Iraq: A dead archbishop and AP bingo

Brace yourselves for a new round of criticism of the Iraq war, just in time to muffle discussion of Barack Hussein Obama’s race-baiting pastor.

The Associated Press is practically drooling as the military death toll in Iraq nears 4,000 (3,987 at this writing).

You may have noticed lately that the war has faded into the background of newscasts. That’s because we’re winning. We have been for years, but the more recent military surge has been so successful that even the terrorist-admiring press had to acknowledge it, so the war has been downplayed.

Even the AP had backed off its daily death count stories. But that didn’t mean that they stopped counting. Reaching 4,000 military deaths in Iraq is the media’s version of yelling “Bingo!” at church on Wednesday night.

Almost lost in the coverage of Iraq is one nonmilitary death that will probably be little noticed outside the town of Mosul: the kidnapping death of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, leader of Iraq’s minority Chaldean Catholic community. (The Chaldeans are an Eastern-rite church under the Vatican’s auspices.)

But Rahho’s death holds grave implications for Iraq. If the country is allowed to revert to the Islamic tradition of oppressing, enslaving or murdering non-Muslims, Iraq will never fulfill its promise as a free nation.

That, of course, is what the Islamo-fascists want, to install the full terror of Muhammad’s religion, with themselves in charge.

Iraq’s elected leaders have vowed to protect the Chaldean Catholic community, and our military is pledged to back them up. Defeating the terrorists once and for all is necessary to securing freedom, and that is why Americans are fighting and dying on a daily basis, regardless of what works for press coverage.

Archbishop Rahho died for his belief that Jesus is God. Our military men and women are dying to protect our and the Iraqis’ freedom. And while we are all saddened at the loss of human life, we should thank God that there are still people in this world who understand that things like freedom truly are worth dying for.

Obama: Student of hate?

It’s no secret that the mainstream media often give a pass to certain politicians. Barack Hussein Obama has been enjoying the fruits of that so far in his campaign.

When Obama made it clear that his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was his mentor and close friend over the past two decades, the media did not look too hard at Wright’s connections to Louis Farrakhan, one of the nation’s most renowned bigots and race-baiters.

When some of Wright’s outrageous comments from the pulpit started coming to light, the Obama campaign dismissed them as the occasional ramblings of someone who is like a “crazy uncle,” not representative of the pastor’s real leanings.

Recently, the Internet and talk radio were set buzzing with the revelation of two videos plainly showing Wright’s true character, that of an anti-American hate monger. The mainstream media had tried to bury this issue, but thanks to people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, and contributors to YouTube, the truth is coming out and even mainstream outlets like ABC and the New York Times are having to acknowledge it.

Obama has said that he rejects his “crazy uncle’s” rantings. That doesn’t wash, though, because this is the church the Obamas have attended for two decades, this is the pastor who married them, who baptized their children and whom Obama himself has called a mentor. If Obama really rejected Wright’s views, would he subject his children and wife to the ravings of this lunatic?

Add that to the equation that already included a wife who was ashamed of her country (an attitude she may have learned from Wright’s pulpit) and a senator who calls the founder of the bomb-setting Weather Underground a friend, and you get a disturbing picture indeed.

This week we were treated to the image of Obama in high dudgeon over the words of Geraldine Ferraro, who merely pointed out that he is getting special treatment in the liberal media because he is not white and not a woman. The hypocritical furor dubbed Ferraro a racist. Meanwhile, these videos of the hate-filled rhetoric going on in Obama’s own church were ignored by most of the mainstream media, illustrating perfectly Ferraro’s point.

Obama is not a reconciler or uniter. He is not the agent of change. He is steeped in the same tired, liberal, racist, divisive politics that has been the hallmark of the Democratic Party for decades. He certainly is not the picture of someone who deserves to be president.