We have two reports that state Sen. Palmer had been involved in a Communist Party front group called the U.S Peace Council and had actually made a trip to the old Soviet Union. Dr. Quentin Young had been accused of involvement and membership in the Communist Party, and he refused to answer as well when he was called before a committee to explain his financial support for radicals who were behind the riots in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention back in 1968. So we have got four controversial people launching Obama’s political career in Chicago who were involved in socialist or communist activities.

Q: You are not making the claim that Obama is a communist or a “Manchurian Candidate”-type communist or anything else?

A: We are only raising the questions that the media will not look into. We think the media should examine both candidates. But in the case of Obama, who has only been a U.S. senator for a few years, there is more of a responsibility to inform the public about where he had come from. Remember, as president, he will be entitled to see all of our state secrets. And yet, as a candidate, he doesn’t have to undergo a background or security check. That’s why we depend on the media really to vet these candidates, so the American people can know who they are voting for.

On the question about Obama being a communist or a Marxist, of course we never came to any conclusions about that or offered any evidence one way or the other; that wasn’t our purpose. But it’s important to note that when Obama did run for the Senate in 2004, his opponent at the time, Alan Keyes, had charged that Obama was a Marxist. Obama dismissed it. He almost laughed it off. But he certainly has in my view the responsibility and obligation to explain these associations and why it is that he lands right in the middle of two different communist networks -- one in Hawaii, where he is growing up, and one in Chicago, where he’s launching his political career.

It could be that this is all a coincidence -- that it’s just accidental that he seems to get right in the middle with associations with these anti-American characters. But then again, maybe it’s not an accident. He has to answer some of these concerns and our media have to begin by subjecting him to the scrutiny that they apply to somebody like McCain and other candidates.

Q: Dana Milbank of The Washington Post covered your press conference and wrote a sarcastic piece that said you were engaging in “guilt by association.” What’s your response to that?

A: You know, I asked G. Gordon Liddy when I did his radio show about some of these issues that we are raising. Liddy of course used to be an FBI agent, and he said the FBI would always examine somebody’s associations when they looked at somebody to determine if they were suitable for federal employment. They would look for contacts with foreign countries, foreign individuals, hostile governments and hostile intelligence services. They would look at the question of whether this individual is really loyal to the United States.

We’re asking some of these questions about Obama, and we will continue to ask them, because people like Milbank -- who may not really be a serious journalist -- clearly are not interested. He had made it clear in previous columns that he is a big Obama supporter and there are many like him in the major media, which made our news briefing even more important. We not only have issued our two reports and put them on our Web site, usasurvival.org, but we will be putting up video of the whole press conference so that people can take a look and make their own conclusions and not have to rely on the media to filter what we said.

Q: If you could get Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” to ask Sen. Obama a question about these early influences, what would it be?

A: I think the big question would be, “Why, Sen. Obama, did you cover up the identity of Frank Marshall Davis in your book?” If this had been an innocent association -- if this had just been some guy that Obama came across and realized, “Well, look, he’s just some kind of crazy communist. And, yeah, I had some meeting with him and he gave me advice on various things. But he didn’t have any impact on me. And I went off to college and it had no lasting effect.” That would be one thing.

But that’s not how Obama handled it. Instead he talks about “Frank” as someone who gave him serious advice, including not to believe in the American way of life and that black people had a right to hate white people. These were things according to Obama that Frank told him. Rather than deal with that kind of advice in his book, and analyze the motivations of Frank and identify him by his full name, Obama covers up his true identity. Why?