His claims may already be unraveling. Ron Kessler of Newsmax.com reports that on July 22 of last year, Mr. Obama was at Mr. Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ. He was observed in the pews by Jim Davis, a freelance reporter for Newsmax, and was also seen to be nodding in agreement with the fiery minister’s remarks. In his sermon that day, Mr. Wright condemned America as the “United States of White America” and said young blacks were “dying for nothing” in Iraq. He called the Iraq war an “illegal” war based on lies and “fought for oil money.” The Obama campaign says that the candidate did not attend church services that day, flying instead to speak to an Hispanic group in Chicago. Mr. Kessler stands by his story.

Still more evidence has surfaced that Mr. Obama likely knew a great deal about the content of his pastor’s sermons. Last year, the New York Times reported Mr. Obama personally called Mr. Wright to tell him he was being disinvited from giving the public invocation at the announcement of Mr. Obama’s candidacy. Mr. Obama explained the move by pointing out to his pastor that a recent Rolling Stone story called “The Radical Roots of Barack Obama” had reprinted excerpts from Wright sermons. “You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public,” was Rev. Wright’s recollection of what Mr. Obama told him.

The Rolling Stone story included the following Wright quote describing the United States: “We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS…. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God…. We conducted radiation experiments on our own people…. We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!… GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS S***!”

At least one member of Rev. Wright’s church apparently had her fill of such rhetoric. Oprah Winfrey, a staunch backer of Mr. Obama, began attending the church in 1984. But sometime in the mid-1990s, Christianity Today reports the superstar abruptly stopped going. It may well have had something to do with her desire to distance herself from his fiery speech. Rev. Wright criticized her absence, claiming that Ms. Winfrey has broken with his notion of “traditional faith.”

Mr. Obama took a different path. He not only remained in the church, but in 2001, the same year Ms. Winfrey left, had his daughter Natasha baptized by Rev. Wright. The question more and more people are asking is: Why?”

– John Fund