You are known by the company you keep.

I just care that he is who he is and he lets us know who that person is. He seems to dodge questions a lot with sneaky answers. I think there is a lot of dishonsty out there in politics right now and I am having a hard time with all of it. Why cant they just tell the truth. Do politicians think we are dumb enough that we need to be lied to?

I don't care that Obama is black, I wouldn't care if he was as white as the driven snow I still wouldn't vote for him! Even the racist views of his pastor are not the reason I wouldn't vote for him. The reason is simple; we haven't seen the REAL Obama yet! This man has some of the best and most eloquent oratory skils I have ever heard but what he says has no substance! He drives the nail home about "change" but I ask WHAT change? He never really says what he will change except for changing the way things are presently! Let me tell you folks, things could be immensely worse than they are now! You don't want someone touting change unless you know WHAT he is going to change!!

The change is what worries me, what change is he talking about. I agree with all you said. He needed to fit in and he said he could not distance himself from Wright no more than he could from the black race, that tells me he agrees with what is going on in the church. For a long period of time I went to a church where when it got apparent that things just wasn't right I got up and left. Everyone know that all is pushing for Obama to win, because he will be putty in their hands, a pushover to what they want, the Democrat party to start with. Oprah is beginning to look like Hilary with her power hunger ways. She will have a seat in his cabinet. Any one that has sit for 20 years and listened to that type of preaching either agrees with it or they don't. When Wright was bashing America he could of got up and left. Also when you talk about you are known by the company you keep what about the known felon Rezko, and Bill Ayers those are some snakes in the grass also, seems Obama don't have many friends that are not snakes in the grass. He is going to bring change it is the change that worries me.

I completely agree with you marie37. today I saw an interview with Obama where he has further stated that if his pastor continued to be part of the church then he would quit. I think this further shows that he is trying to "fit in" if you will with all of those who are upset by his association with the hate that the church represents. I was raised to believe that the company you keep gives a clear indication of the views you represent. this church promotes divisiveness between race. Obama's support of this church for 20 years indicates to me that he too supports the same level of divisiveness. I fear the "change" that he may bring if he is elected President.

From what I have heard, Obama's father abandoned the family. Obama was raised with the ability to choose his own religion and he chose Christianity. End of story. He never said that he was believer in Islam... If he had, and later did convert, we would have all heard of it by now as there would have been already a plot to kill him by some fanatic members of that group who do not take kindly to conversions... Those who say that he ever was Moslem are frankly liers. Next, regarding the church membership... It seems from the membership roles of the church members that have been discussed elsewhere, that the church was a happening place in the community and when Obama joined it in his youth, he would have heard more about the need to actively help people than the things that we have heard from that pastor which other members of the church have said were rare comments by that pastor. It is true that the pastor, who was old, who was tired, who was a holdover from the days when the struggle for civil rights was intense and sometimes bitter and when there were water fountains and restaurants marked white and black and when those who were professionals did not get treated as professionals if they were black but got treated as lessor... The times have changed. The man who was the battered and beat up and tired pastor spoke from the times within his memory, and from the erroring belief that if some got what he wanted that there would be less for him. Were there others in the church that were positive and life giving? Were there others who were not as bitter and cranky and even bigoted in their words? Was that pastor the only person who was at the church? I think not... I was raised Catholic myself and I remember having pastors that railed against people who committed sins, railed against coming in late, spoke about things that I did not like to hear, etc. I went to church not for that pastor but for the sacraments, for hearing the word of God read, for singing the songs, and for meeting with the people after the mass service was done. I was taught that it was indeed a bad thing to go to a particular mass just to have the priest that I wanted or just to escape the one I did not want and my church would make it really difficult to do this because it would hide who was saying the masses or giving the sermans. I therefore do not see the importance of the pastor's remarks... Sure they were bad yet there were other things about that church that were good... The words were bad but the works done by that church were good in the community and the training that the church evidently provided in political action and in the need to tend to the needs of the larger community was certainly beneficial even to those whom the pastor perhaps did not cherish in his bigoted comments... So we have a situation in the pastor where a man's words were bad and his works were good and his testimony is that he is a Christian who is imperfect and relying on the grace of Jesus for his salvation. I feel sorry for that old man while disagreeing with all of his broadcasted comments. Does that make me a racist? By the way, if you were tempted to say "yes." I am white.