There's also the aspect of denouncing Falwell as an "agent of intolerance" and then going, hat in hand, to plead for Falwell's blessing, and pretending to be a baptist.

If Obama can figure out how to present himself as Wright's generational successor, the generation that took 'the audacity of hope', but left behind the anger, I think he can neutralize this

Nice post, Ezra. You can't be too Christian in this country, and you can't be too war-mongery.

But what Obama's pastor said was that 9/11 was the chickens coming home to roost, or whatever his phrase was. And to say that America had anything to do with 9/11 is horribly wrong. I mean, it's not like our obsession with fighting the enemy du jour lead us to fund and train the very people who organized and implemented those attacks, right?

Wright's not the issue. The only thing Wright's done wrong here that the Christian right doesn't do every week is not to be a cog in an agitprop apparat.

Sure, I'd like to see the Obama campaign better handle such attacks. Still, when I see purported Democratic supporters discuss Wright as if he and not this week's swiftboating were the issue, I wince.

Don't lead with your chin, kids.

Brilliant post and spot on. The Republican party's brand of Christianity is, and always will be, the "right" kind of Christianity. CNN had the sanctimonious Tony Perkins of the Family Research Center on last night preaching to the audience how the Scriptures tell us to honor and obey our government and not mock it. They have the corner on Christianity in this country. Anyone who disagrees with thier version is hell-bound, and that includes Jews, Muslims, Catholics, and even the old mainstream denominations like the Episcopalians and the Presbyterianian's. If you aren't one of "them" and screaming about the anit-patriots, gays, feminists, abortionists, Mormons, athiests, and "compromising Christians" you aren't truly a believer.

Wright's comments embody three fears the Republicans love to hype about Obama: he's too Black (and maybe angry and vengeful to boot); he's not American enough,; and he's a Democrat, which means he can't get away with knowing people who say things with the same level of hyperbole Republicans offer.

There is nothing real here, only bullshit perceptions.

The Wright situation is much worse than the radical right wing guys because "god damn america" goes far beyond rational criticism thats acceptable to the american public. Hagee or Parsley might say "god damn gays" or "god damn catholics" but its not a sweeping condemnation of the entire country.

The democrats MUST win a sizable percentage of middle white class america to win the presidency (not necessarily a majority, but certainly a big chunk) and Wright's comments make that impossible for Obama.

The far right wing white pastors like Hagee are more acceptable to the american public because they alienate only small chunks of the american public (gays, catholics) whereas Wright alienates huge swaths of hte voting public with his idiotic comments.

Obama cant spin his way out of this one. After going there for 20 years, there's no fucking way Obama can lie to my face and tell me he's never heard those comments before. That kind of vitriolic rhetoric CANT BE HIDDEN BY WRIGHT EVEN IF HE WANTED TO. Its the same thing with Hagee: even if he WANTED to conceal his hatred for gays he couldnt do it because its so fundamentally a part of his belief system.

So when Barack says that he attended this church for 20 years and never heard this stuff before, I'm calling him a bald-faced liar. Pastors like Wright couldnt hide that stuff for 20 years even if they wanted to. Just listen to his speeches and you know there's no way this guy could put a lid on his ignorance.

Folks who express this faux outrage over Wright would have absolutely HATED Jesus, who also sermonized angrily against the powerful hypicrites of his day. I'm sorry Obama had to, in effect, say things about Wright that weren't true but I guess that's the price you pay running for President. Jeremiah Wright is one of America's greatest preachers and Trinity United is an exemplary faith community. If you want to hear some serious "separatism" quiz an orthodox rabbi about the virtues of assimiliation and if you want to hear industrial strength "victimhood" ask Bill O'Reilly about how he feels when a kid at McDonalds wishes him "Happy Holidays." As for "hate America", unless you assume the country is 100% Republican, turn on Rush Limbaugh.

I'm not telling you whats "right" or "moral" or "virtuous" I'm telling you how this is going to play to middle class white america and its not going to be good for Obama.

If Obama wins 100% of all academics, college students, people less than 30, people > 150k per year, and only 30% of the rest, he's going to get fucked over by McCain in the general election like nothing you've seen since Reagan punked Mondale in 84.

Obama doesnt even have to WIN middle class whites, but he does have to get a good chunk of their vote and this affiliation with Wright makes that impossible. Republican 527s are going to play that "god damn america" tape over and over again on TV, and rightly or wrongly those middle class whites are going to balk at Obama and go for McCain instead.

