Character Matters

In this article by Kyle-Anne Shiver we take a look at the consequences of the speech last week in which Barack Obama threw his pastor of 20 years Jeremiah Wright under the bus. And if you have some respect for logic and reason then you have to come to one of two conclusions. Both of them reflect poorly on Mr. Obama. The election of a President is as much about character as it is about the issues that may happen to be at hand. For if an individual is to rise to the challenge of the issues that may confront the nation, then it will be character that allows him to do so. Judgment and perception are critical in how a President acts and reacts to the many events that will arise during his term in office. And by Obama's own words we now know that he is a liar. For he has either lied to all of us, or he has lied to his friends. Ms. Shiver lays out the alternatives:

With Obama's Philadelphia-speech, hedging and squirming around specifics, and now with his final, "unequivocal," outright disowning of Jeremiah Wright this week, I have more evidence than I need to conclude that Barack Obama is either one of two things:

Behind Door #1: He is a reprehensible liar, who privately still believes, and has always believed, in the philosophy espoused by his long-time pastor, spiritual mentor and "uncle" figure, Jeremiah Wright, but for opportunistic motives, now publicly disavows his own true beliefs; or

Behind Door #2: He is a man of no integrity whatsoever, who has partaken of another man's friendship and political help for nearly 20 years, who has now publicly dumped and disgraced this benefactor for personal gain. Jeremiah Wright is not some flunky that Obama hired last week out of a far-left think tank or fresh from the halls of Harvard. The two men were close, like family, by the candidate's own pronouncements.

Whether the real Obama is behind Door #1 or Door #2, only Barack Obama now knows for certain. But either way, he has disgraced himself in the eyes of many Americans, and if he offered his hand, some of us older-timers would decline to shake it.

If he truly believes the philosophy of his chosen church, and now denies it because he sees that it is a small-minority view, he defines himself as a wimpy scoundrel, unworthy of being Commander in Chief.

Having the courage of one's convictions is something I would hope my twelve year old would have, and if he didn't, I would be deeply ashamed and know myself to have been a very bad parent. Barack Obama was nearly 30 years old when he first met and befriended Jeremiah Wright, and upon their very first meeting, the Reverend Wright informed Obama that his "fellow clergy" considered him "too radical." He was warned by Wright himself. Obama was no innocent waif, as he now contends.

On the other hand, if Barack Obama vehemently disagrees with the tenets of Wright's philosophy and worldview, but stayed with the man, respected him enough to have him perform a wedding and baptisms, and gave thousands of dollars of his own money to support the black liberation cause, and garnered prestige and political clout from his association with Wright, then Obama demonstrates that he is a man without a well-formed conscience. An unabashed user of another for personal gain.

Would I take my children to a church where someone like David Duke was passing himself off as a minister of Christianity? Would you?

Logic does not permit us to continue in the belief that Obama is some kind of new phenomenon on the political landscape. Rather, he is just another in a long line of machine politicians who is able to do what he has to do in order to get what he wants. And that is a very small and low standard indeed.