OBAMA CAMPAIGN PULLS PANTHER PLUG

From Fox News ~ Barack Obama’s campaign has removed an endorsement by the New Black Panther Party from its Web site, one day after the Illinois senator delivered a speech calling for improved race relations in America.

“The page in question has been removed from our campaign Web site,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor told FOXNews.com after inquiries about the endorsement. “It’s our policy with any content generated by a group that advocates violence.”

The blogosphere was buzzing Wednesday about whether his campaign planned to remove the Panther posting.

The New Black Panthers, who inherited their name from the Black Panther Party of the 1960s, had the page on the Obama campaign’s public forums. The group’s message said it is backing Obama because he “represents ‘positive change’ for all of America. Obama will stir the ‘Melting Pot’ into a better ‘Molten America.’”

Obama spokeswoman Tiffany Edwards said before the campaign removed the endorsement that that section of the Web site “has nothing to do with us.”

“People can form their own groups,” she told FOXNews.com. “It’s not something that the campaign — it’s not something that we’ve done.”

Malik Zulu Shabazz, who has led the group since 2001, told World Net Daily later Wednesday that the Obama posting was removed for understandable political reasons.

“It’s the game of politics,” Shabazz told World Net Daily, which originally broke the news of the Web page.

“The Obama camp’s move to remove our blog doesn’t mean much because I understand politics. We still completely support Obama as the best candidate.”

The NBPP is identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a tolerance education organization, as an extremist hate group. The Anti-Defamation League calls NBPP “the largest organized anti-Semitic black militant group in America. … Under Shabazz, the group continues to organize demonstrations across the country that blend inflammatory bigotry with calls for black empowerment and civil rights.”

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