Obama's Failure of Leadership

Two days after Mr. Obama's major racial speech, what are we to think of it? Is Mr.Obama an appropriate candidate for the leader of the free world?

Mr Obama said,

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America....

He is right, of course, but the statements were not mere snippets, cherry-picked to make Rev. Wright look bad. The "remarks" were entirely consistent with the church's overall philosophy and liberation theology. He sat in the pew for 20 years listening to this philosophy/theology. He did not speak up until the news media publicly revealed the hate-filled rhetoric.

If Mr. Obama were a leader, why did he merely follow Reverend Wright for 20 years? Why did he not speak up? Why did he not lead anyone to do what is right and reject the hate-filled philosophy?

He waited until he got caught.

I'm sorry. there can be only one conclusion. Mr. Obama is not a leader. I do not want him leading my country. And the truth is the Trinity United Church of Christ and its overarching Liberation Theology represents Mr. Obama's worldview, or he would not have stayed for 20 years.

Obama's Jeremiah Wright Problem

I was shocked to see Barack Obama say that he had no idea about his 20 year pastor's bigoted and foolish remarks from the pulpit. Mr. Obama is a Harvard Law graduate, isn't he? And he attended Trinity for 20 years listening to Pastor Wright.

Until the couple of days Pastor Wright was a campaign endorser and was featured prominently on the Obama campaign web site. The truth is that Mr. Obama knew about Pastor Wright's controversial preaching. Because of the controversial church positions, the Obama campaign disinvited Pastor Wright from giving the invocation at Mr. Obama's announcement of his intention to run as reported in the New York Times on March 5, 2007.

I have long been concerned about the message of Mr. Obama's home church, the Trinity United Church of Christ.

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.

I understand that to be saying that whites are not welcome. If Mr. Obama gets the nomination and wins the election, Mr. Obama needs to be the president of all Americans. This does not seem to me to be a good sign that he would be.

Mr. Obama's claims of ignorance about Pastor Wright's hateful sermons do not bode well for either Mr. Obama's intelligence or his honesty: one or the other is deficient.