Obama and legitimate religious talk

I expected derisive statements or articles from the Left about the Dobson-attacks-Obama "story" from last week, but it caught my eye to see an op/ed by a Peter Wehner entitled, "I am a conservative evangelical, and even I am offended by James Dobson's dishonest critique of Barack Obama's theology." The so-called MSM is all too eager to provide a platform to this ankle-biter for "speaking (Liberal) truth to (Conservative) power," but Dobson's criticism is right--even if undiplomatic.

Wehner describes how,

Dobson criticized Sen. Barack Obama, accusing him of "deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit ... his own confused theology," of having a "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution" and of appealing to the "lowest common denominator of morality."

Wehner may be "offended" that Dobson wasn't wowed by a Democrat Presidential candidate mentioning God in public, and Wehner can legitimately argue that Religious Conservatives need to cheer on religious-talking Liberals if we want to them to keep on "making the public square more hospitable for people of faith." But if they're sincere, they won't need my encouragement, right?

And, sure, if you give Obama the benefit of the doubt (or, should I say, if you ignore most everything else he has said about issues bearing on the subject and ignore the implications of most of his other policy prescriptions), you might resent Dobson's chiding of Obama. But I--like Dobson, think what Obama said was simply flowery, religiously-tolerant-sounding mumbo jumbo. I'm just not feeling that Spartan Spirit because Obama seems more interested in curtailing what constitutes legitimate political speech than in expanding the category.

While I choose not to rely on Biblical text or supernatural premises when attempting to persuade others to my particular policy preference, that is a choice I make in the interest of effectiveness, not because to do otherwise would be immoral or unethical. (Speaking of which, you hear a lot more "preaching" and moralizing from Democrat candidates than Republican candidates.)

In sum, Obama is conveniently defining legitimate faith-related-political speech as speech that is persuasive to those with non-faith-related presuppositions. But Obama's definition gives others the power to veto or chill my views simply by demanding that--in order to legitimately bring religious expression into the public policy debate, I have to appeal to the values or presuppositions of the secular Left.

Obama is a master at framing arguments, at doling out left-handed compliments, at statements that communicate all the right things while communicating nothing. So even though it could be a positive development that God is referenced at some point prior to the "God Bless America" line in Democrat speeches, I perceive this is more about manipulation (to those "clingers") and "neutralizing" a Republican issue than it is about putting out the welcome mat for Religious expression in the public square.

Nice try.

Please pardon me for not sitting up in my seat for a sermon--from a Rev. Wright congregant, about how faith intersects with public policy.

Keeping the gun issue alive?

Here's an interesting piece (from American Spectator) about the Democratic Party's response to the Heller decision. From the article:

THAT BRINGS US to the most prominent Illinois Democrat of them all. Barack Obama has spent most of his career in the hardcore anti-gun category. He was the Democrat quoted above who said "I don't believe that people should be able to own guns," according to scholar John Lott, who met Obama in the mid-'90s.

That's one of many highlights in Obama's long anti-gun record. But since he's now running for president, Obama has retreated to safer political territory, implausibly claiming that "The Supreme Court has now endorsed" what Obama has "always believed."

Obama emphasized, like Schumer and Pelosi, that "Justice Scalia himself acknowledged that this right is not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe." His clear preference is to move on from this subject.

He could get away with it. Congressional Quarterly blogger Taegan Goddard suggests that by making it harder to take away your guns, the Supreme Court has made it harder for Republicans to mobilize gun owners.

(emphasis mine). For the record, I am uncomfortable with political gamesmanship along the lines of "keeping issues alive" for the sake of winning elections. That being said, the last sentence above jumped out at me because it seems that a 5-4 vote on a Supreme Court ruling as controversial as this sustains--if not increases, the importance of elections involving a supreme-court-justice-appointing president and a supreme-court-justice-consenting senate.

Why it's more American to be republican (heehee)

Here's an insightful post on the growth of federal gov't and one reason America was constitutionally more "republican" than "democratic." The Corner on "Wronged states."


