With government shutdown looming, Obama goes AWOL to spend time with Al Sharpon's racist National Action Network

Well, we already know where Obama stands on the budget impasse: Obama won't not sign a budget agreement to keep the government running that cuts funding for Planned Parenthood. How thoughtful of him. So after promising to help reconcile the budget at a press conference, Obama took off instead to spend time with race hustler Al Sharpton. From the AP: Obama seeks re-election help from Sharpton's group. Now you know what his base is. Note how the AP labels the group right off the bat:

Ensnarled in another political spat with Republicans, President Barack Obama conceded to a civil rights audience Wednesday that there are times when people "lose hope" over whether national politics will ever change.

..."In America, we rise and fall together," Obama told the National Action Network, the Rev. Al Sharpton's civil rights group. Promoting his efforts to revamp health insurance, education and consumer protection programs, Obama told the crowd to keep working with him.

"We will build an America where the ideals of justice and equality and opportunity are alive and well," the president said. "And we will reclaim the American dream in our time."

Obama's appearance kept a promise he made when he spoke to the group as a presidential candidate in 2007 and pledged to return.

It also took place in the shadow of a looming government shutdown as congressional Democrats and Republicans back in Washington struggled to reach agreement on how to finance the government for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year.

Before Obama spoke, the White House announced that he had added an evening meeting at the White House with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to try to work out a budget deal to keep the government running past a Friday midnight deadline.

But first he had to go talk to Sharpton's group. Priorities. Al Sharpton's group, by the way, helps civil rights the same way that Hezbollah and Hamas help the poor. A video report by the AP: