"He was going to church around the state of Illinois to get votes."

From the Culture and Media Institute website:

According to Richard Wolffe, an MSNBC contributor and former Newsweek columnist that covered the Obama presidential campaign for the weekly magazine, people don’t have to worry about the rantings and ravings of Obama’s controversial preacher having any impact on his world view because he wasn’t there.

Wolffe, in an appearance at the Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. on June 15 promoting his book about Obama, “Renegade,” told the audience the president wasn’t naïve about Wright – he was ignorant.
 
“I don’t think I phrased it as naïve, but I was curious to know, as everyone was what he heard and what he thought about it,” Wolffe said. “And my conclusion from talking to him and his friends was that the dirty secret of the Rev. Wright episode, which he couldn’t really explain, was that he actually really wasn’t much of a churchgoer.”

So, he was ignorant, not naive (that's good, right?) and he really didn't go to church too much. Fine, whatever. Except:

“When he said he wasn’t in church – he was trying to get at that, but I think this is kind of embarrassing for him,” Wolffe said. “And he told me look, ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s true, I didn’t go much, I had young kids. The services would go on for hours, if you’ve ever taken young kids to church, for three hours.’”
 
Wolffe told the audience Obama was using religion, specifically his church attendance to garner support for the various offices he held – from Illinois state senate, the U.S. senator and ultimately President.
 
“And then at the same time, he was running for various offices,” Wolffe said. “So when he went to church, and this is where the politician’s slipperiness comes in – he didn’t say, ‘I wasn’t much of a churchgoer.’ If he was in church, it just wasn’t his church. He wasn’t going to church to pray. He was going to church around the state of Illinois to get votes.”

"Obama was using religion..." Shocking. Shocking, I say. But could it be, in light of Evan Thomas's revelation that Obama is "sort of God," that there is no need for a god-man who "stands above the country" to take part in local religious practices and services? Unless, that is, he needs to garner votes—which sounds more like politics as usual than the actions of a divine being. It's all very confusing, but I'm sure the good folks at MSNBC, Newsweek, and the All Barack Channel (ABC) will sort it out for us.

Comments

[Subvet]

In an undoubtedly ecumenical spirit he was spreading his divine benevolence around. What a guy!

[AMauldin]

The revelation that Obama was using the Trinity UCC congregation as a stepping stone was brought up last June (21st I think) in The New Yorker - the one with the controversial cover. According to the article, Obama was pointed to that church by Chicago political organizers who then felt 'thrown under the bus' by him and his new operatives. It's a great article. I believe it was the June 21st edition of The New Yorker. I tried to get a newsstand copy, but it sold out (or got recalled) very quickly.

[Carl E. Olson]

It was titled, "Making It", it was written by Ryan Lizza, and appeared in the July 21, 2008, edition of The New Yorker.

[Daniel G. Fink]

In The New Yorker article, we read at the conclusion, "Obama has always had a healthy understanding of the reaction he elicits in others, and he learned to use it to his advantage a very long time ago".
I can't dispel my sense, born from the dissenting Catholic appointments by Obama, and the use of the Notre Dame platform, etc., that the Kmiecs and Fr. Jenkins within the Church are, to use the most charitable adjective...naive.