Also posted at tennesseefree.com

Good questions re. Dems' disaster demagoguery . . .

You may have already seen this, but I thought these questions from my sister-in-law's email were worth passing along . . .

--Where are all of the Hollywood celebrities holding telethons asking for help in restoring Iowa and helping the folks affected by the floods?
--Where is all the media asking the tough questions about why the federal government hasn't solved the problem? Asking where the FEMA trucks (and trailers) are?
--Why isn't the Federal Government relocating Iowa people to free hotels in Chicago?
--When will Spike Lee say that the Federal Government blew up the levees that failed in Des Moines?
--Where are Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks?
--Where are all the looters stealing high-end tennis shoes and big screen television sets?
--When will we hear Governor Chet Culver say that he wants to rebuild a "vanilla" Iowa, because that's the way God wants it?
--Where is the hysterical 24/7 media coverage complete with reports of cannibalism?
--Where are the people declaring that George Bush hates white, rural people?
--How come in 2 weeks, you will never hear about the Iowa flooding ever again?

Corker shining in DC

Kudos to Bob Corker for his noteworthy service in the U.S. Senate to date, noteworthy if for no other reason in its workmanlike character.

Corker's work on the Energy issue is profiled in this recent piece in The Weekly Standard. ("Uncorking Energy Supplies", by Fred Barnes). You need to read the article for the substance of what he's doing on behalf of prudent Energy policy, but this quote encapsulates the secret to Corker's effectiveness:

"In Washington, knowledge usually trumps opinion. 'All of us have opinions,' Corker says. 'To be heard in the Senate and break through the clutter,' it takes more than voicing an opinion. Senators who speak with authority, Corker says, are the ones who listen and learn, and are thoughtful and knowledgeable. 'I'm not saying I'm in that category. But that's my goal.'"

Doc Rivers and Me

Did I ever tell you about the time I met Doc Rivers?

It was on a bus, in the Soviet Union. In 1988, Ted Turner's (cough cough) Atlanta Hawks were on a goodwill tour of the USSR, and it just so happened that the Hawks (regrettably, minus the Human Highlight Film) were scheduled to play the Soviet National Team in Tbilisi, Georgia where I and a team of Americans were on a goodwill tour of a un-Ted-Turner-like sort.

The game was sold out, but my colleague and I--undeterred, camped out in the lobby of the team's hotel, finally spotted Mike Fratello, and implored him to locate game tix for two homesick American NBA fans. He told us to meet them there the next day two hours before tip off.

Well, you can bet we were there with bells on, and we giddily boarded the team's chartered bus. One of the last players on board was Doc Rivers, who--seeing a couple of young (obviously) American guys on his team's bus, heartily greeted me saying, "How you doing?" as if we were old friends.

To make a long story less long, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Coach Fratello asked us to stand "guard" at the locker room during pre-game warm ups. We sat on the floor of the arena, three rows from the court and right behind the players' families. Spud Webb is truly 5'7". The Hawks won by one point. Good times.

But nothing like what Doc's experiencing tonight. Congrats Doc.

Apply now . . . space limited!! Yeah, right.

In the latest installment of Tennessee's Judicial Selection soap opera, only two persons have applied to be considered (note: I disagree with our current system of selecting judges) for appointment to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Two people. And judging from this article on the subject, one of the applicants may have just gotten the proverbial wild hair. ("Chattanooga: Local attorney applies for seat on state Supreme Court")From the article:

A Chattanooga trial attorney has applied for the Tennessee Supreme Court vacancy that will be created this fall when Chief Justice William M. Barker retires.

John W. McClarty, who has practiced law for 32 years and concentrates primarily on civil litigation, said he applied to be a state supreme court justice in order to expand his experience at the appellate level.

(emphasis added). Wow. Only two attorneys in our entire state aspire to sit on the Tennessee Supreme Court.

