I see that I am not the only one who was rubbed the wrong way by hearing about Barack Obama’s dis-inviting his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ (on the advice of the handlers of his campaign), who was scheduled to give the invocation at his presidential campaign announcement.

In my post on it, I wrote that I felt that this was a bad idea given the relationships church folks ( in this particular case, black church folks) have with their pastors and that, by denying the very person he calls his “spiritual adviser”, Obama is creating questions about his character and authenticity.

Today, in a column by Mary Mitchell in the Chicago Sun-Times, she echoes some of the very same concerns I voiced. However, she makes some keen observations that I overlooked. The most disturbing was that, until 2 weeks ago, Obama did not have a prominent black campaign staffer. Perhaps, if he had gotten such a person on board before his announcement, he wouldn’t have made such a blunder.

In any case, Mitchell does an excellent job of summing up a lot of concerns around this incident and why it is so significant:

Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, responded that Obama is “proud of his pastor and his church,” but defended the decision.

“Obama decided to avoid having statements and beliefs being used out of context and forcing the entire church to defend itself,” Burton told me — the exact language he used with The New York Times.

In any event, Wright shouldn’t have to defend himself or his church.

Trinity, the church home for countless black professionals, has been at the forefront of social justice issues, and was the first church to organize protests against South Africa’s apartheid.

More important, Wright is more than capable of defending his teachings. He also understands the political climate in which Obama has to operate. So it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for Obama to pull him to the side and caution him to temper his public remarks that day.

But Obama took some bad advice from campaign staff who underestimated the impact such a slight could have on a candidate who have to woo the black vote. Now, the shuttered prayer has come back to haunt him.

It looks like Obama has some real soul-searching to do and needs to ask himself does he really want the black Christian vote (and, in a lot of places, this is THE black vote) or will he risk losing it by taking bad advice from folks who know nothing about black people.

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