With Barack Obama’s announcement that he has resigned from the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago come his hope and prayer that the issue will now be behind him, although he’s not so naive as to believe that will, in fact, happen. Questions will persist, and among them is why it took him so long to do so when the Reverends Wright and Pfleger are today what they have been as preachers for a long time.  Obama has been a member of that church for twenty years, was married there, had his children baptized there, and couldn’t have been unaware.

The most important question of all this, though, is one that isn’t likely to be asked, and even if asked isn’t likely to be answered.  Before we get to that question, though, let’s remember that Obama is new to us, a political phenomenon partly of his own creation and mostly of ours.  We’re meeting him nationally for the very first time, and so far it’s been a limited introduction.  What do we know about and of him?  Nothing, by comparison to what it is we know about and of Hillary Clinton and John McCain.  They’re not like old shoes for everyone, as comfort levels vary to the extremes, but we have worn them before.

Obama went from the Illinois State Senate to the United States Senate only four years ago, and has no record of national accomplishments to speak of during that time.  He’ll be 48 by the time the Democratic National Convention convenes later in the summer, and although his personal accomplishments are impressive, his political record is rather thin, to be kind.  Voters have created him as a significant figure more so than he has himself, doing so out of a desperate need for a political messiah in these war-torn and fiscally fragile times, and besides standing against the Iraq war we know little else of him.

Since it became generally accepted political wisdom he would be his party’s nominee for the presidency, he’s not done so well in the last seven or eight primary contests.  His bottom side has developed razor burn from the shavings Clinton has given him in places like Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and most recently in Puerto Rico yesterday.  It doesn’t say much for him that even with the nomination all but in his hand he still loses to her – - add Indiana and Kentucky to that list of losses, too.

It is interesting and instructional, too, that he chose the day the DNC’s Rules Committee was meeting and the eve of the Puerto Rico primary to announce his resignation from the church.  In the dark of night and with plenty of news to hide behind, he skulked out hoping few would see him, and fewer would inquire.  He seemed to show some personal and political character in his dismissal of the gas tax summer holiday issue, and suggested promise with his stand.  However, he cheaped out with the resignation, and therein lies the most important question about it.

Never mind why it took him so long, and never mind why it took the Father Pfleger fantasm to provide the “last straw.”  The most important question is this:  Would he have resigned if he were not running for President of the United States?  While everyone might have their own opinion on his motives, it is probably a question for which there is no convincing answer now that it has been asked.

Shame, too.  That is the question, and if we knew the candid and truthful answer, it would tell us much more about the man than we know now.  Faith is a funny thing.  For the believers, it’s easy; for the rest, not so much.  In politics, it’s what votes are based upon, and too many have already been cast for him.  In that sense, an answer is now not necessary.  But the question still needs to be asked.