If you want the goods on Father Pfleger, look here, at Discover the Networks, where among other things you will find this near-endorsement of Jihadism which might come as news to many readers:

On another occasion, Pfleger invited Kareem Irfan, former Chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, to speak at Saint Sabina on the fourth anniversary of 9/11. A member of the Islamic Society of North America, Irfan has characterized Islamic beheadings of non-Muslims not as acts of evil, but rather as manifestations of “a primordial sense of retaliation and revenge.”

Endorsement is not too strong a word.  Pfleger’s guests are not people with whom he disagrees.

Unless you think he sharply distinguishes between this, that, and the other:

Rev. Michael Pfleger invited Kareem Irfan, former chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, to speak to his congregation about prejudice against Muslims and Arabs in the wake of Sept. 11.

“In the name of patriotism and the Patriot Act, there was a great rising of prejudice and bigotry against Muslims and Arabs,” Pfleger said. “We cannot allow that under the guise of patriotism.”

Irfan spoke about the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the denial of legal representation for those being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“We’ve seen a shameful erosion of civil rights and liberties,” he said, referring to the Patriot Act’s power to allow law enforcement to use such measures as secret arrests and unrestricted wiretaps to investigate people since Sept. 11. “There’s been a distressing violation of the privacy of organizations and individuals.”

This is how it’s done, of course.  You make all-purpose bigotry the theme of your 9/11 observance.

A Long Island monsignor offers himself as Big O.’s pastor, to replace those being thrown under the bus:

Monsignor Jim Lisante of Rockville Centre, LI, praised GOP nominee Sen. John McCain and said, “A lot more of us would be comfortable with [Obama’s] judgment skills if he hadn’t sat for 20 years through the words offered by his preacher of division, bigotry . . . without a word of rejection from Sen. Obama – that is, until the media brought it up. And now he doesn’t want any part of the guy. I’m willing to be his pastor.”

A generous offer, I’d say.

The Big O. on his grandfather in Dreams of My Father:

“Gramps returned from the war never having seen real combat, and the family moved to California, where he enrolled at Berkeley under the GI bill,” he writes. “But the classroom couldn’t contain his ambitions, his restlessness, and so the family moved again.”

The Big O. in New Mexico on Memorial Day:

“My grandfather marched in Patton’s Army, but I cannot know what it is to walk into battle like so many of you.”

The Big O. in a 2002 antiwar speech:

“My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.”

He thinks he’s conning people in a South Side church basement.

The Big O. on his grandfather in Dreams of My Father:

“Gramps returned from the war never having seen real combat, and the family moved to California, where he enrolled at Berkeley under the GI bill,” he writes. “But the classroom couldn’t contain his ambitions, his restlessness, and so the family moved again.”

The Big O. in New Mexico on Memorial Day:

“My grandfather marched in Patton’s Army, but I cannot know what it is to walk into battle like so many of you.”

The Big O. in a 2002 antiwar speech:

“My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.”

He thinks he’s conning people in a South Side church basement.

“Even old-time Clintonites were appalled” at Hillary’s claim that RFK’s assassination in 1968 justifies her staying in the race, says Robert Novak.

The most important political impact of Clinton’s conduct is to make Sen. Barack Obama’s task as nominee more difficult. For the first time, we hear serious talk among Democrats that the party may not be fully able to join ranks at the convention in Denver in late August.

“The hostility on both sides is intense,” he says, with O. boo’d by pro-Hillary unionists in Puerto Rico and Obama-ites crying “feminists” as their enemy.  “The longer this continues, the more difficult will be reconciliation.”

This doesn’t mean McCain’s ready to capitalize on Dem disunion.

His biggest problem may be failure to realize that the Republican coalition is not fully united behind him. The most recent defectors are lobbyists expelled from his campaign who are not happy about their treatment. We continue to hear complaints from evangelicals, economic conservatives, and other critics of McCain. The refrain continues from conservatives that maybe the country and the GOP need four years of Obama.

Great.

Bill Daley, brother of Richard M., spotted newsman Robert Novak on the convention floor in 1988.  The Dems had handed Rev. Jesse Jackson the spotlight before nominating Dukakis, allowing him to blare forth his message in what Novak wrote was “a triumphal address” that mentioned Dukakis “only in passing.”   

Daley wanted to talk.  From their conversation came this in Novak’s column:

“For those who watched television,” one Midwestern Democratic operative told us, “what they saw looked like a black party.”  That troubled Democrats who are anything but racists.  The depletion of Dukakis’s lead, according to polls released during the convention, is attributable to the Jackson factor.

That’s in Novak’s memoir, The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington, pp. 450–451.  Novak continues:

Daley was no racist, and there was no more loyal Democrat.  . . . .  But he feared the disastrous candidacies of George McGovern, Fritz Mondale, and now Mike Dukakis posed a bleak future for traditional Democrats.

So it is in our day that the black candidate poses a problem for Dems, as is clear from the “buyers’ remorse” item mentioned below.

Not to mention Newsbusters, with this telling graphic.

Yes, this is the Hillary line, but Dem voters seem not so sure about Obama, in fact are afflicted with “buyer’s remorse”:

In nearly every demographic category since February 19, Clinton percentage of the vote has risen, while Obama’s has fallen. This includes Obama’s supposed “strong” demographic categories such as voters with college degrees post-graduate degrees and voters whose income is above the national median. And Clinton beat Obama in the primaries in March, April and May in most of the major categories.

The argument is offered with beaucoups de charts and graphs by Taylor Marsh, who says she offers “the antidote to right-wing talk.” The link comes from the ever-helpful Instapundit.

From Reader Dick:

The Dems will soon (too late?) realize that Obamamama is carrying too much baggage and too little substance. He knows little or nothing about The Constitution, the Economy, and worst of all, Foreign Policy and Nucleaar Containment.

God save us from his superficial charm and knowledge to match.