Hollow Man

Barack Obama gave a speech yesterday in which he allegedly confronts his former pastor's racism. As Michael Medved points out in this column, Senator Obama gives a slick but dishonest speech which never really addresses the issue of Reverend Jeremiah Wright's radical racial comments.

It's too bad, really. It's a big missed opportunity.

When Barack Obama first burst onto the national stage at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, I was rather taken with the guy. He sounded good, he sounded like a serious Democrat. I had hoped, in spite of differences I have with the Democratic Party, that this guy would be a different kind of Democrat. Liberal, yes, but also thoughtful, someone who is a true progressive and just didn't toe the party line. I wasn't naive enough to think I could ever vote for the guy but I thought he would somehow raise the level of Democratic rhetoric to something less vitriolic and perhaps make the Democratic Party a serious party once again.

Reality trumps hope. After he took his senate seat in 2005, he became the most reliable liberal vote in the senate. And now, his promises of racial unity aside, we find out he has been embracing this radical Afro-centric church and pastor for two decades. While I don't believe Senator Obama is a racist, I do think he has an identity problem and the fact that he choose to view himself as black and associate himself with a radical race-based church, in spite of being raised by whites in a white community, shows he is conflicted.

Dennis Prager has an excellent column on just who Obama is.

For a guy that wants to transcend race, he isn't doing a very good job. I'm disappointed, really. Very disappointed. Barack Obama is just another empty suit. A hollow man.