A long-buried photograph showing a smiling Barack Obama standing with virulent anti-white, anti-Semite Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has emerged more than 12 years after it was taken.

The photo, taken in 2005 at a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus, was snapped by reporter Askia Muhammad. Talking Points Memo has the back story:

Reached by TPM on Thursday, Muhammad said a “staff member” for the CBC contacted him “sort of in a panic” after he took the photo at a caucus meeting in 2005. TPM has published the photo above with Muhammad’s permission.

“I sort of understood what was going on,” Muhammad told TPM. “I promised and made arrangements to give the picture to Leonard Farrakhan,” the minister’s son-in-law and chief of staff.

Muhammad said he gave away “the disk” from his camera but “copied the photograph from that day onto a file” on his computer.

“Realizing that I had given it up, I mean, it was sort of like a promise to keep the photograph secret,” Muhammad said.

Muhammad said he did not release his copy of the photograph because he thought it would be perceived as a betrayal of that promise: “I was really, I guess, afraid of them.”

That's a pretty chilling admission. Muhammad knew full well what the NOI was capable of and was apparently frightened into silence.

Muhammad said he thought the photograph would be “damaging politically” if it were released and was afraid that someone might “break into his apartment” looking for it, like “that Watergate crap.” He said he “felt a little bit more at ease” after Farrakhan in 2016 claimed that Obama visited his home in Chicago. Muhammad contacted Farrakhan in autumn 2017 with the “final manuscript” for a self-published book containing the photo.

“I sent him a copy of the manuscript suggesting that, showing him the picture, and saying to him, if he did not object, I was going to publish it,” Muhammad said. “He had no objection.”

If the picture had been made public before the 2008 election, would it have made a difference? I think 2008 was a Democratic year anyway so Obama would probably have been elected despite the connection to Farrakhan.

But what if the photo had emerged during the primaries? Would it have helped Hillary Clinton? It's impossible to judge but it's interesting speculation.

The photo reminds us just how carefully the Obama team groomed his image to hide his radicalism. We're still waiting for the LA Times to release a video where Obama was said to praise anti-Israel radical Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian apologist for terrorism. Of course, Obama's ties to the radical preacher Jeremiah Wright are well known, but what has never been understood about Obama were his emotional and political ties to Farrakhan.

Indeed, the Chicago media was reporting on Obama's close friendship with Farrakhan to anyone who would listen. Unfortunately, the national media chose to ignore it. That friendship goes to the heart of the power structure in Chicago and why radical blacks were so important politically to the Chicago Machine.

When Obama first moved to Chicago he was advised to attend Trinity United Church where the pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, had attracted the city's black political and social elites. In short, you didn't get anywhere in politics in Chicago unless you paid tribute to Wright. Wright was close to NOI leader Farrakhan and, while details are sketchy, it's entirely possible that it was Wright who first introduced the Obamas to Farrakhan. 

Along with other extremists like the Rev. James Meeks, Father Michael Pfleger, and a few other black clergy and secular activists, Obama cultivated these radicals to assist in his political advancement. 

As Deb Heine from PJ Media points out, Barack Obama leaned on Farrakhan for friendship and advice:

A former top deputy to the Nation of Islam told Newsmax back in 2008 that Obama and Farrakhan had had “an open line between them” to discuss policy and strategy for many years.

Dr. Vibert White Jr., who spent most of his adult life as a member and ultimately top officer of the Nation of Islam, 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."

Obama attended the NOI's Million Man March in Washington, D.C., in October of 1995, an event organized by Louis Farrakhan and his then-pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

“These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a ‘lock ’em up, take no prisoners’ mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress,” Obama said at the time.

“Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and towards black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us, and that white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing," he said.

Obama was pictured sharing the podium with members of the New Black Panther Party (including Malik Zulu Shabazz) at a 2007 campaign event in Selma, Alabama.

Obama's ties to radicals have always been dismissed as nothing special. But the coverup of his relationship with the virulent racist and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan could not have been dismissed as easily and keeping that relationship secret was therefore vital to Obama's presidential prospects in 2008 and his 2012 re-election.