Joe Buck for Prime Minister of Israel!
Ynet news reports that Hollywood actor Jon Voight will be visiting Sderot children. We are so used to the air in between the ears of so many Hollywood actors spouting off their "ideas" about politics that we forget that it is actually possible for an actor to be sensitive and intelligent, and Voight is clearly just such!
With the leftist scum calling for total boycotts of Israel, with pressures on Nadine Gordimer and other cultural figures or intellectuals who visit Israel, Voight's visit is a great moral act and his decision to spend some time in Sderot even greater. Sderot has become Israel's Guernica thanks to the Olmert (and Sharon) government decision to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of its Jews and convert it into a large rocket base.
From YNET: “I’m coming to salute, encourage and strengthen the people of Israel on this joyous 60th birthday,” said Voight. Incidentally, Voight's role in The Odessa File led to the capture and suicide of the film's real-life Nazi villain. Let's have Joe Buck teach Israel's cowardly politicians how to handle terrorist butt Texas style!
Meanwhile, I think Voight's visit can be of value for other reasons as well. Voight as Joe Buck might light a Texas fire under the butts of certain politicians and generals I could name. Yuli Tamir could star as one of those aging women who hire Joe Buck in the Tel Aviv staging of "Midnight Cowboy.” In addition, Olmert is really type cast to play Ratso Rizzo. I really understand George Costanza in that episode of Seinfeld wanting to buy Voight's old used car!
As to those unnatural acts in Voight's film "Deliverance," if I get to choose on whom they get performed in the Israeli film version I am willing to play the banjo!
AT A RECEPTION CELEBRATING THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
May 8, 2008
Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium
Washington, D.C.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Mr. Ambassador, Senator Lieberman, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: good evening to all of you. It is indeed a pleasure to join this impressive gathering as we mark the 60th Anniversary of the modern state of Israel's founding, reaffirming the warm relationship between our two countries, and to honor the memory of a man who is a hero to both Israel and America, Colonel Mickey Marcus. (Applause.)
It's also my privilege, on this happy occasion, to bring warm personal regards from the President of the United States, George W. Bush. (Applause.) I know the President would like to be here as well, but he's in Texas with the family –- and in two days we'll all congratulate him as the father of the bride. (Applause.)
Israel has never had a better friend in the White House than the 43rd President of the United States. (Applause.) Today also happens to be the birthday of the 33rd President, Harry Truman, who was living in the White House 60 years ago. As the historical record makes clear -- (applause) -- President Truman encountered a good deal of resistance inside his own administration when he showed an inclination to recognize the new Jewish state. Up until even the hours before independence was announced, no one was really sure what kind of official response America would make. But Harry Truman was not the sort to wring his hands and to leave an important matter unresolved. So at his direction, only 11 minutes after the announcement was made in Tel Aviv, the United States of America recognized the state of Israel. (Applause.)
At that moment, a special bond was formed between our two countries –- and that bond has only grown stronger and more meaningful over time. Our nations were both founded by courageous, peace-loving people –- devoted to the ideals of liberty and justice, and humble before Almighty God. The United States and Israel have persevered through many difficulties, and the tests of history have found us ready. As fellow democracies, we cherish a friendship based on shared principles, a shared commitment to the safety of our peoples, and a deep willingness to labor intensively in the cause of security and lasting peace.
Across this nation –- indeed, around the world –- this anniversary of Israel's founding is an occasion for deep admiration and respect. What started as a tiny, struggling country is still tiny –- but has seen six decades of unceasing accomplishment. The desert has bloomed, and Israel has become a nation of world-class enterprises, great universities and medical centers, technological advancement, scholarly brilliance, and cultural beauty. Holocaust survivors and refugees have been welcomed from Europe, the Arab lands, Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union –- and they have found hope and opportunity in the land of Jacob.
In these years, Israel has also given the world many towering examples of strength and statesmanship, among them David Ben Gurion, Abba Eban, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and a man who defended Israel with every ounce of his strength -– Ariel Sharon. He is in our thoughts this evening. (Applause.)
