Public figures, especially those at the presidential and congressional level, have an obligation to distance themselves from racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Catholic organizations and individuals.  Barack Obama, Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) have all fallen short of this basic standard of common decency.

Republicans fortunately nominated Mitt Romney instead of Ron Paul, who refused to reject the support of the Stormfront White Nationalist Community.  Ron Paul has also published a newsletter with racist content.  Such a person should simply not be electable to any position of public trust and responsibility.  It is of course reasonable to hold Mr. Obama and Mr. Casey to similar standards.

Barack Obama has a long record of open association with racists like Jeremiah Wright, racists and anti-Semites like Al Sharpton, hatemongers like Michael Pfleger, and hate organizations like MoveOn.org.  "Association" goes far beyond merely being in the same room with the person, as in "guilt by association."  It means making public appearances with him, accepting endorsements and testimonials from him, and so on.  As shown by the attached screen shots from Barackobama.com, Obama accepted and posted on his website endorsements from Wright and Pfleger until he had to throw the two men under the bus.  (We have added to the Wright screen shot what Wright had to say about the United States "deserving" 9/11 and so on.)  An endorsement from the New Black Panthers also was approved by the moderators who exercised editorial control over Obama's campaign pages.

Michael Pfleger's Threat to "Snuff" a Gun Store Owner

In 2007, about a year before Obama posted Michael Pfleger's endorsement on his website, Pfleger said of an identifiable licensed gun store owner, "We're going to find you and snuff you out."  Pfleger then reiterated (per Wayne LaPierre in the May 2012 American Rifleman, page 12), "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 [name of store owner.]"  The rationalization that "snuff" can mean "to expose" as opposed to "to kill (extinguish, put out)" is simply not credible.

Mr. Obama's willingness to accept a testimonial from this individual tells us everything we need to know about his character, which seems to include a belief that terroristic threats and incitement to murder are acceptable in the society of which he is now chief executive.  This is consistent with the Black Panthers, whom Mr. Obama's Justice Department declined to prosecute for standing outside a Philadelphia polling place with nightsticks in their hands.

Obama's Minister Published Material from a Hamas Terrorist

Next we come to some bulletins from Barack Obama's church on Jeremiah Wright's watch, and when Barack and Michelle Obama were still taking their children there to hear Wright's litanies of racist hatred.  (We downloaded all the issues in question before they went under the bus.)  The July 22, 2007 issue includes a guest column from "the deputy of the political bureau of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement."

The June 10, 2007 issue contains an article called "Letter to Oprah," which includes the following blood libel of Israel: "Both [Israel and South Africa] worked on an ethnic bomb that kills Blacks and Arabs."  Wright himself blood-libeled the United States by accusing it of developing the AIDS virus -- i.e., of waging biological warfare.

Obama, Casey, and MoveOn.org

Barack Obama and Bob Casey both accepted endorsements from MoveOn.org, and Barack Obama appeared at one or more MoveOn.org functions.  MoveOn.org is currently known for promoting "direct action" -- code for criminal behavior that falls short of violence -- in connection with the 99% Spring.  Actions include May Day along with a takeover of a Hershey's shareholder meeting.  The event description includes promotion of what was apparently a crime:

Just weeks before the launch of Occupy Wall Street, hundreds of student workers from around the world launched their own movement against corporate greed, by occupying the floor of the Hershey's chocolate packing plant in Palmyra PA, halting production and shining a light on a new form of indentured servitude.

If it is the intention of Mr. Obama's and Mr. Casey's friends to promote class warfare, we remind them that most of Hershey's shareholders (including owners of mutual funds with HSY in their portfolio) are part of "the 99 percent."

MoveOn's history also includes the publication of an anti-Catholic hate image of the pope waving a gavel in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.  It is in fact a color version of something that might have otherwise come from 19^th-century cartoonist Thomas Nast.

It is open to discussion as to how much responsibility a moderated discussion forum has to control the posting of anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic material, of which dozens of examples appeared on MoveOn's now-disgraced Action Forum.  What is not open to discussion is the fact that MoveOn lied about not knowing of the material's presence (its FAQ page said the moderators read each entry twice) and also lied about removing it when it was discovered.  We know this because we personally downloaded the material from MoveOn's site about three weeks after it was purportedly removed.  This included material to the effect that Jews did "something" to deserve the Holocaust, the statement "the Catholics are raping your children," and numerous 9/11 conspiracy theories involving Jews and/or the Bush administration.  Similar material was also found on Barack Obama's moderated campaign site, including use of the word "kike" to refer to Jews, a five-letter word for a female dog in reference to Hillary Clinton, and jokes about Alzheimer's Disease in reference to John McCain.  We have screenshots of the pages in question, which include the Obama campaign logo.

It is also a matter of record that Casey was told of this not only by ourselves (we have e-mails on file to prove it), but also by Jewish and Catholic organizations, but he never rejected MoveOn's endorsement.

Obama and Al Sharpton

Barack Obama has appeared frequently with Al Sharpton, who is infamous for his roles in the Tawana Brawley scandal, the Crown Heights riots in which a Jew was murdered by an epithet-screaming mob, and the arson of Freddy's Fashion Mart.  In this last case, a deranged individual acted on racist ("cracker" and "white interloper") and anti-Semitic ("bloodsucking Jew" and "don't give the Jew a dime") hate speech from the National Action Network under Sharpton's supervision, and indeed from Sharpton himself; Sharpton was the one who used the phrase "white interloper."  It is particularly telling that Obama appeared at the National Action Network itself to pose arm in arm with Mr. Sharpton.

Ron Paul is fortunately out of the running for president, but it is vital for Republicans to call out both Mr. Obama and Mr. Casey for their unconscionable associations with the country's most vile hatemongers and hate organizations.

William A. Levinson, P.E. is the author of several books on business management including content on organizational psychology, as well as manufacturing productivity and quality.