Wow. Some heated language in comments today. I think the energy Jeremiah Wright inspires in Obama critics says a lot more about how desperate those critics are to find a way to take Obama down than it does about Obama. This story reminds of the old definition of celebrity: a person who's famous for being famous. Well this story is only a story because it's a story. Most of Europe looks at how idiotic we're being about Obama laughs while the dollar plummets.

I think that if the GOP's 527 are still running Wright clips 8 months from now it's going to backfire and turn off at least as many people as it might con. At a certain point, kicking a man over and over for his religious affiliations doesn't wash - especially if he's already done a good job of putting it in context and establishing his own identity. If anything, this will put the "muslim" crap to bed. Obama's denomination is, ironically, about as "white middle-class" as you can find, despite their having a very large gay-friendly mega-church in Houston and this large African-American congregation in Chicago.

There is a huge difference in ones ppolitical beliefes and ones religious beliefs.

Wright was not esposing a religious belief when he says Aherica intentionally gave blacks AIDS.

I haven't seen anyone say
that Obama has to repudiate Wrights religious teaching.

The main difference also is this is Obamas self admitted mentor from the time he was in his formative 20s until today, nearly 20 years.

That means alot since we know so little about his background. If mccAIN OR ANY OTHER Republican had been married by Falwell, had specifically chosen Falwells church after searching around, attended falwells church regularly for 20 years, had his kids baptized by him, put him on his campaign and considered him a close family relation. YOU CAN D-MN WELL BET THE DEMOCRATS WOULD BE USING THAT TO BLUDGEON MCCAIN OR ANY OTHER REPUBLICAN TO DEATH.

Ezra, Wright says the USA invented AIDS to kill off African-Americans. He's a freakin' nut-job. You're being way, way too generous.

Like it or not, and I don't, but these Wright tapes were a bomb shell as big as Spitzer doing prostitutes. Spitzer's image was one of complete law and order, by the book, get the bad guy, straight arrow. One night with a pro totally destroyed that persona.

Obama has been careful to portray himself as a calm, responsible, love and care for everyone kind of guy. But seeing that he's been sitting listening to this guy preach this crap every week, taken with other small issues like Ms. Obama saying she hadn't ever been proud of America (in the whole time she attended this church by the way). You see Obama in a whole new light.

It would be like finding out Bill Clinton had secretly been attending the Seminary and was about to be ordained..

The "tell" in the above comment is "we know so little about his background." It would be hard to find a man in public life whose background has been scrutinized more thoroughly - or who has revealed more about himself in a memoir - than Obama. But "we know little." Yeah, right. Just like "we know little" about what kind of Manchurian brainwashing McCain might have been subjected to in that POW camp. Or and "we know little" about much coke GWBush might have ingested when he was avoiding his drug tests in the Air Reserve. It's scary electing a guy President. So much we don't know. There's simply a point at which these speculations and shadow implications are obviously disreputable. "We know little about Obama's background" is one of those.

"Like it or not, and I don't, but these Wright tapes were a bomb shell as big as Spitzer doing prostitutes."

I think you're fucking insane...

brucds, I'm not the one proclaiming America invented AIDS and gave it to black people..that would be insane.

But anyway, most sane people do not consider an autobiography to be the best way to get to know how someone would govern.

Saying we know so little, doesn't mean we don't know his hat size or boxers or briefs..it means we know very little about how he would act in a executive position in government.

The only Obama anyone has pretty much ever saw is the campaigning Obama, that's pretty much what's his career has been.

Not to defend Wright's "America invented AIDS" statements, but they look a little different in the context of something like the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, in which a number of black men were left untreated--even up to the 1970s--so that the effects of the disease (up to and including death) could be studied.

It's not too hard to understand how someone of a previous generation, who had to live through a racism much more virulent and oppressive than today's, might arrive at ideas like that, no matter how ridiculous they might seem to us now.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreated_Syphilis_in_the_Negro_Male

OK, the AIDS conspiracy theory thing is a little paranoid. It is, however, as JK says, not out of keeping with the black experience in America. Morally speaking, it is not even in the same ballpark as actively facilitating the spread of AIDS in Africa by cutting off all aid funds to any family planning clinic that even mentions the word "abortion" in its counseling, and thereby hobbling their work in AIDS education and prevention. Bush did this. Scientifically I think Wright is loony, but he's not at all off base in accusing the US of dropping the ball on AIDS prevention in Africa.

