Obama's father's beliefs and associations are irrelevant.
However...
The beliefs and associations (and observed judgment) of Obama himself are most certainly not irrelevant and seem to be forming a picture of the man who's running for president on character alone or the content thereof. The senator and his supporters were okay with this until the first unsavory association popped up. After that came the next one and the next one--along with the specter of a radical belief system or two--magically transforming the examination of the candidate's beliefs and association--the examination of the only elements available by which his character can be judged--into "distractions." (Then there are the vacillations, or, more descriptively, the "flip-flops"--a manifestation of the candidate's quality of judgment.)
At that, do we the People wonder aloud and in print how else the public is supposed to get a snapshot of the candidate's character unless his beliefs and associations are subject to public scrutiny? Yes.
Answer: Shame on you for not Believing! And Damn those False Prophets to Right Wing Hell!
Not even an association with a proto-jihadi like the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers--whose Weather Underground girlfriend Diana Oughton died in a "work accident" while plotting to blow up a bunch of Army sergeants at Fort Dix--can penetrate such a level of Faith.
Which is why the prospect of an Obama presidency is "more than a notion."
