Obama's statement that Reverrend Jeremiah Wright's harangues against America and whites were "not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation," is provijng to be at best, evasive and at worst, a lie.

Pundits and political observers are pointing out the utter fallacy of such statements given Obama's 20 year relationship with the radical pastor:

The more you learn about him, the more Obama seems to be a conventionally opportunistic politician, impressively smart and disciplined, who has put together a good political career and a terrific presidential campaign.

But there’s not much audacity of hope there. There’s the calculation of ambition, and the construction of artifice, mixed in with a dash of deceit — all covered over with the great conceit that this campaign, and this candidate, are different.

Privately, aides and associates of Obama tell stories about a boss who can be aloof and ungracious. He holds firmly to views and doesn't like to be challenged, traits that President Bush packaged and sold under the "resolute" brand in the 2004 election.

For Bush, those qualities proved to be dangerous in a time of war and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. If arrogance is a display of self-importance and superiority, Obama earns the pejorative every time he calls his pre-invasion opposition to the war in Iraq an act of courage.

While he deserves credit for forecasting the complications of war in 2002, Obama's opposition carried scant political risk because he was a little-known state lawmaker courting liberal voters in Illinois. In 2004, when denouncing the war and war-enabling Democrats would have jeopardized his prized speaking role at the Democratic National Convention, Obama ducked the issue.