NO, NOT GOD BLESS AMERICA, GOD DAMN AMERICA !

"No, no, no, not God bless America, God damn America!" I'm sure by now you have heard those words over and over again, either on TV or on the radio. So, why am I repeating these hateful words by Reverend Jeremiah Wright from just one of his many inflammatory sermons? Because they relate to Barack Obama's character, or lack thereof.

For many years, Rev. Wright has been well known in the Chicago area for delivering many sermons from the pulpit which expressed a virulent hatred for whites and for the United States of America. Obama considers Wright a close friend. He credits Wright for leading him to Jesus Christ. Wright has been his pastor and spiritual adviser for nearly 20 years. He married the Obamas and baptized their children. Their's has been far more than just a casual pastor-parishioner relationship.

I can understand why blacks have been angry over the discrimination and injustices they have suffered at the hands of a white majority. While discrimination against minorities continues to exist, an awful lot has changed since Dr. Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech so that our past history does not justify Rev. Wright's current hatred of whites and his outrageous charges against our government.

Wright claims there is a government conspiracy to imprison black youths. He accuses the government of supplying young blacks with illegal drugs. He refers to our country as the "U.S. of KKK A." There is his demented accusation that the governmnt created the HIV virus "as a means of genocide against people of color." And then there is Wright's preposterous pronouncement that because, among other wrongs, our government supported state (Israeli) terrorism against the Palestinians, the United States was to blame for the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon - "the chickens coming home to roost," as he phrased it.

While Obama has denounced Wright's words in a forceful and unequivable way, he waited until this past week to do so. He claimed he never heard Wright deliver any hateful sermons on those days when he attended church services. He made the incredulous statement that he had not been aware of Wright's hateful sermons until he saw them played on TV recently. If you believe that, I'll sell you some beach front property in Arizona. If unaware of Wright's inflammatory sermons, then why did Obama disinvite his pastor from giving the invocation at the cremony announcing his run for the presidency?

In my blog, JOHN McCAIN IS MY FAVORITE CANDIDATE (12-10-07), I wrote: "Obama's inexperience is no big deal since he would almost certainly appoint well-qualified men and women to be his aides and cabinet members. He has tripped over his tongue on several foreign policy statements. But it's his sucking up to Jessee Jackson and Al Sharpton that makes it hard for me to vote for him." Well that was last December and this is now.

Obama's excuse for waiting until now to denounce Wright's sermons is just plain disingenuous. It sure looked like Michelle Obama has been influenced by those sermons when she told a campaign audience that "For the first time in my adult lifetime I'm proud of my country" and when, in a magazine article, she said America is "just downright mean." All this leads me to belive that - let me put it bluntly - Barack Obama is a liar! Unless he's been living under a rock, Obama had to be aware of the hatred espoused by Wright throughout their 20 year relationship.

I am personally incensed by Wright's references to Israel as a terrorist state. He has called for a divestment campaign against Israel for the "injustice and racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism." His website and church publications have contained articles condemning Israel and Zionism in the strongest ot terms. In the "Pastor's Page" section of his church bulletin there was a two page article by Mousa Abu Marzook, a Hamas terrorist wanted by the FBI, which included the Hamas Manifesto, a document that denies Israel's right to exist and defends attacks against Israeli civilians.

Wright has engaged in anti-Semitic rhetoric, as have those other rabble-rousing reverends, Jessee "Hymietown" Jackson and Al Sharpton. Wright, Obama's close friend and spiritual adviser, has warmly embraced that rabid racist hate-mongering Louis Farrakhan who calls Jews "bloodsuckers" and says "Judaism is a gutter religion."

It offends me that Obama continues to court Jackson, who has made many anti-Semitic remarks, and Sharpton, who fanned the flames of the 1991 riot by blacks against Jews in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Obama has not had to distance himself from Jackson and Sharpton because the media has had an enduring love affair with those charlatans, something Rev. Wright has not enjoyed.

Furthermore, Obama's foreign policy advisers have taken strong pro-Palestinian positions. One of his closest aides has been caught assuring a Canadian government official that Obama's position on changing NAFTA is merely political rhetoric. Before she resigned from his staff, Samantha Power told the BBC not to worry about Obama's stated Iraq policy because it too was just political rhetoric.

Last December, there was a slight possibility that I could have been persuaded to vote for Obama. Because of what I have learned about the man since then, the chances of my voting for Obama have evolved from SLIM TO NONE. Today's speech in Philadelphia, where he did an about face and finally admitted he was present in church when Wright made "remarks" he (Obama) characterized as "controversial," was a dollar short and a day late.