Zogby is showing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) with a 14-point lead over rival Sen. HIllary Clinton (D-NY) in today's North Carolina presidential primary and with much slimmer (and surprising) two-point lead over her in Indiana.  Pollsters are never able to account for the Bradley Effect though, which is why I believe he'll only win N.C. by about nine points (state demographics strongly favor him) and she'll probably win Indiana by seven.

I don't know who at the Obama camp thought it would be a good idea to let Obama's controversial pastor/mentor Rev. Jeremiah Wright go on tour, but he's not helping his candidate any.  At Wright's appearances over the weekend, he is claiming that criticisms of his overtly racist and anti-American rhetoric are actually "an attack on the black church." 

In other words, if you object to him yelling "God damn America" from the pulpit, you're just a racist member of the "dominant culture" who's only out to smear black Christians everywhere!

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose post-Sept. 11 comments critical of America have raised questions about his relationship with Obama, has been on a multi-stop tour to restore his image and talk about his church. In addition to speaking at the National Press Club on Monday, he sat down for an interview with PBS's Bill Moyers in recent days.

"This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright. This is an attack on the black church," said Wright, who cast his appearance as part of a two-day "symposium" on the black church.

[...]

Playing off the crowd's energy, Wright even suggested he would be interested in the vice presidency.

[...]

Wright also reasserted Monday that Obama was only disavowing his former pastor's comments for political reasons.

I'm sure Obama must be glad to know that his mentor of twenty years is running all over the country telling people that Barack actually does believe that controversial crap that Wright's been preaching but that he's only saying that he doesn't so that he can trick us into electing him, a raging radical, to the White House.  That's gotta be great news for his campaign.  Sure it's the same game he played with NAFTA, but the public isn't supposed to find out about these things!  (Don't you just love his "new brand of politics?"  We've never seen such overt double talk from politicians before!)

Wright has also announced that he will play an extremely influential role in an Obama administration (whether Barack likes it or not), and he continues to claim that his comments have been taken out of context.  But, like any liberal trying to play this smoke and mirrors game, refuses to explain the "proper" context that would make his comments acceptable.

When Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) questions the probable Democrat nominee Sen. Barack Obama's connections to an unrepentant domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, his campaign only responds by attacking McCain for "smear politics," but does not refute the Illinois Senator's friendliness with Ayers.  He then went on to smear McCain for his positions on the economy and Iraq.  (Ironic?)

In fact, the only defense offered by Sen. Obama regarding his relationship with Ayers was during the recent debate in Pennsylvania:

“The fact is, is that I'm also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions. Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn's statements? Because I certainly don't agree with those either.”

I wonder if the American people will find Sen. Obama's association with a sitting United States Senator just as palatable as his friendship with Ayers; a man who told the New York Times in 2001, regarding his terrorist activities during the 1970's and '80's which took the lives of numerous police officers and civilians, "I don't regret setting bombs.  I feel we didn't do enough."

I'd say Obama needs to work on his moral equivalents.  Ayers is not a guy who simply made a controversial statement.  In fact, we're not concerned about his rhetoric at all!  Ayers blew up cops!

Last October, when presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) was asked why he does not wear an American flag pin on his lapel, Obama responded:

Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest.

Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.

Well apparently keeping an overtly racist, anti-American pastor/mentor for twenty years and accusing rural Americans of being so "bitter" that they have to "cling to guns or religion," does not make for such a great "testimony" to his patriotism.

So ironically enough, Barack's lapel flag is back (Pennsylvania photo here), apparently a "substitute" for the "true patriotism" that his poor choice of company and elitist opinion of average Americans have proved he is lacking...

Only over-sensitive Liberals could possibly find a way to tag a Hispanic woman who has endorsed a African-American man for president as racist toward blacks...

Moving to nip in the bud some potential bad press, White House hopeful Barack Obama's campaign persuaded a delegate to step down after she was ticketed for calling her neighbor's African-American children "monkeys."

Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski, a Carpentersville village trustee, was elected as an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention. She sports an Obama sign in her front yard.

On Saturday, two neighbor children were playing in the tree next-door to her house.

