Barack Obama's Pastor Says Black People Should Not Sing 'God Bless America'

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Support System

A new opinion poll indicates public support for the Iraq war is at its highest point since the summer of 2006.

The Pew survey done in late February shows 48 percent now believe the war is going well — that's up 18 percentage points from last year. 53 percent think the U.S. effort in Iraq will succeed — up six percentage points. 49 percent say the troops should be brought home — down from 52 percent. Only 14 percent say the troops should be brought home immediately, a course advocated by Barack Obama among others. That's down from 18 last year. 33 percent believe troops should be brought home gradually over a year or two. 47 percent want to keep the troops in Iraq — that is up four percentage points.

Pulpit Profanity

The retiring pastor of Barack Obama's church — the Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr. — said in a sermon five years ago that black people should ask God to curse America — instead of bless it.

ABC News reports the following from a 2003 sermon — "The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

Senator Obama declined to comment publicly. But a spokesman says the senator had repudiated the comments.

No Love

Tennis Hall of Famer Martina Navratilova — who defected to the U.S. from Czechoslovakia as a teenager and became a U.S. citizen — has regained her Czech citizenship — saying she was ashamed of President Bush. Navratilova told a Czech newspaper last year that she was as ashamed of the U.S. under President Bush as she once was about communist Czechoslovakia — "the thing is that we elected Bush. That is worse! Against that, nobody chose a communist government in Czechoslovakia."

Navratilova says that although she has regained her Czech citizenship, she has decided to maintain dual citizenship with the U.S.

War and Peace

Hillary Clinton's campaign is firing back at charges from the Obama camp that she has vastly overstated her role in the Northern Ireland peace process.

Lord David Trimble told The Daily Telegraph that then-first lady Clinton had no significant role. The Obama campaign has accused Mrs. Clinton of what it called "a gross overstatement of the facts."

But the Clinton campaign points to an Irish Times newspaper report that several other key players do give Mrs. Clinton some credit. Former Social Democratic and Labor Party leader John Hume and Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams both say Mrs. Clinton played a positive role. Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell — who chaired the peace talks — says Mrs. Clinton was "helpful and supportive." But none gives any specifics other than talking to leaders and opinion makers on both sides.

And the story says that — "the Obama campaign is correct in stating that she played no direct role in the negotiations leading up to the Belfast Agreement in 1998."

— FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.