In 2008, a controversy surfaced around President Obama, one that the mainstream press did everything in their power to ignore, suppress, and generally pretend was much ado about nothing. Who can forget Reverend Wright? He was Barack Obama’s bombastic and offensive preacher, who used anti-Semitic and inflammatory rhetoric on a regular basis from the pulpit where our President heard his weekly sermons.

Well it seems that here in North Carolina, Kay Hagan has her own Reverend Wright in Rev. William Barber. Barber is actually worse baggage than the Wright reverend, because he is not just an inflammatory preacher, he is also the “de facto leader” of the North Carolina Democratic Party.

Writing in the Greenville Daily Reflector in December, Scott Mooneyham asserted that “with the state Democratic Party pretty much in disarray, Barber became the de facto leader of the left in North Carolina.” With Barber leading the “Moral Monday” marches, and in general speaking for left, the Democrats, and the NAACP all at once, this is an assertion easy to understand.

Rev. Barber, you may remember, was recently in the news for saying that Sen. Tim Scott is a “ventriloquist dummy” for the Tea Party. He went on to say “the extreme right wing down here (in South Carolina) finds a black guy to be senator and claims he’s the first black senator since Reconstruction and then he goes to Washington, D.C., and articulates the agenda of the tea party.” He also claims that “vouchers are an attempt at re-segregation and a return to the 1950s.” Barber compared Voter Identification laws to the crucifixion. He said that supporting limited government means you aren’t a real Christian. From marching against Voter ID laws, to claiming that black republicans are unworthy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, Barber has no problem crossing the line into extremism.

You’ll recall that President Obama denounced Reverend Wright in 2008. In North Carolina, Barber is instead embraced, with the party passing a resolution in support of the Reverend, as reported at Sister Toldjah. And where is Senator Kay Hagan?

Through all of this Sen. Hagan has remained silent. Will Kay Hagan step up and denounce this offensive man who is out of step with North Carolinians and Americans? A man who denigrates progress and better education. Or will she accept and endorse Barber’s opinion that black Republicans are Uncle Toms, ventrilogquists’ dummies, and betrayers of their race? Does Kay Hagan think Republicans in North Carolina, be they black or white, cannot be Christians?

This is not just a preacher at a pulpit. This is a major a figure in North Carolina politics, endorsed and promoted by the party, leader of the ‘progressive” voice in the state, and head of the NC NAACP. So the North Carolina GOP is calling for Senator Kay Hagan to denounce the Reverend and his, to say the least, controversial statements.

As Fox News found out, Reverend Barber doesn’t like to have to answer for what he says. But someone should. Kay Hagan should have to answer the basic question of whether or not she stands with her own party on these extreme points of view.