Obama's America-hating pastor

How important is Jeremiah Wright to Barack Obama?

He's so important that, until last night when he was forced to step down, he had an official leadership role in Obama's campaign for the presidency.

Yet, Obama insists he does not think of his retired pastor, the man who inspired the name of the candidate's book, "The Audacity of Hope," in political terms.

After listening to this America-hating, racist demagogue, it's hard for me to think of him in anything but political terms.

Are these spiritual homilies from his sermons?

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strikes law and then wants us to sing 'God bless America,' No, no, no, not 'God bless America,' God damn America – that's in the Bible, you're killing innocent people, God damn America for treating us citizens as less than human."
"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagaski and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. ... America's chickens are coming home to roost."
"We've got more black men in prison than there are in college. Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body."
"America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. ... We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional killers. … We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Gadhafi. … We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."
"We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. ... We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. ..."
"We started the AIDS virus. … We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. …"

To this, Obama has actually said, with a straight face: "I don't think that my church is actually particularly controversial."

Wright has been spiritual leader to Obama and his family for the last 20 years. He married Michelle and him and baptized their children.

Last night, after days of public revelations of what his pastor believes and preaches, the heat finally got too great and Obama was forced to distance himself from his longtime spiritual mentor. But the political necessities of the moment aside, what does it tell us about Obama and his candidacy that for 20 years he and his wife have been following this raving lunatic? He either has no judgment, no discernment, or he tacitly agrees with the filth he has been listening to preached from the pulpit for the last two decades.

Imagine yourself sitting in church on Sunday and hearing some of the above. What would you do? Would you continue attending such a church? Would you choose it as the place to get married? Would you choose this pastor as the one to baptize your children? Would you be a member for two decades? Would you dedicate your book to him? Would you appoint him to a leadership position in your campaign?

That's what Barack Obama did, as amazing as that may seem.

This is going to hurt Obama. He must realize it. And although he has publicly cut Wright loose, the truth is that Obama essentially agrees with the substance of what Wright says.

I believe it's what Michelle Obama believes, too.

They may disguise their hatred of America a little better than Wright. But, fundamentally, they can't really see what all the fuss is about.

Related special offers:

"Real Men: Ten Courageous Americans to Know and Admire"

"America's Christian History"

"Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America" "I Love America" magnetic bumper sticker