Ramirez-Sliwinski "came outside and told the children to quit playing in the tree like monkeys. The tree was not on Ramirez-Sliwinski's property," Carpentersville Police Commander Michael Kilbourne said.

Ramirez-Sliwinski admitted she used the word "monkeys," but said she did not intend racism. She said she was only trying to protect them from falling out of the tree.

I can't say that I would agree with Ramirez-Sliwinski on most public policy issues, but I feel bad for her.  These are the kind of baseless accusations of racism that have been thrown at Republicans for years.

The real irony is that Obama would throw this woman under the bus for this but when his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was found to have said way worse during his twenty years as Obama's personal mentor, Barack only threw white grandmother under the bus.

What a joke...

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Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill) pastor Jeremiah Wright has openly preached that racist, rich white people are the root of the economic oppression and exploitation of black citizens.  Then he retires and asks his "economically oppressed" congregation to build him a $1.6 million mansion and to finance a $10 million line of credit.

Socialist Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez said Tuesday that relations between his country and the U.S. could worsen if Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) wins the White House.

Remember when Democrats pretended to be incensed when Chavez called Bush "the Devil" at the U.N. podium and then "an alcoholic and a sick man" when he appeared with liberal actor Danny Glover in Harlem (granted, their "anger" was delayed a day so that they had enough time to run a couple of focus groups to find out if they should actually be mad)?  I wonder if they will be equally strong in rejecting Chavez's endorsement of their candidates.

As Sens. Clinton (D-NY) and Obama (D-Ill) continue their fight to the death for their party's nomination, a deep and nearly irreconcilable rift continues to be revealed.  Ironically, for the party of "tolerance" and "political correctness," that rift appears to be falling mostly along age, gender, and racial lines.

So potentially disastrous are the ramifications of this rift that some superdelegates (party elites who will have the final say in who the nominee will be) are even floating a compromise scenario that would put a white man, none other than alarmist-in-chief Al Gore, at the top of their ticket if the nomination is decided by a brokered convention.  I don't think it could ever fly, but the irony is too thick to leave without comment.

Here are a few articles that may help clear the intentionally murkied water regarding Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill), and the man he used to refer to as his personal mentor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Rev. Wright has now resigned from his advisory post in Sen. Obama's presidential campaign and Wright's church is now comparing the recent media scrutiny of his  incendiary sermons to "the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr."

Just to recap, King said that he had a dream that his children "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character," and his assassination was a national tragedy.  Wright blames the U.S. for the 9/11 attacks and calls on God to damn the U.S. of K-K-K-A and then is rightfully scrutinized for his extremist beliefs.  Comparable?  You be the judge.

Obama said he never heard these sermons or even knew the kind of message being preached by his personal mentor of twenty years, though an eye witness account puts him in the church for the "Hate America" sermon on July 22 of last year, along with a Secret Service detail (they have been protecting Obama since last May).

This scandal clearly contradicts the persona that Obama has been building for nearly four years in the public eye.  How can a man who claims to be "post-racial" and "post-partisan" attend a church for twenty years that preaches such venom and hatred... all the while calling its pastor his personal mentor?

Though there has been a great deal of speculation that Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-NY) will resign in the wake of a prostitution scandal, I wonder if he has received a pep talk from the Clintons recently, encouraging him to hold on.  We keep hearing that he has already drafted a letter of resignation, but he did not announce it yesterday and we're told he has no plans to do so today.

If indeed the Clintons are at work here (as I suspect they are), we may see Spitzer attempt to hold on to the office at their behest (despite the fact that it will tear the state apart... believe me, the Clintons don't care).  And if Spitzer does decide to fight it, don't be surprised to see Bill mobilized to Albany.

Remember when CNN informed us that black women voting in the Democrats' primaries face "a unique, and most unexpected dilemma... Should they vote their race, or should they vote their gender?  No other voting bloc in the country faces this choice."

My question for CNN is, now that John Edwards is out of the race, what are white men to do?  "Should they vote their race (Hillary Clinton) or should they vote their gender (Barack Obama)?"  I doubt they'll take the time to write an opinion piece about that though.