That being said, given the events of the last couple years, you can hardly blame a person for shying away from the process. It's secretive. Rigged by legal special interest groups. Tainted by political correctness. Unconstitutional. (To be fair, I just threw that last reason on there for good measure. Only a small number of attorneys are bothered by this). I don't know what the history is, but maybe there are a lot of late-filers for such openings. We'll see.

The Gore bump. Not.

This just in:

Former Vice President Al Gore will step off the sidelines and make his first campaign stop with Democrat Barack Obama tonight.

Gore, who made the announcement in an e-mail to supporters, will appear with Obama at a rally in Detroit that is scheduled to begin at 8:30 p.m. local time.

Wowww.

The Democratic nominee for President in 2000 endorses the Democratic nominee for President in 2008. Are we supposed to care (much less be impressed)?

But have you heard who the 2000 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee has endorsed?

I think Gingrich is right

From today's TheHill.com:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Sunday that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal “would be far and away the best candidate” to appear on the Republican presidential ticket with Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

I also agree that we need to Drill here and drill now.

Kozinski and the big tent

Most attorneys (or observers of the judiciary) know of embattled Federal Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski (the "porn" hosting judge), but I knew of him primarily because he is a notorious or regular speaker at Federalist Society events. Don't ever tell me we Conservatives don't have a big tent.

Here's an intriguing profile of Kozinski from several years ago. From the article:

There's also nothing conservative about Kozinski in the stuffed-shirt sense; he's a troublemaker. The judge is zany and bawdy, a high-pitched giggler and an anything-goes storyteller. Kozinski takes his law clerks paintballing and snowboarding. (E-mails from his personal account are addressed from 'The Easy Rider,' a reference to his snow boarder identity.) He has written video game reviews for The Wall Street Journal and an account of a Malibu pajama and lingerie party for the online magazine Slate. Six pet chickens have the run of his property in the beachfront community of Palos Verdes, where he lives with his wife and three sons. When Kozinski gives surplus eggs as gifts, he names which chicken (Veronica or Heckle) laid each one. At one oral argument in September, after listening to the Drug Enforcement Agency argue for a ban on the use of hemp seed and oil in food products, Kozinski leaned forward solicitously. 'Before you sit down, can you tell me how you're going to save the poppyseed bagel?' he asked the government's lawyer, to the delight of the Vote Hemp deadheads in the audience.

Kozinski's open-to-anything mindset means that as a judge he relishes the opportunity to shred a piece of received wisdom. That doesn't mean he's a judicial activist in the ends-justify-means sense. Though he often makes mincemeat of poor reasoning in a previous judicial holding, Kozinski doesn't ignore or brush off precedential rulings that don't go his way; he insists on letting the language of a statute set the course of his analysis. 'If you, as a judge, find yourself too happy with the result in a case, stop and think,' he has written. 'Is that result justified by the law, fairly and honestly applied to the facts? Or is it merely a bit of self-indulgence?'

From what I know of Kozinski, these recent disclosures are not out of character; nonetheless, they highlight a part of his character that was better--for his sake, kept far away from his professional sphere.

Gas prices and hot air from Al Gore

I'm sure that Al Gore (you can't spell "alarmist" without AL) & Co. have a (credible or not . . . probably not) response to this, but (via Drudge) here's a poignant commentary on the connection between the anthropogenic global warming crowd and the price of gasoline (Weather Channel Founder John Coleman -- "Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gas"). Here's the first paragraph:

You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas. It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist’s attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline. All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth. What an amazing fraud; what a scam.

William's favorite URL

One stalker frequent visitor to this blog is a guy named William. William has a PhD (in music, I think) and he is a proud Liberal. Chief among his traits, however, is that he is a critic of Conservatives and Conservatism, and the most common blunt object he uses to "criticize" Conservatives is a study from several years ago "finding" that Conservatism was--maybe not a mental disorder, but certainly a mental/psychological/emotional shortcoming. The study was called Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition. Here's the URL to a press release on the study. Here's William's even cruder take on the study.

