“In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in Trumpet. “White America and the Western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.”

Wright also said that Zionism has an element of white racism. Obama's campaign has insisted that "Senator Obama is proud of his pastor and his church."

No doubt Obamaton true believers will claim that Qaddafi, like Robert Malley, is a supporter of peace in the Middle East, and that those who raise doubts about Wright or Qaddafi and Obama's association with Wright must all be friends of Yigal Amir and supporters of Rabbi Kahaneh. I'm not buying that.

Obama is a phenomenon to be reckoned with. He all but promises eternal life and his followers BELIEVE. He would be running against John McCain, and a recent poll supposedly shows that Obama would trounce McCain, but McCain would beat Clinton.

However, McCain has two indispensable qualifications needed by every leader - luck and persistence in the face of adversity. These helped him survive as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, and helped him take the lead in the Republican presidential race after Rudi Giuliani unexpectedly crashed and burned.

The McCain luck may have just struck again. Ralph Nader announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Good ole Ralphie. He got George Bush elected in 2000, and he's going to try to do it again for John McCain. In the logic of things, Nader is going to attract support from Zmag and Counterpunch and Nation readers, and big bucks from the Republican National Committee.

There can't hardly be any argument about where Nader stands on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but his opinions about Obama are interesting:

...Senator Obama is a person of substance...He's run a brilliant tactical campaign. But his better instincts and his knowledge have been censored by himself. And I give you the example, the Palestinian-Israeli issue, which is a real off the table issue for the candidates. So don't touch that, even though it's central to our security and to, to the situation in the Middle East. He was pro-Palestinian when he was in Illinois before he ran for the state Senate, during he ran--during the state Senate. Now he's, he's supporting the Israeli destruction of the tiny section called Gaza with a million and a half people. He doesn't have any sympathy for a civilian death ratio of about 300-to-1; 300 Palestinians to one Israeli.

Not exactly a coherent or truthful statement, but it tends to reinforce the belief that Barack Obama was pro-Palestinian at some point. On the other hand, Nader's characterization of Obama's views might be as bogus as his assertions about the ratios of Israeli to Palestinian Arab deaths. Over a thousand Israelis have been killed in Palestinian initiated violence since 2000. Even pro-Palestinian sources claim less than 5,000 fatalities, of which about 25% were children or bystanders.

Ami Isseroff