Just How Often Did Obama Attend Trinity?

American Thinker notes that there's some serious discrepancies in just how often Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama attended Trinity Church. Newsweek's latest story on Obama claims that Obama attended the church more infrequently once his children were born, which could explain why he was never around when the odious pastor Jeremiah Wright gave his racist and anti-American sermons.

The problem is that this runs counter to Obama's own recounting of his experiences with the church - as per American Thinker:

This latest Obama spin does not square with a more honest portrayal he himself gave in a 2004 interview where he stated that he "regularly attended weekly services at Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ" and indicated that had been his regular schedule since joining the church 16 years before (1988). He did not indicate any scheduling problems or absences back in 2004, no scapegoating of his daughter. Now he has to deal with Pastor Wright controversy and he just dreams up a different history-and Newsweek helps him along.

If the Newsweek account is correct, then why didn't Obama use that as a defense when the whole Wright mess exploded?

Either he's telling the truth now and really didn't attend the church as frequently as he previously stated and he was lying in his book and earlier interviews, or he is lying to Newsweek and the truth is that he was around for Wright's odious sermons and did not leave the church.

One way or the other, he's lying, and the question is in which direction. He's lying to further his political ambitions, and now that he's got the Presidency within his sights, further distancing himself from Wright is necessary, so I tend to believe that he's lying now.

It goes to show that he isn't some new breed of politician, but rather is nothing more than a typical political hack who has absolutely no experience but all the ambition in the world. He's hoping that everyone overlooks the lack of experience while he puts on a shiny face (thanks to a media that can't help put put a halo on him), offers up no new policy choices except higher taxes, higher oil prices, and more government intrusion.

Further, where was Newsweek's fact checkers to run Obama's latest account against his prior statements? That's a story in and of itself that goes unexplored by Newsweek to determine what the truth is, and yet Newsweek doesn't do that extra legwork. Curious.