Obama contends that he skipped church on the days Wright indulged in these sorts of rants.  But there is no doubt that Obama knew what Wright was preaching.  According to Wright, when Obama withdrew an invitation to attend the event at which Obama announced his candidacy for the presidency, he explained to the pastor, “you can get kind of rough in the sermons.”  Indeed.

In his autobiography Obama writes that he was essentially a non-believer when he first met Wright, and that he was attracted to the reverend’s flock precisely by virtue of the pastor’s political and social ideas.  In other words, Wright became Obama’s pastor because of, not despite, Wright’s ideology.

Leftist ideology also provided the glue in Obama’s relationship with the 1960s era radical terrorist William Ayers, who participated in terrorist bombing attacks on the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, and who said in 2001 that he wishes he had done more of this.

Obama has described Ayers as “a guy who lives in my neighborhood who’s a professor of English.”  This is a stunningly dishonest claim.  In fact, Ayers, a professor of education, worked hand-in-glove with Obama to promote a radical educational agenda.

Ayers believes that teachers should function as community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to America’s “oppressive system.”  Teacher education programs should serve as “sites of resistance” to the American system.

During the 1990s, Ayers enlisted Obama for this radical project.  Ayers founded the Chicago Annenburg Challenge (CAC), an organization whose mandate was the “reformation” of Chicago’s public schools.  He then helped select Obama to be CAC’s first chairman.

In that role, Obama worked with Ayers to determine how to distribute tens of millions of dollars.  As Stanley Kurtz has shown, Ayers formulated the policy that governed the distribution of funds while Obama headed the body that distributed the money in accordance with Ayers’ policy.

Much of it went to “community organizers” and other radical activists.  Under Obama, CAC funded Ayers’ teacher training programs — the ones designed to promote “resistance” to an oppressive system.

Proposals from groups that focused on math/science achievement were turned down, while CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).  ACORN members later became “foot soldiers” in Obama’s political campaigns.

Once Obama could no longer defend his initial claim that Ayers was just “a guy in the neighborhood,” his campaign fell back to claiming that Obama did not know of Ayers’ “history.”   This claim is as laughable as Obama’s assertion that he didn’t know what his spiritual mentor was preaching.

Ayers is probably the nation’s most notorious 1960s era radical terrorist.   His terrorism constitutes his claim to fame.  It was consistently mentioned in Chicago newspaper stories about Ayers, and must have come up in conversations around town whenever Ayers’ name came up.

In any event, Ayers’ radicalism (though not his terrorism) was manifest in his educational philosophy, which Obama promoted.   Obama’s collaboration with Ayers – guilt by participation – is further proof of his radicalism.  It dovetails nicely with recently discovered evidence that during this period Obama was affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, a socialist party.

Obama clearly has no intention of implementing the crazed agenda of the Weather Underground or the black liberation theologians.  But does his affinity for black liberation theology and Ayers’ non-violent but still extreme 1990s radicalism show him to be a man of the far left, as opposed to a garden variety liberal Democrat?

Perhaps not.  Ayers and especially Wright were influential figures in the community where Obama hoped to advance his political career.  It’s possible that Obama attached himself to these two figures for purely opportunistic reasons.  In this scenario, Obama was deplorably cynical, but not necessarily radical.

Alternatively, Obama may have believed significant amounts of what his leftist associates espoused, only to cast it off over time.  In this scenario, Wright and Ayers played Falstaff to Obama’s Prince Hal. But there are at least six reasons to fear that Obama will govern from the far left.

First, it’s all he really knows.  Obama grew up in a left-wing household, attended elite left-wing dominated universities, and spent the remainder of his formative years as a community organizer alongside the likes of Wright and Ayers.

Second, it’s how he votes.  In 2007, according to the National Journal, Obama’s voting record was the most liberal of any senator.

Third, it’s what he falls back on.  Obama is scripted to be “post-partisan.”  But when off-script he’s liable to blurt out that those who resist the leftist agenda bitterly “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to those who aren’t like them.”  And when his wife said that, as an adult, she has never been proud of America, Obama defended her statement as applied to American politics.  This is “god damn America” lite.

Fourth, it’s what his base wants.  There really isn’t much distance between Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers and the “General Betray-Us” crowd.

Fifth, it’s what he can pretend the times demand.  When economic hardship causes people lose their faith in free markets, all kinds of radical mischief becomes possible.

Sixth, with the Democrats almost certain to have substantial majorities in both houses of Congress, who would constrain a President Obama?

Examiner contributor Paul Mirengoff is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and a principal author of Powerline.com.