The associates of Obama make up the worst collection of associates of a President or a presidential candidate in my memory. Worse even than Jenkins, Bobby Baker and Billy Sol Estes, the corrupt associates of Lyndon Johnson. To find a collection as ominous, one must go back to Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, whose close associates in government included numerous men identified (in the Venona Papers, or by agents of the KGB) as communists--traitors and Soviet agents--such as Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Lauchlin Currie, Harry Hopkins, etc. In Obama's case, his associates include his racist, America haiting minister of twenty years, a former member of the PLO, and terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn.

Obama has changed his explanations of these associations. Bill Ayers was not a casual acquaintance. He and Obama served on the same board for years, gave public speeches together, and have known each other for fifteen to twenty years. Obama chose this association.  He chose his long association with Reverend Wright and his church. In Obama's own writing, he has spoken of carefully choosing his associates in college, including Marxist professors. Given that, and the long associations with Wright, Ayers, and Dorn, it is highly probable, that these radicals reflect the mindset of Obama himself.