Obama's ties to Farrakhan run deep ...

Some say this presidential election has been going on far too long. But when it comes to unearthing the truth about Barack Obama more time is needed.

For example, Kenneth R. Timmerman's article Saturday at Newsmax.com. was an eye-opener about Obama's long association with Louis Farrakhan. Timmerman quotes a former top deputy to Nation of Islam leader Farrakhan saying Obama’s ties to the black nationalist movement in Chicago run deep, and that for many years the two men have had “an open line between them” to discuss policy and strategy, either directly or through intermediaries.

“Remember that for years, if you were a politician in Chicago, you had to have some type of relationship with Louis Farrakhan. You had to. If you didn’t, you would be ostracized out of black Chicago,” said Dr. Vibert White Jr., who spent most of his adult life as a member and ultimately top officer of the Nation of Islam.

White, who broke with the group in 1995 and is now a professor at the University of Central Florida, said Obama was “part of the Chicago scene” where Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and radicals would go to each other’s events and support each other’s causes.

Timmerman points out the Anti-Defamation League has called the Nation of Islam as a “hate group” and denounced Farrakhan for calling Jews “bloodsuckers,” “satanic” and accusing them of running the slave trade. He has labeled gays as “degenerates.”

While Obama was careful to “denounce” Farrakhan’s comments, he did not come down hard on his friend. And Barack's criticism came only after Sen. Hillary Clinton called him out during the primaries for benefiting from Farrakhan’s support.

Farrakhan endorsed Obama in a videotaped speech to his followers at Mosque Miryam in Chicago in February. “You are the instruments that God is gonna use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth,” Farrakhan said:



Obama was less than candid when he said Farrakhan had been praising him as “an African-American who seems to be bringing the country together." "I obviously can't censor him, but it is not support that I sought. And we’re not doing anything, I assure you, formally or informally with Minister Farrakhan.”

Less than candid because in 1995 Obama “took time off from attending campaign coffees to attend October’s Million Man March in Washington, D.C.,” according to a profile of Obama that appeared in the Chicago Reader .

Obama spoke at length with the Chicago newspaper upon his return from the Million Man March. “What I saw was a powerful demonstration of an impulse and need for African-American men to come together to recognize each other and affirm our rightful place in the society," he said. “These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a ‘lock ’em up, take no prisoners’ mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress,” Obama said.

In 1984, Rev. Wright accompanied Farrakhan on his much-criticized trip to meet Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, at a time when Gadhafi was considered an enemy of the United States. Yet in Feburary this year Obama insisted his pastor and mentor “does not have a close relationship with Louis Farrakhan,” after Wright’s Trumpet magazine gave Farrakhan its Lifetime Achievement award.

White told Newsmax that the Trumpeter Award, honoring Farrakhan for “truly epitomized greatness,” was the fruit of a long and deep relationship between the two men.