On this anniversary, we think even farther back, to a man of vision and determination named Theodore Herzl. Herzl did not live to see the birth of Israel. Yet he died in the confident belief that good men and women would live on to fulfill his aspiration for the Jewish people, and be inspired by his own words of wisdom: "If you will it, it is no dream."
Herzl, Ben-Gurion and other early visionaries would marvel at all that Israel has become in these last 60 years. In this modern, vigorous, prospering society, they would see much that is new. Yet so much more would still be familiar –- the holy places, the splendor of the land, the reverence of its people and the firmness of character, and, always, the tireless search for peace and the blessings of a normal life.
In tribute to all that's been achieved in these 60 years, one week from today the President of the United States will be in Jerusalem, speaking to the Knesset and proudly joining the celebration. (Applause.) And a celebration is well in order –- because the founding of Israel, the survival of Israel, the success of Israel are among the greatest achievements the world has known. (Applause.) That is what brings us to this auditorium tonight in America's capital city: to mark the anniversary of a state founded within living memory, but with a history reaching back to the prophets, a friend to our own country, a light unto the nations. You've gathered in a spirit of pride and thanksgiving, and rightly so. And, I'm tremendously grateful for the honor of joining you this evening.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
END 7:15 P.M. EDT
Redacted from an in-depth interview by Joan Harting Barham
Joan Harting Barham(JHB): In a way, you are a man of many identities: you’re a proud, native-born American, a devout Muslim, a physician, the founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), a husband and father. How do you prioritize all these roles?
Jasser: Until 9/11, I always felt my challenge was treating patients, helping people who come in feeling poorly or feeling that there is no hope and giving them some hope with regard to treatments. Early in my life, I was able to mix that dedication with service to country via the Health Professions Scholarship Program. What HPSP does is pay for medical students’ tuition in exchange for military service. So, four years of medical school translates to owing four years of service as a physician. I’d always wanted to serve in the military and it allowed me to combine those dreams.
JHB: Is there a question of reconciling any of these roles?
ZJ: It’s interesting, some Muslims have asked me: Zuhdi, are you Muslim first or American first? They challenge my patriotism by asking that. The problem, I think, in the Muslim community is that most Muslims still mix government with religion; there’s still a feeling that government should be God. I feel that religion ceases to be personal and becomes coercion when government gets involved in the relationship.
JHB: You founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) in 2003, two years after 9/11. What was the impetus for creating it?
ZJ: After 9/11, local media started interviewing the Muslim on the street, the Muslim at the Arizona State University, whoever they could get. I saw interviews with two imams running the Imam Council here in Phoenix, who basically blamed America for 9/11. They also condoned the bombing of the USS Cole, saying that America deserved that for our foreign policy. So, a group of us were sitting around a dinner table, complaining, and we said: That’s enough. We need to form an organization that truly, truly understands what this ideological conflict is all about. Especially Muslims who came to the U.S. for political reasons; the silent majority of Muslim Americans who escaped theocracy and secular dictatorship as my parents did when they came from Syria.
We met in the summer of ’02 and agreed to form an organization stating where the ideological separations are; that we are loyal to our citizenship oath – which is a secular constitution we believe in – and stating that we will defend the separation of religion and state. We had other points about gender equality and about the right of any Muslim to define and interpret the Koran – that it’s not just the domain of the imams or the so-called Islamic scholars.
Then we formed our Board of Directors and put together a foundation that would take years to fully establish because the mosques and Islamist organizations such as Muslim CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations], ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] and MPAC [the Muslim Public Affairs Council] were not being very receptive.
JHB: Your organization, as I understand it, is predicated on the notion that modern Western democracy and Islam are completely compatible. Can you explain?
ZJ: Yes, but we have to be clear on what we mean by democracy.
Democracy as it’s being pushed by the State Department, is defined as elections and the ballot box and that, without a constitution that defends minority rights, becomes the oppression by the majority over the minority. In Muslim countries, where Islamists currently are wielding a plurality – if not a majority – they end up oppressing the rights of other faiths, of secular Muslims, of anti-Islamist Muslims, of Jews, of Christians, of Bahá'í, of atheists, of anybody who doesn’t fit the Islamist mold.