To be candid, I don't read much of what William writes, though I do read his comments on my blog and typically skim his posts at tennesseefree.com. And I have only cursorily read his attacks on me and Religious Conservatives (here was where it may have started; note to self: William typically ramps up these attacks at the beginning of summer)--the guy just doesn't have much credibility in light of his "public" antics and demonstrated character.

In any event, I thought I'd look into his study a bit (I've learned that William's arguments/attacks have a nice way of falling apart or diminishing if you look into them at all), and I found a clinical psychologist's splendid analysis and dissembling of the political-science-disguised-as-psychology that william clings to. In sum, Psychologist Shawn Smith points to three serious methodological flaws in the "study." But you should read it for yourself.

There's another of Psychologist Shawn Smith's articles on the subject here.

We Anthropogenic Global Warming skeptics are in good company, apparently

This op/ed provides a great perspective on the dangers of scientific-y alarmism, and it appears that Mark Twain might have shared my skepticism toward crystal-ball-reading scientists.(Roy Spencer -- "Bad Science: A Grand Tradition" on National Review Online):

And why should the science of global warming be so uncertain? Mostly because it is a whole lot easier to make scientific measurements than it is to figure out what those measurements are telling us about how the natural world works. The famous humorist and writer Mark Twain once said, “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”

I consider the theory that global warming is caused by mankind to be just one more example of the continuing tradition scientists have of extrapolating well beyond what they think they know. In his 1883 book Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain also expressed perfectly the proclivity of scientists for turning observations of the natural world into long range predictions which were clearly outlandish.

Twain humorously extrapolated an observed change in the length of the Mississippi River forward and back in time by millions of years to demonstrate the absurdity of the conclusions one can reach when one assumes something currently observed will continue to happen at the same rate, indefinitely.

Twain famously concluded, “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a trifling investment of fact.”

(emphasis added).

Bush Lied!! well, sort of

Great op/ed about the recent report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. (Fred Hiatt - "'Bush Lied'? If Only It Were That Simple." - washingtonpost.com). Like most Americans, I could hardly take the time to read the report. And the Democratic authors would rather you just take their word for what the report contains. After demonstrating how equivocal the data is in the matter (and in the report), Fred Hiatt--like an adult, raises the following points:

But the phony 'Bush lied' story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.

And it trivializes a double dilemma that President Bill Clinton faced before Bush and that President Obama or McCain may well face after: when to act on a threat in the inevitable absence of perfect intelligence and how to mobilize popular support for such action, if deemed essential for national security, in a democracy that will always, and rightly, be reluctant."

Picking a McMate--please, not Crist.

As discussion of McCain's VP choice begins in earnest, one name that keeps surfacing is that of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Please, no.

He's squishy or weak on abortion (here).

He's weak on almost everything else. Read this damning article from National Review.

The interesting thing from reading Crist's bio is that he seems to be substanceless, though a consummate campaigner. Oh, and he's got a great tan. Regrettably, those qualities can get you elected to a lot of public offices these days. But they don't qualify a person for second in command of my party.

Meanwhile, The Boston Globe discusses some of the reasons that Bobby Jindal is an appealing choice to much of the GOP "base." The article gets a lot of things right, but in the same way that much of the MSM (and even some Old Guard Republicans) didn't "get" Ronald Reagan, some folks fail to appreciate the natural "charisma" found in the principled person, and in the happy warrior.

Election fraud in Connecticut?

There's a story on FoxNews (online) today that reports votes being cast in the name of dead persons in the state of Connecticut. Here's the original article from the Hartford Courant. The Courant article is worth reading in its entirety.

The FoxNews report is already causing a buzz (among Republicans) and inspiring rebuzzals (from Dems), for example the CT Sec. of State Susan Bysiewicz is raising clucks by adamantly asserting that no evidence of election fraud has surfaced. But I suspect most stories/commentaries on the issue will miss the important point: some very simple changes in our system would greatly reduce the electoral system's vulnerability to fraud.

