'What were they thinking?'

Now that we have heard the hate-speech that has been delivered as sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright at the Trinity United Church of Christ, no one should be surprised that Sen. Barack Obama refuses to wear a flag pin on his lapel and his wife, in her entire adult life, was never proud of our country until her husband was about to receive the Democrat Party's nomination for president.

We might wonder how the couple could sit through these "sermons" for 20 years and not walk out or, at least, tell the reverend that there might be more than a few people who would think he sounded like a kook. I could paraphrase a line from a recent, local political campaign ... What were they thinking?

Kelley C. Smith Long Grove