Experience can be a slow teacher.
The good news about Barack Obama is that he can learn from experience. The bad news is it takes him the equivalent of 5 Presidential terms to do it.
Barack Obama quits Trinity United Church of Christ
…A source in the Obama campaign said Obama had been having conversations with Moss for weeks over his concerns that the scrutiny the church was experiencing because of his candidacy was causing problems — and that Trinity should not provide a platform for inflammatory rhetoric, which is exactly what happened last Sunday.
…Obama knew [Reverend Jeremiah A.] Wright was a potential liability from the first day of his campaign in February 2007, when he dropped him from his campaign kickoff program in Springfield, Ill.
The suggestion that Obama didn’t know what went on at TUCC for 20 years is betrayed by the joyful reaction of the congregants to every race-baiting demagogue who takes the pulpit. The hate speech is business as usual.
Obama is leaving his church not because of what he could not fail to have observed in 2 decades, he’s leaving because of the scrutiny – the judgment of others. Does anyone doubt he’d still be a member if Wright, Moss and Pfleger hadn’t been exposed? Any argument that Obama’s judgment trumps others’ experience can now be formally retired. He is either exceptionally morally obtuse or he’s a profound hypocrite. There’s no third choice.
And, so much for his negotiating skills. Even with “friends.” Maybe he needed to set some conditions.
Update: 4:30PM
Mark Steyn – Pews you can lose
Ed Morrissey – Breaking: Obamas quit Trinity United Church of Christ
Jennifer Rubin – Obama Acts Like Obama
Scott Johnson – Get me from the church on time
Larry Johnson – BREAKING NEWS: Michelle’s Whitey Problem
Duane R. Patterson – A Matter Of Judgment