One sign that a propaganda effort is in disarray is that the propagandists become internally consistent. This doesn’t mean their objective is necessary wrong, however. Major Combat Operations of the Iraq War had not even begun by the time that the White House was providing competing story lines as to why it was worth it. Still, the idea that Obama may have an Iraq War level public relations debacle on his hands is one worth considering, I think.

Up until this morning, the explanation I had derived from Obama apologists was as follows:

As Barack Obama prepareted for public life, he correctly saw he had no natural consistuency. His family is not wealthy and Kenyan-Kansans nowhere in the United States form a significant minority. Therefore, Obama joined a large “fraternal organization,” Trinity United Church of Christ, to provide political sympathy and organizational manpower early in his political career. Trinity UCC membershp proved invaluable in his political organization and State Legislature Careers, and even helped him in his Senate campaign by allowing him to be somewhat independent of the Chicagi City and Illinois State democratic party machines.

Quite reasonable, and I’ve been operating from this assumption. Obama’s great wrong in associationg with Rev. Wright was that he elevated a paranoid anti-American above the quarantline line of American politics. But it’s not like he actually believed that nonsense.

a517dogg disagrees, however. It turns out that politics played no role in happening upon the largest black church in Chicago! Rather:

Why is Obama close to Wright? Because of factors that have nothing to do with Wright’s controversial political views. Obama joined Wright’s church looking for a sense of community and seeking to identify with the people he represented in office. Hilzoy writes more on the connection between Obama and his church. Bottom line – it’s not about politics, it’s about community and identity.

Of course, no evidence is provided for this explanation. In the comments, Adrian provides an excerpt from one of Obama’s books, in which Obama doesn’t cite political calculation, as proof.

Earlier in the post, Adrian has to stoop to providing “Reverend Wright comes off as a scary black man” as a defense for Obama. This is part of a wider retreat by Obama and his sympathizers, away from the “Race Doesn’t Matter” line he once peddled, to a past-oriented, grievence-oriented, prophetry-oriented line of divisiveness that is bad for his party, his country, and his reputation.

Too bad. Some Democratic candidate needs to be better than Clinton.

What’s interesting is not just where the video and words complement each other, but where they diverge.

Video from Directions. Music from Plans.

As reported on Slashdot and elsewhere, Network Solutions has yanked Fitna The Movie from the web. “Fitna” is a sort of spiritual sequel to Submission, whose director was killed for the trouble.

Domain temporarily unavailable
This site has been suspended while Network Solutions is investigating whether the site’s content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy. Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation. For more information about Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy visit the following URL: http://www.networksolutions.com/legal/aup.jsp

What’s disturbing about this is the quasi-governmental aspect of the censorship. Network Solutions domain hosting biz is of course their business, and if they submit to Sharia that’s their business. However, the company is also one of the very few “domain name reigstrars.” Wikipedia reports that the company earns 90% of their income from participation in that quasi-governmental oligopoly, which decides what websiteaddress.com, .net, or .org can be registered.