First, it is significant to remember that this investigation only involved a SAMPLING of databases in Connecticut, so don't draw too many conclusions from the relatively low numbers. The actual data supporting sloppiness are very likely higher, and as demonstrated in a recent news story (my friends at People for ("the American Way") inform me that one of their candidates--unfortunately named Kevin Killer, won his SD primary race by only 5 votes) races are often won by small margins.

Second, the angle of this story is that Connecticut's electoral system is so sloppy. In reality, every state's electoral system is sloppy, but that doesn't mean that we can't take common sense steps to make the system less vulnerable to fraud.

From the Courant article:

The potential for fraud is most serious in municipal elections, when officials are not required to check photo identification at the polls and voters need only sign a statement attesting to their identity.

. . . .

Registrars tend to rely on newspaper obituaries, relatives, or word of mouth to learn of someone's death, many officials said.

Even then, registrars are advised to be extremely cautious about purging dead people from voter rolls, said George Cody, president of the Registrar of Voters Association of Connecticut and New Canaan's Democratic registrar.

In sum:

[Asst. Prof] Dufresne said there is no evidence of any election fraud, but the number of dead voters “shows the system is vulnerable and it shows that people who are clever and have a little cooperation in the town level, you could use this and get people to vote for people who died.”

(The prof said something similar in the Norwich Bulletin: "The investigation was not about fraud,” [Journalism Prof] Dufresne said. “It was about a lot of flaws in the system in town halls and at the state level. It is an inaccurate system.”)

So, it's not news (to most people) that bureaucracies, in general, are inefficient or that election systems, in particular, are vulnerable to abuse . . . so what is the simplest way to avert election fraud?

Dems have for a couple of years been alleging that elections are being stolen (as opposed to lost) because the CEO of Diebold once raised money for a Republican . . . or because some Berkeley Computer whiz was able to break into a poll machine in under 3 minutes and tamper with voting tallies. On the other hand, Liberals weep and gnash their teeth about attempts to purge databases of felons or dead people, when the truth is that "provisional ballots" make certain that all persons are allowed to cast a ballot and will have their vote counted--if upon post-election investigation the ballot is found to be legitimate and if including such contested ballots is necessary for determining a winner.

But all the while, Liberals and Democrat officials oppose--tooth and nail, merely requiring proof that a person is who s/he claims to be when showing up to cast a ballot?

One final point about the Courant article is that digging deeper into the facts on this report--like digging deep into a lot of such reports, appears to have turned up . . . nothing. Too bad Liberal election conspiracy theorists rarely if ever take the time to do the necessary investigation before demagoguing the vote fraud issue.

Hillary's Fact Hub

I think most (objective) persons will agree that the so-called MSM has given favorable coverage to Obama (over Hillary) during the Democratic Primary.

Well, I stumbled upon a Hillary "Fact Check" website today (Rush encouraged me to encourage Hillary to stand strong in pursuing the nomination), and though Obama may have something similar at his website, it is interesting to read the inaccurate reports/quotations etc. coming from the Media about Hillary. For example, quoting Bill Clinton as saying that Chelsea "bawled" rather than that she was "appalled," or that Hillary used the term "Wall Street money grubbers" rather than "Wall Street money brokers." One or two such mistakes a week seems awful sloppy.

Here's the site: The Fact Hub.

Now the howitzer that is the MSM is going to train its sights on the GOP nominee. Fun.

McClellan finally learns to work the press

Jonah Goldberg credits Scott McClellan with coming into his own as a press secretary/propagandist: ("Self-serving McClellan throws out the ‘P’ word" on Nashville City Paper Dot Com):

This all bespeaks a level of sophistication few ever credited McClellan with when he stood at the podium looking like a McDonald's cashier flummoxed by an order. He's hawking books by making people think he's charging the Bush administration with wholesale dishonesty when he's not even making that case at the retail level. He's claiming the role of insider with behind-the-scenes insights, but he admits it never occurred to him that there was any dishonesty at work until he left the White House and began ruminating on what he could put in his book.

If only he'd been this good at working the press when it was for someone's benefit other than his own.

