Especially not when he believes exposing his children to his spiritual mentor, Rev. Wright is the correct thing to do.

If you have no moral compass you shouldn’t lecture others. Obama is a bad joke.

Of course, Bush isn’t the greatest speaker either, and I voted for him.

The right-to-life folks have been quick to jump on that in the past as they should. A Parents responsibilites should continue from conception through birth, and then on to adulthood.

Regardless where one stands on abortion, it’s more evidence that for a smart guy, Obama puts darn little thought into issues.

I don’t think you’ve been listening carefully enough. I don’t know where he’s been on the issue for the last 18 years, but since he announced his candidacy (and I believe during that speech) he has talked about fatherhood and family on a number of occasions. Like #9, I find it amusing that conservatives think liberals disdain the idea of personal responsibility and advancement. The difference between liberals and conservatives on this issue may be that we are more willing to help those in more distress catch up a little.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/let-us-by-all-means-have-an-honest-conversation-about-race-11379

When the Moynihan report was written, 25 percent of black children were being born out of wedlock—a shocking figure at the time. By 1980, the out-of-wedlock birthrate for blacks had more than doubled. It now stands at an astounding 70 percent. Marriage rates for blacks have also fallen to perilous levels; only 32 percent are currently married and living with their spouse. Today, the overwhelming majority of black children will spend most of their lives being raised by single mothers—or increasingly, like Barack Obama, by their grandparents.

High rates of single female-headed households, in turn, lead to much higher poverty rates for blacks: 37 percent for female-headed families, as compared with just 8 percent for two-parent families. And children raised in female-headed households are more likely to drop out of school, to get into trouble with the law, and to become single parents themselves.

Obama’s Philadelphia speech was a perfect opportunity for him to address this obstinate reality, which, in order to provide a fuller picture, must be placed alongside the progressive march of so many blacks into the bastions of the American middle class. Here was an especially opportune moment to talk about the consequences of black family breakdown, a subject Obama could have discussed with the compelling authority of one who himself experienced abandonment by his father but had refused to follow the same path and had become a model husband and father. He had even written about the issue with rare candor in his book, The Audacity of Hope (2006), acknowledging that the breakdown of the black family “reflects a casualness toward sex and child-rearing among black men that renders black children more vulnerable—and for which there is simply no excuse.”

But instead of repeating this thoughtful assessment in Philadelphia, the candidate offered up only pious nostrums, linking the erosion of black families to “a lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that come from not being able to provide for one’s family,” before going on to blame a lack of parks, policemen walking the beat, garbage collection, and building-code enforcement—in brief, government policy—for helping to “create a cycle of violence, blight, and neglect.” His formulation conspicuously avoided the issue of behavior—like dropping out of school and having children out of wedlock—that virtually guarantees the continuation of the cycle of poverty.

I never said that he was insincere. In fact, I said “if he truly believes these things… GREAT!”. I question his timing more than anything- why now, and not the last 18 years? Is the problem with absent fathers in the black community something new? Did he suddenly become concerned about this issue last week while contemplating Father’s Day? What happened to make this an issue, when it hasn’t been an issue for him for the past 18 years? I’m fairly sure that white, independent voters hold the answer to this mystery. Its a pure, brilliant, political stunt- for Christ’s sake, the man has the chief right-wing-nut believing that he’s a social conservative.