race. This is like hearing Britney Spears say we're not talking enough about pop-tarts with substance-abuse problems. By now, the country has spent more time talking about race than John Kerry has talked about Vietnam, John McCain has talked about being a POW, John Edwards has talked about his dead son, and Al Franken has talked about his USO tours. But the "post-racial candidate" thinks we need to talk yet more about race....

There's a new entry next to Mika Brzezinski's name in the annals of MSM elitism. The Morning Joe panelist today lamented blue-collar whites who "can't hear" the message Barack Obama propounded. Poor benighted souls. Joe Scarborough called Mika on it. Brzezinski's comment came in response to Scarborough's exposition of why he didn't think Obama's speech would work with many blue-collar whites. View video here.

Obama's Speech by Thomas Sowell Wednesday, March 19, 2008 Did Senator Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia convince people that he is still a viable candidate to be President of the United States, despite the adverse reactions to statements by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright? The polls and the primaries will answer that question. The great unasked question for Senator Obama is the question that was asked about President Nixon during the Watergate scandal; What did he know and when did he know it? Although Senator Obama would now have us believe that he is shocked, shocked, at what Jeremiah Wright said,...

Will the Gospel According to Jeremiah Wright sink the Obama candidacy? Not very likely. Let's start with two basic facts: 1. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has already won the Democratic nomination. It's over. Regardless of how the remaining primaries and caucuses go, including Michigan and even Florida, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) can never catch Obama in elected delegates. His current lead of 170 pledged delegates will not be overcome no matter what happens. Even if Clinton beats him by 10 points in each of these primaries, he will still lead among elected delegates by over 100. The superdelegates will...

Bill Clinton, once hailed as America’s “first black president,” has been disavowed by a once adoring black community. Geraldine Ferraro has been accused of being a secret racist. Oprah Winfrey is labeled a feminist sell-out. The major campaigns eagerly pander to racial and socioeconomic groups, and try different combinations of divide and conquer strategies. Black Americans are for Obama, and overwhelmingly admit that it’s a vote based on race, women are for Clinton and overwhelmingly admit that it’s a vote on gender. The two campaigns eagerly fight to curry favor with Hispanics. The wealthy are targeted for income redistribution, the...

Just as Sen. Barack Obama sought to distance himself from controversial racial remarks made by his pastor, an anti-American government, anti-white and virally anti-Semitic black supremacist party has endorsed the presidential candidate on Obama's own website. "Obama will stir the 'Melting Pot' into a better 'Molten America,'" states an endorsement from the New Black Panther Party, or NBPP, which is a registered team member and blogger on Obama's "MyObama" campaign website. The NBPP is a controversial black extremist party whose leaders are notorious for their racist statements and for leading anti-white activism. Malik Zulu Shabazz, NBPP national chairman, who has...

More than half of voters are less likely to support Barack Obama for president after hearing the anti-American rants of his longtime Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a shocking poll revealed yesterday. The Rasmussen Reports survey found that Wright's controversial comments made 56 percent of voters, including 44 percent of Democrats, less inclined to vote for Obama. Two-thirds of the 1,200 people polled said they knew of Wright's statements, which have been broadcast repeatedly on media outlets over the past several days. And 73 percent of voters, including 58 percent of black voters, called Wright's comments racially divisive. In...

AFRICAN AMERICANS, INDEPENDENTS, DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS COMPLETELY AGREE, COMPLETELY DISAGREE... Looking at the reaction of a MediaCurves focus group of 709 viewers to Sen. Barack Obama's race speech in which he took on the issue of his controversial pastor, Rev. Jeremiah C. Wright, it's once again interesting to see the racial divide in how the speech was received. It's the same racial split Obama so deftly described in his speech. Blacks who took part of the survey had higher levels of agreement with Obama than non-blacks. And Democrats had more favorable impressions of the snippets of the speech they were shown...