Obama Too Deliberate to be Believed?

Senator Barack Obama as portrayed in the Economist Magazine, July 2006

Chris Bowers has some interesting and frank points to make about his experience as a supporter of Barack Obama. He's generated an interesting discussion. My comments are here - and they involve subject material that I have previously blogged about - a subject regarding faith and politics that "bugs" me more and more about Senator Obama with each passing day. If he wants to be a great leader, he needs to appear far less calculating.

In a leader, I'm looking for someone I perceive to be saying exactly what he or she means, whatever his or her convictions may be. In a moment, I can spot a person who's reaching too deliberately - too hard - and in a way that's too calculated - for a particular position. Senator Obama is one of those. If anyone tells me he was anti-war before the Iraq War Resolution, I would ask them to listen carefully to what Obama is saying about the war today - now that he is in a position of power. I look for grace in my leaders - and grace, to me, involves staying true to yourself at all times and not deliberately seeking to create a straw-man to stomp on and step over in order to get to a place of greater power.

That said, I believe that Senator Obama has a bright future ahead of him and I hope he would take criticisms like mine as an encouragement to change his rhetoric. I fully support him for the good things I believe that he's doing. I want him to succeed, and I believe he will - in time.

"To everything there is a season..."