My friend Joe Loconte has a must-read piece on Barack Obama's priest on the Weekly Standard's website. It contains two key arguments:
(1) Barack Obama's links to Rev Jeremiah Wright are very strong:
"Barack Obama has nourished--and been nourished by--a 20-year relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama calls Wright his spiritual "mentor" and the man whose "social gospel" drew him into the black church. He is the minister who married Obama, baptized his daughters, and prays with and counsels him at key moments of his political life. Obama absorbed hours of tapes of Wright's sermons while a law student at Harvard. When he settled in Chicago, he joined Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ, where he has been an active, tithing member for over 17 years."
(2) A selection of quotations that the Republicans will use to destroy Senator Obama if they get the chance:
- "The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied."
- "We put Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there."
- "America is still the number one killer in the world."
- "We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure the Third World people live in grinding poverty."
- "Racism is the American way."
Also see this video.
Barack Obama is giving a big speech on race today. It'll need to be good.
