Jeremiah Wright

The Pennsylvania Republican Party has unveiled a new TV ad featuring the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the first time Barack Obama's relationship with his former preacher has been the subject of any GOP ad in Pennsylvania during the general election season.

"If you think you could ever vote for Barack Obama, consider this: Obama chose as his spiritual leader this man," the 30-second spot's narrator says as a picture of Wright flashes on the screen.

The ad then replays several scenes from Wright's sermons when he attacked the United States, including his assertion the country was behind the 9/11 attacks. It also depicts Obama's close relationship with him, telling voters Wright baptized his children.

"Does that sound like someone who should be president?" the ad asks.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain has said repeatedly he would not discuss Obama's relationship with Wright.

But Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Robert Gleason Jr. said the state GOP thought Pennsylvania voters needed to know about Obama's relationship with him.

"The media has allowed Barack Obama to escape public scrutiny on countless issues and has been silent on Obama's connection with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright since the Primary Election," Gleason said in a statement. "When Pennsylvanians vote for a president, they should have a full picture of that candidate's character, including the people they chose to intimately align themselves with for many years."

The commercial is slated to run on network TV.

To view the video, click here.

To view more cartoons by Politicker.com editorial cartoonist Rob Tornoe, click here.

With Republican leaders across the country worried that John McCain's presidential chances are slipping, Colorado GOP Chair Dick Wadhams has urged McCain to highlight Democratic nominee Barack Obama's ties to controversial figures Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, the New York Times is reporting.

Wadhams told the Times that he was surprised McCain didn't mention either name during last week's presidential debate.

"I actually do think he should raise as an issue Senator Obama's association with Ayers and Reverend Wright," he told the Times. "I think those are legitimate insights into who Senator Obama is. I do not think it is irrelevant to this election."

Was the venue chosen by U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for his reported vice presidential announcement an "intentional" Freudian slip intended to remind voters of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) connection to his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright?

Do cartoonists think alike? Sometimes they do, and sometimes two cartoonists working in different places across the country can even come up with the same idea.

There is, obviously, no exact precedent at the presidential level for the nightmare Barack Obama is now living thanks to his former minister’s all-too-eager embrace of the spotlight. But Why would he spend 20 years in such a man’s church, presumably listening to variations of what the rest of America heard on Monday?

As the Rev. Jeremiah Wright gleefully tours the airwaves, he is proving that racism isn’t the only obstacle to a black president. Yet what seems most likely to frustrate Senator Barack Obama now is not white prejudice but the frivolity, egotism and pettiness of those who should be his most serious and dedicated supporters.

As I was driving home Monday night, I decided that I was going to write about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright this week. Sometimes when a story is so big, you cannot ignore it. Something must be said. Then as I was watching ABC, I saw Democratic Presidential Candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) cutting ties with his long time pastor who was in Washington earlier this week.

As I was watching Obama speak, it was like he was eavesdropping on a phone conversation I was having earlier in the day. Obama during his speech in North Carolina said, “The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago.” Now, obviously I was not around the Rev. Wright in the late 80s. If you saw “Bill Moyer’s Journal” from over the weekend, you would have seen a different Wright indeed. That program included clips of an interview from “Frontline” in 1987. The clips from two decades ago showed Wright promoting the afro-centric themes that his church would become known for.

The former Lt. Governor was on Fox News yesterday talking about Barack Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright.

When Hillary Clinton first spewed her comments of dodging sniper fire in Bosnia, the national media had a field day when they released the footage of her walking calmly across the tarmac to hug small children waiting to greet her arrival. They had even more fun when Bill Clinton decided to resurrect the story a few weeks later.