Some commenters over at The City Paper are dismissing Goldberg's op/ed because he hasn't read McClellan's book. Well, interviews and direct quotes are enough to go on, for the point that Goldberg is making--did you read the op/ed before commenting?

May I say that you weren't a very good press secretary, Scott?

It takes a family . . .

. . . unless you're Murphy Brown (wink-wink). In this WSJ article (which was linked in this NRO piece) about the Religious Left, was this profound point about the importance of "collectivism" on the family level. Too bad that the Religious Left eschews traditional definitions of family:

"Religious left clerics also ignore the evidence that much poverty in prosperous, opportunity-rich America results from dysfunctional—dare one call it 'sinful'?—behavior. Around two-thirds of poor families today are single-parent households, largely dependent on government subsidies and headed by women with little education. The entry-level, low-wage work for which these mothers are qualified makes it hard to support large families. And the time they must devote to raising their kids makes it hard to climb the economic ladder. Poverty is increasingly about the irresponsible decision to have children out of wedlock. In many inner city communities where poverty is entrenched, 75% of all children are now born out of wedlock."

Ouch; this'll probably leave a mark

Stanley Kurtz (of National Review Online) has a meticulous op/ed ("No Liberation") matching up Obama's (at-least-previously-expressed) views with the radical views of Trinity United Church of Christ. Some will claim it is old news, because it is based on a 1995 Chicago Reader piece, but I'd say this information that has gotten almost no attention from the MSM to date. Wow, that's a shocker ("Media Shilling you can believe in!!").

Being "Green" just another "ism"

This quote from Charles Krauthammer nicely summarizes my basis for major skepticism toward the Left's Environmentalism: (at National Review Online):

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class — social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts, and their left-wing political allies — arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (Communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).

Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher’s England to Deng’s China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history.

Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual Left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but — even better — in the name of Earth itself.

Dem delegate debate, how do I love thee?

Looking in on the DNC's fight over seating delegates, it is amusing to watch as Democrats beat each other over the head with classic fallacious arguments. Today, Hillary Clinton's supporters were appealing to "inclusion" and faux disenfranchisement ("count all the votes!!") in arguing that the results of the FL and MI primaries should be included even though the DNC plainly threatened any states that held primaries prior to a certain date would forfeit the right to vote on the Democratic nominee.

Now, I have been wishing Hillary success (or at least wishing for a looooong Democratic primary), and I would like for her to challenge Obama all the way up to the convention, but it's not wise (much less fair) to blow off rules or to change the rules in the middle of the game. Frankly, too many people parent the way that Democrats govern.

The deal was reached after committee members met privately for more than three hours, trying to hammer out a deal, and announced in a raucous hearing that reflected deep divisions within the party.

"How can you call yourselves Democrats if you don't count the vote?" one man in the audience shouted before being escorted out by security. "This is not the Democratic Party!"

. . . .

Proponents of full seating continuously interrupted the committee members as they explained their support of the compromise, then supporters of the deal shouted back.

"Shut up!" one woman shouted at another.

"You shut up!" the second woman shouted back.

Jim Roosevelt, co-chair of the committee, tried repeatedly to gavel it to order. "You are dishonoring your candidate when you disrupt the speakers," he scolded.

. . . .

Tina Flournoy, who led Clinton's efforts to seat both states' delegations with full voting power, said she was disappointed by the outcome but knew the Clinton position had "no chance" of passing the committee.

"I understand the rules. ... I can tell you one thing that has driven these rules was being a party of inclusion," Flournoy said. "I wish my colleagues will vote differently."

(emphasis mine). If the Dems' delegate debate can sensitize some (half?--the Obama faction) of the Democratic Party to respect for order/law, it will have benefits beyond drawing down the bank accounts of Big Democratic campaign donors. ;)

Yes he can!

Well, from reading the news today, it appears that Barack Obama actually can disown his spiritual mentor and his "family of faith." ("Changes"--Peter Wehner). From the post at National Review's "the Corner":

"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."

Now that's change that's believable.