JHB: You’ve spoken and written a great deal about America’s hunger since 9/11 for moderate Muslim voices. It’s arguable that hunger remains unsatisfied. How come?
ZJ: It’s not only arguable, it’s true; that hunger hasn’t been in any way satisfied. All I can say is that organizations like ours and others that are anti-Islamist have a long way to go.
JHB: Is the audience for the AIFD website primarily Muslim or non-Muslim? And what about its membership?
ZJ: The intended audience for the American Islamic Forum for Democracy is Muslims. But our message has been increasingly accepted by non-Muslims; right now we have about 20 times the number of non-Muslim associate members as active, dues-paying Muslim members.
JHB: What’s the difference between a Muslim and an Islamist?
ZJ: A Muslim, to me, is anybody who states that their faith is Islam and that the Koran is, in their belief, the revealed word of God. Basically, Islamists are those who want the constitution of a given government to be the Koran. And when you take a book from God and you make it the constitution, the only people who can write law are clerics. That’s the problem.
JHB: From your vantage point, what are the most important things average Americans can do to contribute to national, community and personal security?
ZJ: Ultimately what terrorists seek to do is utilize the fabric of a free and open society to instill fear in individuals. Militant Islamists want nothing more than to see America’s freedoms being eroded. They’d be elated if we instituted marshal law because that would mean we’d surrendered and lost the war. One of the things I talk to groups about is the need to inoculate ourselves against over-reaction, once another terrorist incident happens.
We’ve been so fortunate that something like 32 terrorist incidents have been prevented since 9/11. It’s only a matter of time until one of those gets through. Our Homeland Security is doing as fantastic job, but we’ve been lucky. In terms of individuals, there are the programs such as “See Something, Say Something,” that every citizen should do. We need to protect our schools – some have said that the next target may be school systems – we need to protect our civilian population and engage the public. Right now, the public is not really engaged.
And, as far as our AIFD foundation is concerned, people can help us deconstruct political Islam ideologically. We should be holding Islamic organizations accountable for their ideas, asking them to identify terrorist organizations by name, finding out where they stand on women’s rights. You can go to your neighborhood mosque and ask how they run their Board of Directors, whether women have any rights on them, how they handle inter-faith relations. People can listen to sermons at their local mosques to see if they’re fraught with domestic and foreign policy versus spiritual messages.
JHB: Would a non-Muslim be allowed to go into a mosque and listen to a sermon?
ZJ: Absolutely.
JHB: Would the sermon be in English?
MZJ: Actually many of them are given in two languages. We’ve also taken newspaper reporters to the mosque to look at the literature distributed there as well as to listen to the sermons.. You may find a gold mine of anti-Islamist ideas; you also might expose some of the Wahhabist mosques that are disseminating a lot of vile anti-Semitic, anti-American propaganda.
JHB: And finally, what would you most like to see our next President accomplish in terms of the Islamist threat?
ZJ: I would like to see our next President have the courage to identify this as war against militant Islamism and not a war against terror; to create a strategy, a national strategy to defeat political Islam and identify it as a political movement.
Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, is the founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. He is a practicing specialist in internal medicine and nuclear cardiology in Phoenix, Arizona, where he lives with his wife and two children; a third child is due in May.
Joan Harting Barham is a writer and editor
By Morton Klein, President Zionist Organization of America
You have heard about Jeremiah Wright, Barak Obama's pastor, and his anti-American, anti-white screeds and sermons. However, you have heard little or nothing about Rev. Wrights' outrageous, anti-Israel, anti-Jewish extremist diatribes. The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has drawn attention to Chicago Trinity United Church's Pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright's record of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish statements that has been somewhat forgotten in the current attention focusing on his anti-white, anti-U.S. and other extreme statements.
