Barack Obama has another spiritual leader ranting and raving about whites, Father Michael Pfleger. The vitriol is familiar. This one was also a mentor, as well as a political supporter. The kicker: Obama gave him — that would be a political donor — a $100,000 earmark. Perhaps that’s a story.

Stanley Kurtz explains that the relationship between Obama and Pfleger is as close as Obama’s with Wright:

There is a kind of informal nexus between Wright, Farrakhan, and Pfleger, each of whom are bound by an allegiance to black-liberation theology, or to the black Muslim nationalism that inspired James Cone to create black-liberation theology to begin with.

Obama was a part of this nexus. Despite current attempts to rewrite history, Obama was close to Wright for years, and fully entangled with him, both theologically and politically. Pfleger’s influence over Obama, whose work as a “community organizer” had him in frequent contact with South Chicago’s churches, is second only to that of Wright. Obama has worked on a great many political causes with Pfleger, and Pfleger was a key early backer of Obama’s failed 2000 bid for a seat in Congress.

As to the Pfleger outburst, Obama professes to be “disappointed.” With each additional ranting hate-monger the impact may lessen, but it is fair to say that Trinity Church was just the type of place for these folks to come with their material. It is harder and harder to pretend that Rev. Wright and Father Michael Pfleger were anomalies, or deny that this was standard operating rhetoric at Obama’s church. It is still harder to believe that Obama did not know and countenance the views of people with whom he shared political, social and spiritual ties.

People who think no one cares about any of this will yawn. People who view this and say “He hangs out with a strange crowd” will file this away as one more piece of evidence. And lots of Democrats will toss and turn wondering: Who else is out there?