Ambushed by a Bill O'Reilly camera crew, Pfleger stated: "He has—first of all, he has not called Judaism a gutter religion of blood suckers. That is not what he has said because I have heard that talk. I stick up for Louis Farrakhan because he is another person that the media has chosen to define how they want to do it. And they demonize how they want to demonize somebody. I know the man, Louis Farrakhan. He is a great man. I have great respect for him, ho has done an awful lot for people and this country, black, white, and brown. He's a friend of mine." (The O'Reilly Factor, Apr. 3, 2008.) Farrakhan spoke at St. Sabina's on May 25, 2007. (Chicago Sun Times, May 10, 2007.) ...
Rev. Pfleger does not respect the property rights of persons who sell products he does not like. He "is known for climbing ladders to deface liquor billboards." (Crain's Chicago Business, Dec. 20, 2004.) ...
In another demonstration at Chuck's Gun Shop, owned by John Riggio, Rev. Pfleger told the crowd: "We're going to find you and snuff you out....Like a rat you're going to hide. But like a rat, we're going to catch you and pull you out....We're going to snuff out John Riggio." Rev. Pfleger also promised: "We're going to snuff out legislators that are voting against our gun laws. We're coming for you because we're not going to sit idly."
Rev. Pfleger later denied that his words had been meant to invoke violence, or that he had known that "snuff out" means to "kill." Rather, the determination to "snuff out" Riggio was a determination to find out his home address, which was not publicly available.
... 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.
"I always have felt in him this consciousness that, at the end of the day, with all of us, you've got to face God," Pfleger says of Obama. "Faith is key to his life, no question about it. It is central to who he is, and not just in his work in the political field, but as a man, as a black man, as a husband, as a father.... I don't think he could easily divorce his faith from who he is."
In another demonstration at Chuck’s Gun Shop, owned by John Riggio, Rev. Pfleger told the crowd: "We’re going to find you and snuff you out....Like a rat you’re going to hide. But like a rat, we’re going to catch you and pull you out....We’re going to *BANG*"
"He was threatening my life infront of a crowd, I feared for my life..."
Obama, in a statement, said, ’’As I have traveled this country, I’ve been impressed not by what divides us, but by all 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.’’
Does anybody else read this as a new revelation for Obama?
Yeah, but where does this leave his notion of "Change" or "Hope" ?
The folks at Trinity UCC are caught up in a "time warp’ that leaves their America stuck some time around 1960. The "fellowship" with Louis Farrakhan and his clan seem to back up this idea, as much of Islam is stuck in the 6th century, making Trinity look like positively modern.
Radicals like Father Pfleger and Ayers must find the 60’s atmosphere at Trinity like reliving the glory days of the "Summer of Love." I bet if they could unearth the bones of LBJ it would make the day complete.
Meanwhile, Obama finally catches up on the developments of the last 45 years and gleans the idea, that has been obvious to those of us that actually lived during the past 45 years, that there has been "Hope" and "Change" that seems to have gone unreported in his universe.
Which brings us back to .. where does this leave his notion of "Change" or "Hope" ?
His Holiness can say whatever he likes, but his words are just words (though often sound ones) to those who aren’t Catholic...
Though apparently in the US, his words aren’t even suggestion *cough*Pelosi*cough*...
All True. But isn’t Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church, claiming to BE Catholic?
Or did I miss the memo?
As for the rest of the implications, it’s as I’ve said before...
Obama can seperate himself from this clergyman, as well as he could Wright, but that doesn’t seperate him from the problem, because Wright while most certainly at the center of the controversy the way the press pushed it a few months back,isn’t the real problem. This was never about Wright per se’, a point proved by Wright leaving and the place still going in the same racist direction.
Even absent Wright, this racist mentality is foundational to that church, that group of people. Including Obama, one may conclude. No, MUST conclude. The question was and now remains, how is it that Obama managed to sit in this church for 20 years, soaking up the racism, and subjecting his kids to it? Not only are we dealing with an issue of racism on the part of Obama, we’re dealing with a question of his honesty in this matter as well. THe ugliness of this racism and anti-Americanism aside, how are we to accept that such comments were so rare that Obama never heard them, when every time someone opens their mouth in that slime pit, the same words tumble out?
Michael Pfleger: one more reason not to vote for Obama.
I alway say, "Judge a man by the company he keeps."
Let us judge Obama by the people he has surrounded himself for TWENTY YEARS. Not 20 minutes, and not some Reverend he used for "outreach."
The media has still not pressed Obama where he was when Wright was making anti-American, anti-white, and anti-Semitic statements. He now needs to be pressed on why he has been close friends with a racist bigot like Pfleger, who is close friends with Farrakhan. And he needs to explain why after Pfleger raised money for his state Senate campaign he pushed for an earmark of $150,000 that aided Pfleger’s parish.
Maybe those Dem voter who voted for Clinton who said that "Obama shares Jeremiah Wright’s values" were right after all.
Rev. Pfleger later denied that his words had been meant to invoke violence, or that he had known that "snuff out" means to "kill." Rather, the determination to "snuff out" Riggio was a determination to find out his home address, which was not publicly available
And Sharpton "never meant" to incite violence by denouncing white interlopers at Freddy’s Fashion Mart either!
