There has been a lot of press coverage in the last week on Obama and his minister, Wright, who is also his spiritual advisor. Wright who was the senior pastor of Obama’s church until recently and had led Obama to Christ (according to Obama) and performed Obama’s marriage ceremony.

Wright made many controversial remarks in his sermons at the church Obama has come under criticism for having continued to associate with Wright after the comments and definitely after he knew about them. I do not agree with these comments that Wright made about America and groups within it.

Should Obama leave the church because he does not agree with all the preacher says. No. I have heard lots of people saying he should not have stayed friends with Wright or a member of the church because he disagreed with him. I would challenge each reader to stop and think, if you are a church member do you agree with everything your preacher says or all of the beliefs of your church? Whether you are religious or not, do you agree with everything your friends think. I am quite confident your answer is no to both questions or you are a real lonely person. I have not found a church yet that I agree 100% with or a preacher I agree with 100%. I find some churches and preachers I agree with more than others. Part of the experience of growing and learning is hearing other thoughts and learning your own. If all my friends agreed 100% with me life would be boring. I don't think you can even find any couple (married or not) that agrees 100%. (They even say opposites attract). As a friend in college and I commented, it would be a church of one if we ever made a church with just our own personal beliefs. Where would those who are telling Obama to leave Wright and that church because he is not in 100% agreement, tell him to go to church where the opinions would be 100% agreeable?

The question in my mind is why we would want to remove Wright or others from Obama’s advisors. Obama is an adult who should be able to weigh advise and choose the best advise to follow when making decisions.

Consider some of the criticism of George Bush and other presidents. The complaint is often that they surround themselves with “yes” men or women who only tell them what they want to hear and never the other side. Bush has been criticized in not looking more at some intelligence and information that presented a different story on Iraq. Other presidents have also been criticized for not having advisors tell them items or views not popular at the time.

I would raise the issue that we should not be demanding that Wright not be an advisor to Obama, but that should be his own choice. If we disagree with Wright’s views (as I do with what I have heard in the context it has been presented in the media) (there has been criticism on left and right radio) then people should be determining if this is Obama’s opinions or if it is an alternative opinion that he is hearing. If these are not Obama’s opinions but he is still willing to listen them if Obama becomes president he may not be led into making some decisions that come back to hurt because someone may have sounded at his meetings with a different thought.

McCain has presented himself as one like Obama has presented himself as politicians who are willing to listen to the other side and make choices that do not always match the party line. This is presented by both as an asset in their ability to work with both parties. If either is elected (there is still a second candidate for the Democratic nomination and there are several third party candidates including Nader, McKinney and others) the question is whether once in the White House if that really occurs. You may recall in 2000 that was a selling point for George W. Bush on his ability to work with Democrats, Republicans and others in Texas. The newspaper in his county reports today an unemployment rate of 2.7 and Texas reports a rate of 4.1 for February and job growth. (When I was in Midlands Texas earlier today I saw the front page article) He may not be getting the advise about areas of country not doing well.

I would prefer our candidates and presidents have people with differing opinions as important advisors so they get the real story. Other people in leadership positions should do the same. Think what the difference would be if the leaders of sub-prime lenders had people who advised them that warned what the problems could be.

Dwight

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