Obama also said that he barely knew Tony Rezko. PLUS: Cynthia McKinney, Farrakhan, Moon and Malcolm X

Someone has finally asked Obama about the Michelle-says-"whitey" video. His response:

We have seen this before. There is dirt and lies that are circulated in emails and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it,” Obama said to the McClatchy reporter during a press conference aboard his campaign plane. “That gives legs to the story. If somebody has evidence that myself or Michelle or anybody has said something inappropriate, let them do it.”

Asked whether he knew it not to be true, Obama said he had answered the question.

Actually, he had not.

I would prefer to hear Michelle state whether or not she has ever used a racial insult to describe white people. That question, yes or no. Never mind whether or not a tape exists, just answer that question.

If they made Bill Clinton give agonizing specifics on the far-less-important issue of did-you-have-sex-with-that-woman, then fair, sayeth I, is fair.

Cynthia McKinney: So now that Obama is taking over the Democratic Party, where do the non-Kossacks go? Should I become a man of Cyn, as I have often suggested?

I was all ready to embrace McKinney. Her bold stance on impeachment shamed everyone else in Congress.

But then I read that she, too, has received aid from Louis Farrakhan. Are there no Farrakhan-free black politicians anywhere in this country?

Here's where things get terribly strange. A group called COPA -- Committee On Political Assassinations -- has asked me to push an upcoming conference in L.A. If you go to their site, here, you'll see pictures of JFK, RFK, MLK -- and Malcolm X.

If you dig deeper into the site, you'll see that one of the speakers in L.A. for the Malcolm X panel is none other than Cynthia McKinney. She's listed as an "expert on COINTELPRO and civil rights movement."

Now go here to see an interview with Farrakhan. He discusses his strong support for Cynthia McKinney. Also see here:

"She [Cynthia McKinney] was the only member of the Georgia delegation to vote against the resolution condemning an anti-Semitic speech by Khalid Abdul Muhammad, an aide to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan." Source: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, September 13, 1994

Now go here for an article about Malcolm X's widow, Betty Shabazz:

In 1994, Shabazz spoke publicly about the long-held suspicion that Louis Farrakhan, the current leader of the Nation of Islam, had been behind the assassination of her husband.

Before Malcolm X's murder, Farrakhan had pronounced his better to be worthy of death. In 1993, Farrakhan said:

"Was Malcolm your traitor or ours? And if we dealt with [Malcolm] like a nation deals with a traitor, what the hell business is it of yours? A nation has to be able to deal with traitors and cutthroats and turncoats."

Most people will consider those words a confession. Of course, fanatics can rationalize away pretty much any piece of evidence, however plain to common sense.

(By the way: Last time I took the pooch for a midnight stroll on the grounds of UC Riverside, I couldn't help but wonder: Who ordered the attempted hit on Khalid Abdul Muhammad, which occurred on that campus?)

Malcolm X's daughter, Qubilah Shabazz, was charged with plotting revenge against Farrakhan. Farrakhan paid for her defense -- the price being a joint "reconciliation" meeting between himself and Betty Shabazz at the Apollo Theater. A mother will do what she must to help a child in trouble. Malcolm's widow must have gritted her teeth until they were ready to crack as Farrakhan spoke:

"Members of the Nation of Islam were involved in the assassination of Malcolm," Farrakhan publicly acknowledged for the first time. "The Nation has taken the heat and carried the burden of the murder of Malcolm X. We can't deny whatever our part was."

Farrakhan then pointed to the government's role in Malcolm X's assassination, saying, "We must not let the real culprit get away with hiding their hands. It was manipulation and stimulation of our own pettiness and weakness by outside forces. The government of America is that outside force.

"The government by its own admission had agents on both sides to manipulate the zeal and ignorance inside the ranks of the Nation of Islam and among the followers of Brother Malcolm X to create the atmosphere that allowed him to be assassinated," he said.

As always with both conspiracy theorists and conspiracy perpetrators (the two are often one and the same), the culprit must always be The Eternal Other -- never oneself. One left-wing journal offered this response:

Farrakhan’s efforts to put in the past and minimize the responsibility of the Nation of Islam in the assassination of Malcolm X should be rejected by all supporters of the fight for Black liberation and the struggle for social justice and equality.

This piece by Earl Ofari Hutchinson offers what I consider a sound assessment of the government's role in the events leading up to the assassination. Yes, there was a disgusting degree of government surveillance and harassment -- but Hutchinson does not use these outrages as a catch-all excuse for the actions of Farrakhan's NOI.

In Spike Lee's biopic -- which is a superb film, until the compromised final act -- Malcolm X splits from the NOI after learning of Elijah Muhammed's sexual dalliances. In real life, Malcolm became infuriated with the NOI's alliance with neo-Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell. More than that: Malcolm segued from the reactionary, segregationist politics of the NOI and became converted to a progressive, left-wing political perspective. (Truly progressive, that is -- as opposed to the disguised libertarianism which masquerades as "progressivism" these days).

I've seen no evidence that the NOI -- then or now -- ever acted against the forces of fascism. Quite the opposite. Elijah Muhammed forbade his followers from participating in unions, he formed an alliance with the Bund, and he did everything he could to stop Malcolm from joining prominent leftists throughout the world.

Who are Farrakhan's allies? Well, we now know all about Pfleger and Wright. But the NOI leader's most important links go to one of the most prominent backers of modern day fascism, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. As we have discussed in these pages many times, Moon also has close ties to "Poppy" and Neil Bush, not to mention fundamentalists Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye. Money buys interesting friends.

See here:

Frederick Clarkson reported in Salon that Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church played a key role in supporting the Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan's Million Family March in Washington D.C. "Moon's role in the Million Family March is the fruit of a three-year personal relationship that began when Farrakhan helped officiate at one of Moon's marriage ceremonies at Washington's RFK Stadium in 1997," he wrote.

And here:

Members of both movements are puzzled by the alliance. The Rev. Levy Daughtery, a prominent Moon ally, this week explained that "every prophet starts his ministry ... among his own people and race." Now, he says, those who attend the march "are the new chosen people."

Farrakhan, too, sought to calm his followers: "I am grateful for the help of ... Reverend and Mrs. Moon, and I don't want us to get bent out of shape because a folk of another race desires to help make the Million Family March successful."

When Cynthia McKinney speaks in Los Angeles on the death of Malcolm X, will she discuss the possible role of Louis Farrakhan? Or will she point at the CIA, at the FBI, at Mossad, at the mafia, at the insidious Dr. Yacub, at the UFO people, at anyone and anything other than the obvious way to point?

Some may accuse me of being a racist because I won't vote for either black candidate in November, even though I voted for black presidential candidates in 1988 and 2008. There's one black person in particular for whom I would have been overjoyed to vote -- had he lived beyond the year 1965, and had he run for public office after I came of age. His name was Malcolm.