New Orleans' Walter Cronkite, Garland Robinette of WWL, has weighed in on Barack Obama's recent speech and his "controversial" pastor. Here's a snippet:

-A few weeks ago I was for Obama.

My thoughts are different than most I’ve heard following the Obama speech. My decision (thus far) is grounded in the Arab oil embargo of the United States in 1973. Picture the long lines at the gas pumps. Filling a tank could take hours. Much of the time the gas ran out before the line did. Picture the fistfights that broke out between those jockeying to get to the pumps first. Now, (stay with me, I know I think a lot differently than most) imagine going up to ANYone in line and saying…”hey, how you doin’, man--I can’t believe what they doing with this stem-cell research thing. Plus, how about
abortion--man that’s murder…and don’t even get me started with the racist minorities!” (Truthfully now!) What do you think the driver’s response would be --at best-- I think they would think you were nuts. You would be totally oblivious to the problem that is threatening them and their family’s lifestyle…right now!. What does this have to do with Obama, McCain, Hillary and us? Everything!

So where's he going with this? Read on at the WWL website.

I obviously have far less patience for McCain than Robinette does, and I find much of this pastor controversy more than tinged with racism. We live in a country where it's OK for a president to rub elbows with Pat Robertson or (the late) Jerry Falwell even after they blamed 9/11 on the liberal lifestyle, but it's not OK to be seen with a pastor who is hellatiously angry about oppression and the killing of innocents.

Here's Falwell after 9/11:

Throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."

Here's Pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright:

The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.

But you're not voting for either of them. Turn off the TV, listen to Obama's speech (behind for the cut) and decide for yourself.