Rev. Wright has called for divestment from Israel; said that Israel is a "dirty word.” His church magazine has published a manifesto from the Palestinian terror group Hamas and also honored with its 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award Nation of Islam black racist and outspoken anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan has said, "Judaism is a gutter religion," that "Hitler was a very great man" and that "white people are potential humans, they haven't evolved yet."
Rev. Wright's record on Israel & Jews:
"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 . . .." (Quoted in Ronald Kessler, 'Obama and the Minister,' Wall Street Journal, March 14, ‘08
"The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for almost 40 years now" ('A Message from our Pastor: This is Where I Come In,' The Trumpet (Trinity United Church of Christ publication), July 2005).
"It took a divestment campaign to wake the business community up concerning the South Africa issue. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community up and to wake Americans up concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism. The Divestment issue will hit the floor during this month's General Synod. Divesting dollars from businesses and banks that do business with Israel is the new strategy being proposed to wake the world up concerning the racism of Zionism. That Divestment issue won't make the press either, however." ('A Message from our Pastor: This is Where I Come In,' The Trumpet (Trinity United Church of Christ publication), July 2005).
"… last year's conference in Africa on racism, which the United States would not participate in because somebody dared to point out the racism which still supports both here and in Israel. I said that dirty word again. Every time you say Israel, Negroes get awfully quiet on you, 'because they're scared, don't be scared. You don't see the connection between 9/11/01 and the Israeli/Palestinian? Something wrong – want to buy my glasses?" (Fox News, viewable at 'Barack Obama's Mentor, Jeremiah Wright - Anti Israel Sermon,' You tube, March 24, 2008).
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant that the stuff we have done is now brought back into our front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost" (2003 sermon, quoted in Brian Ross & Rehab El-Buri, 'Obama's pastor: God damn America, U.S. to blame for 9/11,' abcnews.go.com, March 13, 2008).
When Rev. Wright writes about the state of Israel, he puts 'state' in quotes, de-legitimizing Israel as a country. "Islam has as many manifestations as Christianity and Judaism, but most Americans are only fed a media diet on Islam as it relates to the "war on terror" and the Palestinian Muslim [sic] problem...” ('Pastors' Page: Look Again,' Trinity United Church of Christ Bulletin, July 8, 2007, p. 8).
On black racist anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, upon whom Wright's Trinity Church magazine, the Trumpet, conferred its 2007 Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award, Wright said: "His depth on analysis [sic] when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye-opening. He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest" (Quoted in Ronald Kessler, 'Obama and the Minister,' Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2008).
The Trumpet also referred to Farrakhan as a leader who "truly epitomized greatness" (Richard Cohen, 'Obama's Farrakhan Test,' Washington Post, January 15, 2008).
Rev. Wright also published on his 'Pastor's Page' in his church's bulletin an opinion- piece from the Islamist terror organization, Hamas, which calls in its Charter for the destruction of Israel (Article 15) and the murder of Jews (Article 7). The Hamas piece, defended terrorism as a form of legitimate resistance, refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist, and compared the terror group's official charter to America's Declaration of Independence and referred to Israel as an "apartheid state" ('Pastor's Page: A Fresh View of the Palestinian Struggle,' Trinity United Church of Christ Bulletin, July 22, 2007, pp. 10-11).
"When [Obama's] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli" to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, "a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell" (Mary Mitchell, 'Obama slights his own pastor, another error in wooing blacks,' Chicago Sun-Times, March 8, 2007).
Ali Baghdadi, a Palestinian Arab writing on Wright's own page in the Trinity United Church bulletin, refers to Israel as an "apartheid state" whose inhabitants will "inevitably pack up and return to their native lands"; he also claims that "genocide and ethnic cleansing they [Palestinians] face every hour of the day." Later in the same piece, Baghdadi claims, "I must tell you that Israel was the closest ally to the White Supremacists of South Africa. In fact, South Africa allowed Israel to test its nuclear weapons in the ocean off South Africa. The Israelis were given a blank check; they could test whenever they desired and did not even have to ask permission. Both worked on an ethnic bomb that killed Blacks and Arabs" (Ali Baghdadi, 'Open Letter to Oprah on her visit to Palestine,' on the 'Pastors' Page,' Trinity United Church of Christ Bulletin, June 10, 2007, p. 8).
