It is becoming increasingly clear that Alan Keyes has reached the outer limits of the right-wing fringe movement, which is saying something considering that he had always pretty resided on the fringes to begin with and has only been heading further out since the election of Barack Obama.
But his latest WorldNetDaily column defending Rev. James David Manning, pastor of Atlah World Missionary Church, really is remarkable, even for him.
Normally, I'd post some of Manning's bizarre rantings here to give you a sense of who he is, but his account has been suspended from YouTube, so I'll simply point you to Wikipedia:
Manning came to public attention in the 2008 presidential election after ATLAH posted several sermons of his that were harshly critical of Democratic candidate Barack Obama on the website YouTube. Among other accusations, he called Obama a "good House Negro" in one sermon while in another he referred to Obama as "trash" due to circumstances surrounding his mixed race heritage and accused him of being a "pimp" (pimping "white women and black women") and "long-legged mack daddy," and an "emissary of the devil", citing the viral video "I Got a Crush... on Obama". He stated that Obama "has the cadence of an Islamic person,"and he called Obama's mother "trash" for becoming pregnant by a black man out of wedlock. Manning revisited this latter issue during a press conference at the National Press Club on 8 December 2008: "Generally the most noble of white society choose not to intercourse sexually with African men. So it's usually the trashier ones who make their determinations that they're going to have sex."
Manning defended his sermons in an interview on Fox News, saying that "we also have to talk about his character."He compared TV personality Oprah Winfrey, who supported Obama's campaign, to the Whore of Babylon, the "Queen of the Universe", and an Antichrist.
According to Manning, one of his recent video postings prompted a visit from the Department of Homeland Security ... and it is not hard to see why, considering that somewhere around the five minute mark, Manning begins screaming:
You gotta clean house. You got to take Obama to trial, put him in jail for the rest of his life, or hang him. Shoot him on the Washington ... first try him, find him guilty, and the punishment for treason is a death sentence. And then clean the rest out, go get Hillary, go get John McCain, go get George Bush, got get Dick Cheney too, get 'em all. And then we can start over again.
So what does Keyes' have to say about Manning, who is seemingly calling for the execution of several current and former high-ranking government officials? That he's right:
I have followed Rev. Manning's broadcasts and statements for some time. He is forthright and outspoken in his religious and political views. He speaks with a boldness that is surely offensive to people who believe that civility requires silence even in the face of the stratagems of deception now being perpetrated against the American people. But I see nothing that he has said or done that warrants interference with his freedom of speech. Both YouTube's actions and those of the federal and New York City officials who visited his church appear to be in clear violation of his constitutional rights and part of an effort to intimidate him and others who are outspoken critics of the coup d'état being perpetrated by the Obama faction and its fellow travelers among the elites, who are working to accomplish the overthrow of our constitutional republic.
The repression of Rev. Manning's views is an intolerable assault on the constitutional freedom of every American. However disagreeable his voice may be to others, including the present occupant of the White House, his right to voice his criticisms is clear and undeniable. So is his right to seek redress of grievances that threaten the sovereignty of the American people and of every American as a member of the sovereign body of the people. Respect for these rights is one of the bedrock prerequisites of government of, by and for the people. Efforts to thwart and repress their exercise constitute a clear and present danger to the liberty of all Americans. Like the darkening skies and rising winds that announce the landfall of a hurricane, this move to silence Rev. Manning ominously foreshadows the next phase of the elite assault against the Constitution and people of the United States.
