As one of the early trailblazers for the Rev Wright put it, greater love hath no man than to lay down his friends for his life. In among all the usual presidential ditching of inconvenient associations, I can't think of anything to compare with Obama's dumping of Trinity. It's like Jimmy Carter renouncing his Baptist Church in Plains, Ga - although Carter never went so far as to title his campaign-launch promotional book after one of his preacher's sermons. Perhaps it's closer to Howard Dean quitting the Episcopal Church in Burlington, Vt over its objection to a proposed bike path - although even that arcane theological dispute seems more principled than Obama's wholesale abandonment of Trinity, its congregation, and the man who married him and was entrusted with the spiritual education of his children.
Over at Powerline, Paul Mirengoff says: "Obama left Trinity Church for the same reason he joined it — political opportunism." Faith-wise, Obama would seem to be closer to Dean than Carter - an essentially secular figure whose genuflections to religion were driven more by political expediency. In Governor Dean's case, this involved flying down to Georgia in the last primary campaign to appear with President Carter at church in Plains. A little obvious but it was just for one desperate Sunday morning when the numbers were wobbling. Senator Obama has 20 years of Sunday mornings: in effect, he's asking the media to give him a pass on unloading virtually his entire adult life. He's demanding an industrial-strength version of Herblock's famous "one free shave" to Nixon - in this case, a full head-to-toe depilation.
Will the media give it to him and continue the fawning iconography? Or will Bob Herbert, Joe Klein, Garry Wills and the other bobbysoxers resent being made to look like saps over their this-is-the-greatest-speech-since-Gettysburg hooey and confront the fraudulent nature of the image they've promoted so assiduously?
Gee, that's a tough one...
And from Powerline: Bye-Bye Trinity
Barack Obama announced tonight at a press conference that he is leaving Trinity United Church of Christ. Apparently Rev. Pfleger was the last straw. Obama's explanation was characteristically self-pitying and evasive:It's clear that now that I am a candidate for president, every time something is said in the church by anyone associated with Trinity, including guest pastors, the remarks will be imputed to me, even if they totally conflict with my long-held views, statements and principles.
Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't choose to attend a church where sermons are constantly preached that not only "totally conflict with my long-held views," but rightly offend many millions of people. The question that is still left hanging, of course, is why they didn't offend Obama until they appeared on YouTube.
The national media have already twice hailed Obama for skillfully handling the Trinity "distraction" and putting it behind him. Obviously the voters saw it differently. Even our mainstream reporters may have a hard time congratulating Obama on his third new position on the issue in, what, 60 days? So press reaction is likely to be muted.
Pundits often talk about whether a candidate has put an issue behind him, but I'm not sure whether this ever really happens. The Rev. Wright fiasco has done permanent damage to Obama. The most he can expect to gain from his disavowal tonight is that the next time some fruitcake gives an offensive sermon at Trinity, he won't have to answer questions about it.
Voters will continue to wonder, however, what Obama was doing there for twenty years, and what his embrace of the theology of hate that was so often on display at Trinity tells us about him.
Changes [Peter Wehner]
Barack Obama’s resignation from Trinity United Church of Christ over, in part, “a cultural and a stylistic gap” raises additional doubts about him. The obvious question is what “cultural and stylistic gap” exists now that hasn’t existed during the last two decades, when Obama was a member of Trinity United and an intimate friend with its pastor, Jeremiah Wright Jr.? The answer, of course, is none. Trinity United and Jeremiah Wright are what they have always been; it is Obama — or more precisely, Obama’s political interests — that have changed.
It’s been just over two months since Obama’s Philadelphia speech on race — the one that was compared by the historian Garry Wills to Lincoln’s Cooper Union address. In that speech Obama famously said he could not more disown the Reverend Jeremiah Wright than he could disown the black community or his own grandmother and spoke about how Trinity United “embodies the black community in its entirely.”
I assume that the MSM who only recently hailed Obama's Philadelphia speech as historic will simply ... move on. Being a member of the MSM means never having to eat your words.
How's that thrill running up Chris Matthews leg?
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