Obama Flees Church in Favor of Oval Office

Just two months after pledging lasting loyalty to his pastor and friend and claiming ignorance about the beliefs taught at his church of 20 years, Senator Barack Obama has resigned from the Trinity Church after continuing concerns over its racist and Marxist teachings.

In March, just before videotapes surfaced of a number of Pastor Jeremiah Wright's sermons, Senator Obama commented

I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial.

He earlier credited his attendance at the church with shaping his identity and political voice.

Videotapes of a number of Pastor Wright's sermons, as well as sermons by others, show congregation members cheering wildly as speakers described Senator Hillary Clinton as racist, called for God to damn America, blamed the government for infecting blacks with HIV and espoused a medley of black liberation and Marxist attacks on class.

In remarks to the press on Saturday, Senator Obama seemed to blame the press for his need to quit the church.

A reporter for The Chicago Tribune is writing a book on Barack Obama titled The Savior.

With that, who needs a church?

UPDATE: Mark Steyn commented this morning at National Review Online

As one of the early trailblazers for the Rev Wright put it, greater love hath no man than to lay down his friends for his life. In among all the usual presidential ditching of inconvenient associations, I can't think of anything to compare with Obama's dumping of Trinity.

And Peter Wehner observed

What Obama did today may have been politically necessary. It was certainly politically expedient. And it is yet one more blow to Obama’s image as a different kind of politician. In fact, as we’ve learned over the last few months, Obama appears to be a Chicago politician through and through. When he perceived a threat to his
self-interest, he cut his ties to first his pastor and then his church, both of which he had expressed familial love and fidelity. This whole episode is deeply unattractive, even as it is deeply revealing.

No word yet whether the Obama's daughters, who have presumably been listening to this for their entire lives, will also be leaving the church.