Obama is RIGHT

Bet you never thought you'd see that title, huh?  No, I'm not jumping on the Obama bandwagon or anything like that.  I just want to give credit where credit is due.  From this article, taken during a "sermon" Obama gave yesterday at a church in Chicago...

 

CHICAGO: Addressing a packed congregation at one of the city's largest black churches, Senator Barack Obama invoked his own absentee father to deliver a sharp message to black men, saying "we need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception."

In an address Sunday that was striking for its bluntness and where the candidate chose to give it, Obama directly addressed one of the most delicate topics confronting black leaders: whether absent fathers bore responsibility for some of the intractable problems afflicting black Americans. Obama noted that "more than half of all black children live in single-parent households," a number that he said had doubled since his own childhood.

Too many fathers are "missing from too many lives and too many homes," Obama said to a chorus of approving murmurs from the audience. "They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it."

...

"Don't get carried away with that eighth-grade graduation," he said, bringing many members of the congregation to their feet, applauding. "You're supposed to graduate from eighth grade."

...

"I know how hard it is to get kids to eat properly," Obama said at the time. "But I also know that if folks are letting our children drink eight sodas a day, which some parents do, or, you know, eat a bag of potato chips for lunch - buy a little desk or put that child at the kitchen table. 'Watch them do their homework."'

...

What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child. Any fool can have a child. That doesn't make you a father. It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."

Obama spoke of the burden that single parenthood placed on his mother, who raised Obama with the help of his maternal grandparents.

"I know the toll it took on me, not having a father in the house," he continued. "The hole in your heart when you don't have a male figure in the home who can guide you and lead you. So I resolved many years ago that it was my obligation to break the cycle - that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my children."

But he also acknowledged his own flaws as a father, citing the breakneck schedule of the campaign and the rare days he spends with his children.

"I say this knowing that I have been an imperfect father," he said, "Knowing that I have made mistakes, and I'll continue to make more, wishing that I could be home for my girls and my wife more than I am right now."

 

As the article mentions, he does sound a lot like Bill Cosby here.  This is a message that our country needs to hear, and it's good to see so many people delivering it.  Thank you Barack Obama.  And a slightly belated Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there.