Abu Wabu

Power Line has a series of posts on Barack Obama's relationship to his pastor under the fitting theme "The Audacity Of Hate". Some excerpts:

The Audacity Of Hate

Wright has been Obama's pastor for 20 years. He 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. Obama says he was not at the church on the day Wright blamed America for 9/11. "It sounds like he was trying to be provocative," is the best Obama can offer on this one.

More generally, according to ABC, Obama has said, "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial." This suggests that Obama considers Wright's statements about America (that it treats its citizens as less than human and brought 9/11 on itself) defensible. Obama's campaign aides are closer to the mark when they describe Wright's comments as "inflammatory rhetoric."

Obama has also said that Wright is "is like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with." But who takes spiritual guidance from hate-spewing old uncles?

The Audacity Of Hate, Part Two

[O]ther than affinity (or at least lack of disagreement) and opportunism, what other explanations are there for Obama's tight, longstanding relationship with a religious leader like Wright?

The Audacity Of Hate, Part Three

As a former debater and debate judge, I couldn't help noticing that Pastor Wright appeared to be reading his diatribe. His hateful drivel wasn't some spur of the moment revelation; he actually committed it to paper.

I didn't realize big-time preachers could get away with reading their impassioned sermons. I guess his "content" made up for it.

The Audacity Of Hate, Part Four

Several points come to mind. First, the "things [Obama] believes" (and should be "judged" on) include the following: Pastor Wright should be his spiritual leader; Pastor Wright's church should receive a substantial amount of money from Obama; Obama's children should, at an impressionable age, be exposed to Pastor Wright's sermons, as opposed to less hateful religion instruction they could receive elsewhere.

Second, Obama is still defending Wright, and very lamely (Wright's "on the brink of retirement;" he's made "some controversial statements" in the past; his statements are being "cherry picked"). Wright wasn't near retirement in 2001 when he blamed 9/11 on the U.S; nor was he near retirement in 2003 when he said God should "damn America." And the statements at issue aren't merely "controversial" or "just wrong"; they are deplorable.

And what about the fact that Oprah Winfrey is also a member of Wright's flock? Seems that the lines to her show are burning up. Ed Morrissey:

Given the intense media interest in Mormon underwear and LDS doctrine in the fall of 2007, one might expect a little more scrutiny of the much more political and racially-charged message coming from the pulpit of the Trinity United Church. It looks like that may have already begun, and the reputations of both Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey rest on how quickly and adeptly they can distance themselves from the debacle.

Now via The Autonomist we begin to learn the extent to which Obama has been lying about his professed "distance" from his beloved mentor's anti-white, anti-Semitic, anti-American hatemongering:

Wright laced into America's establishment, blaming the "white arrogance" of America's Caucasian majority for the woes of the world, especially the oppression suffered by blacks. To underscore the point he refers to the country as the "United States of White America." Many in the congregation, including Obama, nodded in apparent agreement as these statements were made. [Emphasis added]

The sermon also addressed the Iraq war, a frequent area of Wright's fulminations. Young African-American men," Wright thundered, were "dying for nothing." The illegal war," he shouted, was "based on Bush's lies" and is being "fought for oil money."

Drip. Drip. Drip.