Obama's Church Seditious?

From Erik Rush at the New Media Journal:


“Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday backed the Bush administration's policy of shunning contact with the Islamic militants of Hamas in its Middle East peace diplomacy.” – From “Obama says U.S. should not meet with Hamas,” Reuters, March 3, 2008

Over the weekend, yet another story regarding the questionable associations of presidential hopeful Barack Obama broke. This one involved a bulletin that was passed out among parishioners at Chicago’s Trinity United Church (the church Obama attended for the last twenty years and which until recently was led by militant pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright) on Sunday, July 22, 2007.

Such bulletins, which contain upcoming activities and information from pastors, elders and staff are common to nearly every church. This one however, in its section dubbed “Pastor’s Page” contained information that is certain to deepen the concern and controversy surrounding Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Senator Obama.

At least it will if I have anything to say about it.

Reprinted from a Los Angeles Times article of July 22, 2007 entitled “Hamas’ Stand” by Mousa Abu Marzuq, the article (in the bulletin circulated by Reverend Wright to his flock) is replete with anti-Israel, anti-Semitic sentiments.

Marzuq is among those to whom I refer as “white-collar jihadists,” well-educated, well-spoken but nevertheless extremist Muslims whose mission is to insinuate their doctrine into Western minds (American minds in particular) through well-crafted, soft rhetoric.

Nevertheless, Marzuq is on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. OFAC is the federal arm of the US Department of the Treasury which “administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction” [From OFAC website]. He also appears in the Anti-Defamation League’s terrorist database.

Obama acted very expeditiously, pointing out that he had already addressed the Wright controversy (in having denounced the preacher’s racist, anti-American leanings) and asserted that he “wasn't in church when that outrageously wrong Los Angeles Times piece was re-printed in the bulletin."

How convenient. And “outrageously wrong?” How about “seditious?”

A couple of things I find noteworthy apropos the issues of Obama’s political ties and questions surrounding his religious leanings are:

1. Information offering deeper insight into these issues is now beginning to surface on an almost daily basis.

2. The self-righteous but decidedly feeble equivocation on Obama’s part regarding his true beliefs and on the part of pundits who have inundated media venues rallying to his defense.

These individuals have engaged in the same sort of misdirection of which I accuse Obama, singing his praises to the heavens, yet themselves acting as apologists for his associations. Their claims of “I didn’t personally hear that” and “I wasn’t there when” are starting to become a bit more than tedious, as is their apparent inability to directly answer challenging questions.

At this point in time, the Obama campaign has enacted a policy of refusing media requests for information relating to the candidate’s whereabouts that would either corroborate or contradict his statements.

So, despite Barack Obama’s eloquent but nebulous denials, once again his allegiance to America and its general well-being comes into question:

Is he the candidate and would-be statesman who (like most Americans) looks upon Hamas and similar groups as terrorist organizations, undeserving of high-ranking American politicians lending their credibility to them?

Is he a stereotypically duplicitous politician who for twenty years has aligned himself with and taken counsel from those who overtly support Hamas (at least) with their sentiments in order to secure political support, or is he closeting his true beliefs on the subject, those being concurrence with anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-white activists?

As for Obama himself, his claim that he has already addressed this issue (a polite but shifty way of saying “shut up and move on”) is itself misdirecting and disingenuous. The fact is that he hasn’t adequately addressed the particulars as regards his intent pertaining to continued and future associations with people such as Reverend Wright and James Meeks, another controversial Chicago pastor with whom Obama has close ties. He has not addressed the incredulity of his assertions that he was not aware of the extremism of these close and long-time associates.


If Obama is willing to associate himself with people who support the terrorist group Hamas, it would not be his first association with terrorism.