I love this. Great concept and great execution. 
Tag Archive for 'michael pfleger'
According to Fox News, Barack Obama responded to the Tony Rezko conviction today in statement with “I’m saddened by today’s verdict. This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew…” Of course this has become a pattern for Obama of having to issue this statement about the individuals that he chose to use in order to climb to the top of Chicago politics as an outsider to the windy city.
This is the man who has already had to denounce his spiritual mentor and pastor of 20 years in Jeremiah Wright, a Catholic priest, Michael Pfleger, who Obama has known well for decades, and now the man convicted today. According to ABC news, Tony Rezko and his wife were instrumental in Obama ability to purchase his Chicago mansion:
In sharp contrast to his tough talk about ethics reform in government, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., approached a well-known Illinois political fixer under active federal investigation, Antoin “Tony” Rezko, for “advice” as he sought to find a way to buy a house shortly after being elected to the United States Senate.
The parcel included an adjacent lot which Obama told the Chicago Tribune he could not afford because “it was already a stretch to buy the house.”
On the same day Obama closed on his house, Rezko’s wife bought the adjacent empty lot, meeting the condition of the seller who wanted to sell both properties at the same time.
And the Chicago Sun Times has the following on Obama buying a portion of the adjacent lot from Rezko’s wife to expand his yard:
A few months after Obama became a U.S. senator, he and Rezko’s wife, Rita, bought adjacent pieces of property from a doctor in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood — a deal that has dogged Obama the last two years. The doctor sold the mansion to Obama for $1.65 million — $300,000 below the asking price. Rezko’s wife paid full price — $625,000 — for the adjacent vacant lot. The deals closed in June 2005. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko’s wife $104,500 for a strip of her land, so he could have a bigger yard. At the time, it had been widely reported that Tony Rezko was under federal investigation. Questioned later about the timing of the Rezko deal, Obama called it “boneheaded” because people might think the Rezkos had done him a favor.
Why the need for so many denouncements Senator Obama over your close associates?
Power Line addresses the Obama statement in a posting titled “The Most Wildly Inappropriate Statement Ever?” And Michelle Malkin has also weighed in on the pathetic statement.
We are getting a clearer picture today on how Obama is tied to the controversial Catholic Priest, Father Michael Pfleger and surprise, surprise, it involves money flowing in both directions.
The Chicago Tribune ran a story today titled “Cardinal George weighs in on Pfleger flap” reporting that the Cardinal of Chicago, Francis George, announced that Pfleger has agreed not to campaign from the pulpit for the remainder of this election year. But you have to read a little farther to get to the meat. Toward the end of the article the following is written:
In a Tribune story a year ago, Obama defended special budget earmarks for his district while he was a state legislator, including ones that went to programs associated with Pfleger’s church.
Pfleger gave Obama’s campaigns $1,500 between 1995 and 2001, including $200 in April 2001, about three months after Obama announced at least $100,000 in grants to St. Sabina programs.
So as a state senator, Obama helped secure money for Pfleger. That’s at least $100,000 for Pfleger’s work according to the Chicago Tribune. This only manages to strengthen the entanglement in which Obama finds himself in regarding the controversial priest who crafted the inflammatory sermon that was delivered to Trinity Church.
It only gets worse for Obama. While it’s well reported that Pfleger has helped the disadvantaged, it is also quite clear now that Pfleger is a well known proponent of Nation of Islam leader Luis Farrakhan and the love is apparently mutual. Watch for yourself:
I wonder how Pfleger felt when Obama rejected the endorsement of Farrakhan?
Also, it’s almost surreal that the rookie senator from Illinois that is trying to become the leader of the United States of America has called Pfleger as one who helps Obama keep his “moral compass.” The following is written in a 2004 Chicago Sun Times article:
“The biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass.”
Friends and advisers, such as the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church in the Auburn- Gresham community on the South Side, who has known Obama for the better part of 20 years, help him keep that compass set, he says.
We have a 20-year relationship between Jeremiah Wright and Obama and a 20-year relationship between Michael Pfleger and Obama. Obama’s campaign has already started to try to erase his connection with Pfleger. Unfortunately for them, there is this little persistence problem for them with the journalism in Chicago that has accurately chronicled a long and likely politically important relationship for Obama with Pfleger.
The main stream media will attempt to gloss over the crazy rhetoric delivered by Trinity Church speaker and Catholic Priest, Father Michael L. Pfleger directed at Hillary Clinton this weekend, but it can’t be good for the rookie senator from Illinois to have to issue yet another public statement of disappointment over sermons delivered from his chosen house of worship for over twenty years, Trinity Church in Chicago. Obama today issued the following statement stating his disappointment:
As I have traveled this country, I’ve been impressed not by what divides us, but by all that that unites us. That is why I am deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger’s divisive, backward-looking rhetoric, which doesn’t reflect the country I see or the desire of people across America to come together in common cause.
We’ll we are starting to get the idea of how Team Obama will spin the mean spirited “preaching” from Pfleger. Didn’t this happen before with another important figure in Obama’s spiritual life? It’s a pattern for sure, and it will have ramifications for the rookie senator with voters concerned about Obama’s judgment over the associations that he has chosen to develop from Wright to Ayers to now Pfleger. And those are reasonable concerns to have over such an inexperienced politician.
In his politicized sermon, Father Pfleger uses his position as a priest to publicly accuse Senator Clinton of felling entitled to the nomination because she is white and influential. How does this possibly speak to the Gospel of Christ and why would Pfleger feel so comfortable in coming into Trinity Church to deliver this type of racial and political smear attack? Could it be that Pfleger has witnessed this type of message delivered at Trinity before?
I’m not sure, but watch for yourself and ask yourself the following: why does Pfleger appear so incredibly comfortable delivering this smear attack and also why is it so well received by the congregation in attendance?
Michelle Malkin has coverage that includes the endorsement from Pfleger that Team Obama has removed from Obama’s campaign site. She has also transcribed Pfleger’s pathetic sermonizing. (Here is the cached version.) Here is the Pfleger endorsement of Obama that has been removed:
Father Michael Pfleger
Senior Pastor, St. Sabina Church, Chicago, IL
I’m concerned by issues of poverty and issues of justice and equal access and opportunity especially when dealing with children and education and healthcare. Also, the war in Iraq is non-negotiable: end it! The faith community has to be a prophetic voice to bring us to where we ought to be as a country. Its voice should call every individual to be their best and not assimilate into anything less. Obama is calling back those who have given up and lost hope in the political system both young and old in the belief that we can fix it. He has the intellect for the job and I haven’t heard anyone since Robert F. Kennedy who is causing such an emotional and spiritual awakening to the political possibilities.
Why would Obama’s campaign staff feel compelled to remove the Pfleger’s endorsement over the “disappointing” comments? To me it would seem to indicate that Obama’s campaign is painfully aware of the real damage caused by Obama’s close personal relationships with the likes of Wright, Pfleger, and Ayers. While the rhetoric of these associations speak loudly, the actions of Obama’s campaign team speak even louder.
They are in emergency mode. They know that voters can tell the difference between the controversial endorsements that Senator McCain has recently denounced and those received by Obama from individuals with whom Obama has developed long and standing relationships. The relationships were good for Obama when they were helping get into Chicago politics as an outsider, but now Obama is reaping what he sowed to rise to the top.
