Keeping a Low Profile, Deeply Religious Obama Skips Christmas Services

Keeping a 'low profile'

Why bother to interrupt that daily workout the media slobbers over or, perish the thought, miss another tee time to bother with at least making a symbolic gesture of attending a Christmas Mass?

Nah, can't be bothered. In fact, ever since he dispatched Jeremiah Wright back in May, it doesn't seem as if anyone in his sycophantic press corps has bothered to ask The Messiah how that search for a new church is going. Apparently there's a shortage of psychotic spiritual mentors out there. After 20 years of getting your J-Wright fix, can there be any substitute?

President-elect Barack Obama and his family remained sequestered Thursday at their vacation compound on the eastern, windward coast of Oahu as Christians around the world attended Christmas services.

Obama has long cited the importance of religion in his life, but severed his relationship with his longtime Chicago church because of inflammatory remarks by its former pastor. Obama has not attended a public church service since before the Nov. 4 election.

"The president-elect didn't want to disrupt a church community on Christmas with the burdens that come with a presidential visit," Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said Thursday.

Instead, Obama and his family spent the holiday at their oceanfront rental in Kailua, a 30-minute drive from his childhood home of Honolulu. Dinner included turkey and ham. Obama is spending 12 days there with family and friends and keeping a low profile.

Keeping a low profile? Huh?

The omnipresent visage of Obama the past two years has become so ubiquitous in American life it's inescapable. Now they want to pretend he's keeping a low profile? So those shots of him on the golf course, showing off the abs post-workout, eulogizing his typical white grandmother, all those very public appearances are deigned to be keeping a low profile?

Good grief. This is becoming like North Korean state media. Pretty soon we'll be hearing how much he labored on his way to shooting an 18 over 18 holes.

Although Obama's aides have taken steps to keep the vacation low-profile, they haven't been entirely successful. Photographers captured images of him scattering his grandmother's ashes from a rock ledge Tuesday. Another photographer took pictures of the future first family, including a shirtless Obama, in the backyard.

Yes, and with airtight Secret Service protection, that all just happens to be coincidence.

Sure.