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Sometimes, like a Cinderella team marching through March, Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign seems nothing short of charmed. It helps that while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has 10 weeks to make Obama totally and entirely unelectable, Obama just has to wait out the clock. But the outside help Obama is getting (some that he asked for, some that he didn't) is the X-factor -- and it means that, even as Obama grapples with perhaps the biggest challenge to his candidacy, he will be the nominee short of something else dramatic happening in the race that's already seen everything. To survey...

Personal Information Born on September 22, 1941, in Philadelphia, PA; son of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sr. and Dr. Mary Henderson Wright; married Ramah Reed; children: Janet Marie, Jeri Lynne, Nikol, Nathan, Jamila Education: Virginia Union University, 1959-61; Howard University, BA, 1968, MA, 1969; University of Chicago School of Divinity, MA, 1975; United Theological Seminary, DMin, Black Sacred music, 1990. Religion: United Church of Christ. Military/Wartime Service: U.S. Marine Corps, private first class, 1961-63; U.S. Navy, hospital corpsman third class, 1964-67. Memberships: Selected: Ministers for Racial and Social Justice, United Church of Christ, 1972-; Black Theology Project, Board of Directors, 1975-95;...

 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.Obama's speech Tuesday on race in America was hailed as a masterful handling of the controversy over divisive sermons by the longtime pastor of Trinity United, the recently retired Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.But in repudiating and putting in context Wright's inflammatory...

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...

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...

Obama church published Hamas terror manifesto Compares charter calling for murder of Jews to Declaration of Independence ________________________________________ Posted: March 20, 2008 12:45 pm Eastern By Aaron Klein © 2008 WorldNetDaily JERUSALEM – Sen. Barack Obama's Chicago church reprinted a manifesto by Hamas that defended terrorism as legitimate resistance, refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist and compared the terror group's official charter – which calls for the murder of Jews – to America's Declaration of Independence. The Hamas piece was published on the "Pastor's Page" of the Trinity United Church of Christ newsletter reserved for Rev. Jeremiah...

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...

Barack Obama's controversial pastor reprinted an article by a Hamas leader in the church's newsletter. In an issue dated July 22, 2007, in a section titled "Pastor's Page," the church reprinted an article by Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzook in which he justifies Hamas' withholding of recognition of Israel's right to exist. The article originally appeared as an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. Dov Hikind, a New York state assemblyman, issued a news release condemning the Democratic presidential candidate's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and calling on Obama to sever his ties with Wright and his church, Trinity...

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...

Obamacide - Obama’s Church Reprinted Hamas Manifesto If this isn’t Obamacide then we may have to start calling him Teflon Barry. From BizzyBlog comes evidence that Obama’s church not only has anti-white, anti-American feelings, but may also have a pro-Hamas bias. The July 22, 2007 Trinity United Church of Christ bulletin reprinted an article written by Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy of the political bureau of Hamas. Originally printed in the LA Times as “Hamas’ stand“, Pastor Wright added a new title, “A Fresh View of the Palestinian Struggle”. The Times was criticized for giving a “Platform To Genocidal Terrorist.” Where...

As the news of Barack Obama’s pastor and his racist, America-hating comments slowly spreads (despite media’s best effort to ignore it), you just knew the Kos Kidz would be spinning like Iranian centrifuges, didn’t you? There are several Daily Kos diaries on the issue, but my favorite for sheer knuckleheaded idiocy is this one: Daily Kos: An Open Letter to White People.

Obama blows away the chattering class with Philadelphia speech. Delivers historic remarks on race in address that was wide-ranging, personal, and (at times) passionate. One key topic: his relationship with the Rev. Wright. Click above to watch excerpt. Widespread praise from anchors/pundits/reporters for sweeping remarks drawing on American history and his own biracial upbringing to explain struggle of race in the country. Suggests his campaign can help unify a long-divided nation. Now: what do real people, superdelegates, and talk radio show hosts think? On racial struggles: “This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck...

The choir won't stand still at Trinity United Church of Christ, which Barack Obama has attended for 20 years. In dashikis and outfits of variegated patterns and colors—black stripes, radiant yellows and purples, networks of green and pink—150 singers are clapping, swaying in unison, and singing, "The Lord is blessing me, right now, oh, right now." Congregants in the packed double-decker auditorium are themselves clapping, swaying, and singing, barely noticing the woman in a black suit who has volunteered to step-dance backwards down the aisle. "He woke me up this morning, He started me on my way . . ."

Conservatives ought to be careful before they insist that Barack Obama further renounce his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. This vicious guilt-by-association political game cuts both ways. The left has used this game to marginalize conservatives. In 1993, the Rev. Eugene Lumpkin was fired from the San Francisco Human Rights Commission because he said he believed the Bible told him that "the homosexual lifestyle is an abomination against God." This year, critics called on GOP nominee John McCain to denounce supporter Pastor John Hagee, who called the Catholic Church "the great whore." McCain said he did not agree with all of...

Ezra Klein’s a smart guy, so I’m assuming this is a parody of liberal cluelessness rather than the real thing: "Does anyone believe a long association with Jerry Falwell's church would have done anything but help McCain in the Republican primary, and gotten Democrats tagged as anti-religion when they tried to point out Falwell's nuttiness in the general? It's fine to be a Christian extremist in America. It's fine to believe, and say publicly, that everyone who hasn't accepted Jesus Christ into their heart will roast in eternal hellfire, fine to believe that the homosexuals caused Hurricane Katrina and the...

....Are we wrong to think that Barack Obama's campaign is imploding? For the past few days the national spotlight has been on Jeremiah Wright, pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ and Obama's so-called spiritual mentor, who turns out to be a certifiable America-hating crackpot. As ABC News reported last week: ...In a set of "talking points" on the church's Web site, Wright proclaims himself an exponent of "black liberation theology." He cites James Cone, a distinguished professor at New York's Union Theological Seminary, whom he credits for having "systematized" this strain of Christianity. ...Here is a quote from...

One of the strangest dialogues in American political history ensued on March 15 when Fox News interviewed Obama's pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, of Chicago's Trinity Church. Wright asserted the authority of the "black liberation" theologians James Cone and Dwight Hopkins: Wright: How many of Cone's books have you read? How many of Cone's book have you read? Sean Hannity: Reverend, Reverend? (crosstalk) Wright: How many books of Cone's have you head? Hannity: I'm going to ask you this question ... Wright: How many books of Dwight Hopkins have you read? Hannity: You're very angry and defensive. I'm just...

The Early Show did its best this morning to help Barack Obama climb out of the hole he's dug for himself with his close association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In a set-up segment, CBS's Dean Reynolds rhetorically asked: "the question is whether the rhetoric is so remarkable, because in African-American churches pastors often seek to rouse their congregants to self-reliance by speaking harshly about the country's troubled racial past and the need to overcome it." Nice try, but how does accusing the US government of introducing AIDS and giving black people drugs equate to a call for self-reliance? Reynolds...