(But somehow, over a 20 year period of membership in Wright’s church, plus a close personal relationship, Senator Obama claims, in his dedicated run to be the next President of the United States, that he knew nothing of this long, tortuous history of lies and distortions against Israel and the Jewish people. If that seems a plausible explanation to you, please contact me immediately for possible purchase of very special bridge in Brooklyn) Jsk.
(From my archives of “Not to be believed”) jsk
By Aaron Klein
The Jewish Press, March 7, 2008
Commentary below article – Jerome S. Kaufman
JERUSALEM - The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella group of major mainstream U.S. Jewish organizations, has for the first time endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state. The decision is generating an angry backlash, most of it directed against the Orthodox Union (OU) which abstained from voting against the resolution that calls for a “two state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The OU is one of the largest and most influential Orthodox Jewish organizations in America. Surveys have consistently shown that American Orthodox Jews overwhelmingly oppose a Palestinian state.
“It is an outrage that Jewish organizations would support a Palestinian state and it’s a shock the OU would abstain,” Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, told The Jewish Press. “When the Palestinian Authority refuses to arrest terrorists, engages in and glorifies murder against Jews, and puts out maps showing all of Israel is Palestine surrounded by rifles, it becomes clear any Palest man state will be a terrorist state which will greatly harm Israel,” Klein said.
At a vote, last week during its annual meeting in Atlanta the JCPA resolved, “the organized American Jewish community should affirm its support for two independent democratic and economically viable states - the Jewish state of Israel and a state of Palestine. They are to be living side-by-side in peace and security” The resolution recognized American Jewry’s “diverse views about current and future policies of the Israeli government towards settlements,’ and blamed the standstill in the peace process on Palest man intransigence
The JCPA is a coalition of 14 major national Jewish groups and 125 local Jewish community relations councils. Among the groups are such giants (?) as the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League, National Council of B’nai B’rith, Hadassah, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and Hillel, the largest Jewish university outreach group.
While the other groups all voted in favor of the resolution, the OU has drawn the brunt of public criticism for its abstention.’ According to a source at the organization, e-mails have been pouring in from outraged Orthodox Jews. In a widely circulated e-mail, Pesach Aceman, a Canadian immigrant to Israel and a diarist for the BBC website, lambasted the Orthodox group as a “terror supporting organization through your silence.”
Ted Belman, who runs the Israpundit blog, wrote, “To my mind this resolution is very detrimental as it makes it harder for alternates to be forwarded. By endorsing this resolution are the OU and the others saying they support a two state solution regardless if it necessitates the division of Jerusalem?’
In an official clarification, the OU released a statement saying that while it abstained from the final vote endorsing a Palestinian state, the group still managed to insert into the resolution’s text a statement explaining that Israel’s repeated offers to establish a Palestinian state “have been met, time after time, by violence, incitement and terror.” The organization also successfully vetoed a clause which would have stated that the American Jewish community views the establishment or expansion of Israeli communities in the West Bank as an “impediment to peace.”
Nadia Matar, director of Woman in Green, a nationalist activist group in Israel, wrote in a widely circulated e-mail that the OU’s clarifications are not enough. “So now,” wrote Matar, “after the OU’s clarification, we ask the one million dollar question: Why is the OU still part of the JCPA? Where is the OU’s outrage?’
Asked by The Jewish Press whether the OU supports a Palestinian state, the organization’s executive vice president, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, answered “no.” Rabbi Weinreb said his group abstained from the vote rather than vote against the resolution “for procedural reasons.”
David Luchins, an OU officer who represented the organization during the vote, said abstaining “gives the OU more of a platform afterwards to explain to everyone why we abstained from the vote. If we would have just voted ‘no,’ that would have been the end of it.”
Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel, another major Orthodox group representing hundreds of synagogues, said his organization, which is not part of the JCPA, opposes a Palestinian state, as do most Orthodox Jews.
