Barack Obama's Shady Friends
My late father-in-law used to say, "Show me who your friends are and I'll show you who you are." Barack Obama has a number of shady friends.
A lot of attention has been paid to Obama's minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. This is no casual relationship. Obama has been a member of Trinity for almost 20 years. He and his wife were married there. He gave a $20,000 donation. Rev. Wright baptized the Obama children. Barack and Michelle Obama are active, fully participating members of the church community. Yet Obama would have us believe that he never heard any of his pastor's vicious, hateful remarks.
Rev. Wright has said things that are racist and anti-American. He said "God damn America" from the pulpit. He referred to this country as the USKKKofA and on Fox News Channel's Hannity and Colmes he called it "the United States of White America." He said from his pulpit that the government deliberately created AIDS to wipe out the black population and that it put drugs in the inner cities in order to incarcerate black men. In his sermon on the Sunday after 9/11, Wright said that "America's chickens have come home to roost." Is it any wonder that Michelle Obama said she is proud of America "for the first time in my adult life"?
Further, Trinity openly promotes "the black culture" and "the black value system", a very exclusionary viewpoint, and it gave an award to Louis Farrakhan. Suppose that there were a Presidential candidate who had for the better part of two decades attended a church that promoted "the white culture" and "the white value system" and had given an award to David Duke. What would be said of that candidate? That he (or she) is a racist? So why isn't that being said of Obama?
Senator Obama says he does not support Rev. Wright's statements, yet apparently never said anything about them until he started running for President. He disinvited Wright from his announcement press conference, however, saying "You can get a little rough in some of those sermons." And he has continued to support that church and that pastor with his time, treasure, and his presence for almost 20 years.
Obama was one of the loudest voices demanding the firing of radio personality Don Imus after Mr. Imus made a disgusting, tasteless remark about the Rutgers women's basketball team. He said that Imus "wouldn't work for me." Yet Imus has apologized for his tasteless remark, Wright never has, and Wright to this day works for Obama (as part of the church family at Trinity.)
But Rev. Wright is only one of Obama's problems.
William Ayers is the one-time bomb-maker for the 1960s radical group The Weather Underground. He was one of the leaders of the Weather Underground's bombings of the U.S. Capitol, Pentagon, New York City police headquarters, the State Department building, and other sites. In an article in the New York Times (doesn't that figure) on September 11, 2001, Ayers wrote that "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough." Yet according to a spokesman for Obama's campaign, Ayers and Senator Obama are "friendly." They served together on the Board of The Woods Foundation. Do we want a President who is friendly with and sat on a foundation board with an anti-American, Communist terrorist?
One of Obama's major fundraisers is Antoin (Tony) Rezko, a Syrian-born developer and restaurateur who is currently under indictment for wire fraud for staging false transactions of his pizza stores in order to secure $10 million in loans. Rezko owned franchises of restaurant chains Panda Express and Papa John's Pizza, although he was forced to sell out of Papa John's and renamed his pizzerias in Chicago Papa Tony's. Rezko was sued by Papa John's for falling behind on his franchise fees. That led to the alleged wire fraud for which he is currently being prosecuted. He has also been indicted for extortion of businesses seeking to do business with the Illinois Teachers Retirement System Board and the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.
In 2005, Obama purchased his house on the South Side of Chicago for $1,650,000, $300,000 below the asking price, on the same day that Rezko's wife, Rita, purchased the adjoining empty lot for the full asking price. Subsequently, Obama bought a 10-foot strip of Rezko's land, making Rezko's land less attractive for development. The two lots had originally been one property. In 1997, Obama wrote a letter to the city of Chicago supporting a Rezko-led housing development. The project received more than $14 million in taxpayer funds, including $885,000 in development fees for Rezko and his partner, Allison Davis. Obama told the Chicago Sun-times that Rezko had raised about $25,000 for him.
So some of Barack Obama's close associates are a racist, anti-American preacher, a terrorist bomber who doesn't regret it, and an indicted slumlord whose project he has supported and who has raised funds for him.
Show me who your friends are and I'll show you who you are.
