Well .. the veneer has been penetrated, hasn't it? So much for the exalted "trans-racial" election. Looks like its more of the same old same old.

With a few days under out belt, Obama's sermon from the mount – his speech on race – was little more than an eloquent rewrite of so many speeches and rants we've heard in the past ... look at the speech again and a nuanced reading will show you that Obama was laying the blame for Jeremiah Wright squarely at the feet of white people. Wright, in Obama's eyes, is merely a response – if a rather harsh one – to the crimes of white America.

So now we see the real Barack Obama. Whatever is wrong with black America can be traced back to the actions of whites.

Then we have Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis. The Obama campaign tried to hide it for a while --- but when the media got wind of the fact that access to the thesis had been shut off by Obama, the ploy was over. The thesis is 95 pages long ... and we haven't gone through it yet ... but an initial glance shows once again that whatever problems faced by black American are traceable to --- you guessed it – whites. Now I've read a synopsis which says that our possible future First Lady wrote that America was founded on "crime and hatred" and that whites are "ineradicably racist." I want to see those words for myself in the thesis .. but they do sound like they could come from someone who was never proud of her country until her husband saw success in his race for the presidency. Now I don't know about you, but I would not like the idea of a First Lady who says that America was founded on "crime and hatred."

I have a thought about Barack's membership in Chicago's Trinity United Church of (Hate) Christ. As I understand it, Obama joined this church just about the time he was ginning up a political career. Perhaps Obama thought himself too white. Raised in large part by a white couple (his grandparents), attending prestigious private schools – where my sister was teaching, by the way – then Harvard, the Harvard law review – and all of that white stuff. Maybe he felt he needed to shore up his black credentials – get a little street-cred --- so off we go to join the dominant black church. I suspect that Obama was searching for black votes at this church more than he was searching for God. You can see why someone would search for votes in an atmosphere of hatred – but God?

It's been a helluva week ... the American people see Barack Obama a bit more clearly. They now see him as a man who can construct a bizarre moral equivalence between someone like Geraldine Ferraro and Jeremiah Wright .. someone who suggests that Obama's race has been a help in the campaign, and someone who shouts "God Damn America" from the pulpit and blames white America for AIDS. In all of this many don't see a man deserving of the Oval Office.

Neal Boortz, March 21, 2008

Maybe he doesn't hate America. Maybe he doesn't hate white people. But he has used rhetoric that is indeed hateful toward both. Perhaps he's engaging in the practice of condemning "they/them". "They" have done you harm! He keeps it general in order to rant on in the most fiery manner. He rails on while the people get stoked, yet he's never accusing any one person, only "them". It's pretty safe. Condemn the ambiguous "them" and people will "know" who you're talking about. Each person will have their own version in their minds and as a result be in agreement. And perhaps not intended, but an easy out is provided by not being specific. So he engages in these "truths" about black struggle and the congregation eats it up, but when called on it, he and his enablers can run on any one of many possible meanings that will absolve him of anything really terrible. It's genius really, evil genius.

--Marshall Art, in comments

And there it is in a nutshell: looking to blame the external and not the internal-- that which lies in his own heart. Obama and Michelle, and every other congregant at Trinity United would be better served by tuning an ear to Bill Cosby, rather than the kind of hate that comes from the likes of Jeremiah Wright. Whether or not Rev Wright and his people knew it or not, Wright was nonetheless commanded and obligated to "Feed my Sheep." But what exactly has he fed them, spiritually speaking? It hasn't been "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

Obama was laying the blame for Jeremiah Wright squarely at the feet of white people.

So much so, that he threw his white Grandmother under the bus and defended his black, equally bigoted, pastor.

This whole campaign is beginning to sicken me. I really don't care WHAT color the man's skin is, but personally speaking, Obama's lack of experience, his continued defense of Wright, and his "shame on you" castigation of White America shows me that this man does not deserve to be President of the United States of America.

But before anyone accuses me of being racist, you had best check that hat at the door. I am as likely to vote for a black man any other provided he espouses the ideals that made this nation great, despite its imperfections. If his name is on the ballot come November, I'll vote Keyes.