“What two state solution? We just need just to look out the window and see the Kassams and Grad rockets and bullets flying. We need to read the papers and listen to the radio. There is a war going on. Now is the time to discuss defense, to guarantee security to the citizens of Israel,” said Lerner.
“The only solution that we should be thinking of is security... and the ability to live like normal human beings — without the concern of being shot at,” Lemer said.
#
(The organization of mainstream Jewish organizations continues to direct its membership into its dream world of false projection, misinformation, ignorance and denial of the obvious facts on the ground. Every “peace” agreement agreed upon has been ignored by the Palestinian Arabs from the moment signed. The farce all began with the super photo-op for Arafat, Rabin, Peres and Clinton on the White House lawn in 1993. Every town, every bit of territory in that has been turned over to the Arabs has just become another base for terror from which to kill Israelis. The latest tragic disasters have been the withdrawal from the Lebanese Security Zone and just last year, Gaza. Yet, the Israeli leadership and the “giant” (by what definition?) American Jewish Organizations have learned absolutely nothing.)
Jerome S. Kaufman
By Michelle Malkin
Barack Obama looked pale and wan at what he called his "big press conference" about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Tuesday afternoon – numb, chastened. defeated. Who knew that the greatest threat to his presidential campaign would come from the preacher who married him, baptized him and prayed with him? Obama should've known - that's who. "Yes, we can"? Try: Yes, you should have.
For the last 24 hours, Obama's campaign grappled with how to handle the aftermath of Wright's whirlwind tour of hatred this weekend - from Dallas, where he decried his "public crucifixion;” To Detroit, where he entertained NAACP bigwigs with impersonations of white people, mockeries of classical music and "white" marching bands, and lectures on racial brain theories, to the National Press Club, where he preened, strutted and head-wagged his way through an hour of bitter black liberation theologizing.
At first, Obama downplayed Wright's public appearances. Now he tells us he had to wait 24 hours to denounce Wright's National Press Club speech because he "hadn't seen it." After all this time on the campaign trail, we're back to the Obama-as-a-clueless-naif narrative again.
When he finally did view the Washington speech, Obama explained, he was "shocked" and "outraged" and "saddened" because "the person I saw was not the person that I'd come to know over 20 years." Pure, unadulterated horse manure.
Anyone with eyes can see that Wright's performances are finely honed, time-tested acts. His "imperialist"-bashing, anti-American, anti-white shtick wasn't developed overnight or over the past few years.
He's been peddling AIDS conspiracies for decades. He's been grievance-mongering about slavery for decades. He's been flirting with the Nation of Islam, which provided security for his speeches, for decades. He's been a shouting left-wing radical for decades.
Obama's best-selling "Audacity of Hope" is named after the first sermon of Wright's that he heard - decades ago - in which the pastor of racial resentment inveighed against an environment "where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere." Yet only now has Obama concluded that Wright's sermons are "a bunch of rants that aren't grounded in truth."
A clergyman e-mailed after Obama's press conference: "It is inconceivable that Obama had no knowledge of Wright's views after 20 years as a member of that church. As a pastor: my heart-held, deepest beliefs and passions cannot be silenced. It is what I am. If I were given a microphone at the National Press Club, I would not speak on something that I had guardedly kept secret for most of my life. No, I would go to my main point, the center of my ministry, the core of my passion, to speak truth, as I know it to be.”
"How can Obama actually claim that this is news from his pastor? If it were his mailman, butcher or plumber - no problem, but his pastor - no way! It's not Wright who has changed his loony tune.
Just last year, Obama told the Chicago Tribune that Wright was his sounding board for truth: "What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice. He's much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I'm not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that's involved in national politics."
Just this March, in his racial-reconciliation speech, Obama urged us not to dismiss Wright as a "crank or a demagogue" and protested that he could "no more disown him than I can disown the black community.” Now, realizing how gravely his self-serving association with Wright has wounded his campaign, Obama himself has tried to do both those things - and expects us to believe his weak, belated claim that "when I say I find [Wright's] statements appalling, I mean it."
The "audacity of hope" indeed.