Obama: 'Change We Can Believe In Starts with Church'

From the New York Times:

Obama Quits His Church

By Jeff Zeleny

WASHINGTON – Senator Barack Obama is ending his membership at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a congregation he has belonged to for about two decades and one that had become a lightning rod in his Democratic presidential bid.

Really, now, what else could Senator Obama do? He joined this church, I believe, because he wanted to punch his south Chicago ticket as proof he was a down black politician.

If only the steps he'd learned to dance along with Chicago's radical politico-clerico machine were the same he'd need to take to be a serious national figure, a unifier, and a credible presidential candidate. But, to paraphrase one of Barack's three spiritual advisors, Fr. Pfleger, Obama is telling himself:

"I’m BLACK. And this is mine. And I jus’ gotta get up. And step into the plate. And then out of nowhere came, ‘Hey, I’m Father Pfleger!’ And he said: ‘Oh, damn!’ WHERE DID YOU COME FROM!?!?!"

Fr. Pfleger came from the same place Reverend Wright came from, and Louis Farrakhan, and Bill Ayers, and the rest. They came straight from the grab-basket of Obama's political past, each one of them lovingly selected for what they could do to help a slick, handsome, trans-racial Harvard grad get on the fast track to Destiny, with a starting place in south side Chicago.

But what works in city politics for trading off votes, graft, youth centers, and getting easy laughs from "community organized" congregations somehow doesn't translate to the weightier matters that the leader of the free world has to face. Obama is the living embodiment of the slogan about not needing enemies when you have friends like these. Could he have possibly selected a group better calculated to convince the nation he never met a loudmouthed, obstreperous, idiot he didn't like? (If I hear one more of these jokers say that Jeremiah Wright is one of the most brilliant biblical scholars in the world I'm going to vomit on my keyboard).

Obama's problem today is that he's going through a cycle that most of go through as young people, anywhere between young adulthood and middle age, when we come to a new view of things, and shed some of the foolish associations of the past, and the foolish ideas of our youth. We laugh at ourselves a bit: "I used to think that?! I said that?!" It's all part of growing up.

At least, in Obama's case, he's shedding the foolish associations, with the gentle prompting of the conservative press. And he's doing so at record speed. It's a healthy thing, by and large. Maybe he'll start shedding the foolish ideas soon, too. Everything in good time.

You just don't want somebody still going through that in the Oval Office.

What's Next, An Arab-Seeking Missile?

We’re all sick of hearing about Jeremiah Wright. But as long as Barack Obama is so close to winning the Democratic nomination for President, the goings-on at Obama’s Chicago church need to be brought out.

Now it is being reported that the Trinity United Church of Christ newsletter has been used by Rev. Wright to reprint an “Open Letter to Oprah” by a Palestinian activist, accusing Israel of developing an “ethnic bomb that kills blacks and Arabs.”

In another edition, Wright lent his reserved “Pastor’s Page” to reprint a manifesto from Hamas written by Mousa Abu Marzook, believed by intelligence officials to be the brains behind Hamas and attempting, among other terrorist acts, of trying to set up Hamas in the United States.

Obama-church newsletter: Israel making 'ethnic bomb'
Accuses 'apartheid' state of creating weapon 'that kills blacks and Arabs'

Posted: March 25, 20083:06 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein© 2008 WorldNetDaily

JERUSALEM – Sen. Barack Obama's Chicago church published an open letter from a Palestinian activist that labels Israel an "apartheid" regime and claims the Jewish state worked on an "ethnic bomb" that kills "blacks and Arabs."

The letter, discovered by the blog Sweetness & Light, was published on the "Pastor's Page" of the Trinity United Church of Christ newsletter reserved for Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., whose anti-American, anti-Israel remarks prompted the presidential candidate to deliver a major race speech last week.

"I must tell you that Israel was the closest ally to the white supremacists of South Africa," wrote the letter's author, Ali Baghdadi. "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 kills Blacks and Arabs."

The June 10, 2007, newsletter, which is still available at Obama's church's website, identifies Baghdadi as an Arab-American activist, writer and columnist who "acted as a Middle East advisor to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the founder of the Nation of Islam, as well as Minister Louis Farrakhan."

The piece is titled "An open letter to Oprah," referring to talk show giant Oprah Winfrey, who last year accepted an invitation to visit Israel offered to her by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Winfrey had been a member of Obama's church but reportedly departed in 1986.

Baghdadi's letter originally was printed in the Palestine Times, a pro-Palestinian newspaper published in London.

Obama's church hosted Baghdadi's letter stating Palestinians face "genocide and ethnic cleansing ... every hour of the day."

"For many centuries, Jews escaped the discrimination and death they were subjected to in Europe, and found safety and refuge among us," writes Baghdadi.

But the activist doesn't address the more than 800,000 Jews who were expelled or left Arab countries under threat after Israel was founded in 1948.

Continues Baghdadi: "Muslims believe in Christianity and Judaism. The Quran states there is no distinction between Muhammad, Jesus and Moses."

In contrast to Baghdadi's declarations, Sheik Taysir Tamimi, chief Palestinian Justice and one of the most influential Muslim leaders in Israel, told WND during a recent interview Moses and Jesus were really "prophets for Islam."

"Your Torah was falsified," stated Tamimi during the interview.

Tamimi is considered the second most important Palestinian cleric after Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

Tamimi said Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Jesus were "prophets for the Israelites sent by Allah as to usher in Islam."

Continuing in the church newsletter, Baghdadi writes: "During the Second Intifadah, the uprising against Israeli occupation, Muslim and Christian activists, chased by the Israeli death squads, were given refuge in the Church [of the Nativity in Bethlehem]."

Baghdadi was referring to an episode in 2002 when gunmen from several major Palestinian terror organizations holed up inside the nativity church while fleeing a massive Israeli anti-terror operation. More than 200 nuns and priests were trapped in the church after Israeli hostage negotiators failed to secure their immediate release. Following the ordeal, which lasted 39 days, scores of church clergy thanked Israel for securing their release.

Some clergy told reporters of deplorable conditions inside the church. Four Greek monks told the Washington Times the Palestinian gunmen holed up with them seized church stockpiles of food and "ate like greedy monsters" until the food ran out, while the trapped civilians went hungry. They said Christians were forced to sleep in cold floors while terrorist leaders occupied the priests quarters and slept on beds and mattresses.

Obama church published Hamas terror manifesto
The latest revelation about published material from Obama's church follows the discovery last week by BizzyBlog that Trinity United Church of Christ reprinted a manifesto by Hamas that defended terrorism as legitimate resistance, refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist and compared the terror group's official charter – which calls for the murder of Jews – to America's Declaration of Independence.

The Hamas piece also was published on Wright's "Pastor's Page." It was written by Mousa Abu Marzook, identified in the publication as a "deputy of the political bureau of Hamas."

According to senior Israeli security officials, Marzook, who resides in Syria alongside Hamas chieftain Khaled Meshaal, is considered the "brains" behind Hamas, designing much of the terror group's policies and ideology. Israel possesses what it says is a large volume of specific evidence that Marzook has been directly involved in calling for or planning scores of Hamas terrorist offensives, including deadly suicide bombings. He was also accused of attempting to set up a Hamas network in the U.S.

Obama e-mailed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency a statement regarding the Hamas publication in his church newsletter explaining he "certainly wasn't in church when that outrageously wrong Los Angeles Times piece was re-printed in the bulletin."


There shouldn't be very much room left for the explanations of Obama's defenders that Wright's comments are being taken out of context. This is the very meaning of the word "context."