Joe Blow, do you really think that if there were more incendiary material to be found, Fox News wouldn't be adding it to their 24-hour "angry black man" loop? Jeremiah Wright is one of the most respected preachers in the country, is unflagging in his calls for social responsibility and his critiques of injustice and complacency, and would probably not have the largest congregation in the UCC denomination if his sole or main focus were 9/11 or Hillary Clinton or whatever. Check out the UCC's main website for their take on Wright. This is a man of God.

And if you have listened to the Wright snippet that's being played (with your ears unclogged), you would know there is no "sweeping denunciation of the entire country" in it. He is, rhetorically contrasting "bless" with "damn," applying the word to specific actions, and arguing that America should be denounced for "killing innocent people" and "acting like she is God." The context is a sermon on the criminal justice system, and the point is that the state does not have the right to assert absolute power over human life and that it currently does so unfairly. You are free to disagree, but an anti-death penalty argument or a contention that the justice system is particularly unfair to blacks is hardly out over the line of public discourse.

It makes me so angry that so many people are asking "how could Obama not know about these beliefs?" as opposed to "how could this be one of the most active, socially progressive, economically mixed congregations in the Chicago area if its congregants were actually hearing this stuff every week?" Doesn't it make more sense to assume that Fox News selected the few moments out of Wright's highly respected preaching career that would make his Democratic congregant look bad?

Oh, and to the anonymous poster who says there is a huge difference between political beliefs and religious beliefs...not in the black church there isn't. Do you know why there is a thing called "the black church"? Because in slavery days, Christian churches were used by white clergy to proselytize about the benefits of slavery for all involved and the virtues of a servant's submission to his "master" (not God, the person who owned him like livestock). The black church was begun in the hopes of using the Bible to argue for a more Christian way of life than that in America. That's how Martin Luther King used it, and that's how Wright continues to use it. Like any socially engaged idea of Christianity, it uses the Bible as a handbook for doing good in the world.

I would hope that anyone who goes to church, or just respects the freedom of religion, would back off and judge a pastor by the actions and the conscience of the community he leads and not by three minutes they saw on the news. I guess that's too much to ask in the face of the sight of a black man raising his voice and having the audacity to still be mad after all that America has done for his people.

The overwhelming majority of the american voting public are white middle class voters who are looking for somebody who has a fundamentally positive outlook on America while at the same time recognizing its faults.

Jeremiah Wright does NOT fall into this category, he is a "America is an evil nation, america is the Great Satan" kind of preacher in the same vein as the early days of Malcolm X.

Middle class white america will NOT tolerate Obama's association of 20 years to this man.

Call it racist, call it unfair, call it taken out of context, call it whatever you want but the reality is that Wright has just alienated Obama to the majority voting public.

I wish Mark Penn had the guts to quit signing his posts here "Anonymous"

I'd like to point out that Joeblow doesn't know what he's talking about--the far right preacher's routinely "god damn" america, ask god to "damn america" and predict that god will "damn america"--the response to 9/11 and to Katrina were both to say that god brought this about to punish america for her sins. Certainly they claimed that the sins were those committed by, variously, liberals, feminists, gays, lesbians, etc... but nevertheless the specific god they worship specifically brought about deadly danger and destruction to punish americans for the sins of (some) americans. That is absolutely standard fare in right wing churches. What's the diff between that and what Wright said? Why, just white right wing preachers get a pass because they only exhort god to kill *liberals,* gays, and feminists, people that joeblow and the republicans think america can do without. Try reading some end times literature, BTW, america's going down to the fiery pit and there's nothing she can do about it. Its quite a bit more anti american than anything wright ever dreamed of saying.

aimai

When Obama entered this race, I sincerely thought that "the white middle class voters" who are "the overwhelming majority of the American public" were never going to vote in any numbers for a black candidate. Turns out I was wrong about them.

And in the wake of this Wright thing, I'm beginning to suspect that they're just a convenient place for white upper-middle-class liberal voters to project their own discomfort.

I am a grad student writing my thesis on the African AIDS epidemic. I can tell you that the belief that AIDS was a creation of the CIA is not as fringe as you think. Especially considering the Tuskegee experiments, where the federal government actually did allow black men to die so they could study late stage syphilis. The idea that AIDS was created by the US is obviously untrue, but it is rooted in a long history in which blacks were treated as subhuman by governmental powers.

I really don't want to rehash or begin a race war in this country, but i don't think such beliefs can be completely written off as insanity.

In context of Wright and Obama, I don't believe Obama has to speak to Wrights specific political beliefs or idiocies. Wright is Obama's pastor, not his political mentor or teacher. Obama denounced Wright's sermonizing that sought to drive a wedge between two different segments of American society. He denounced all of that.

Further, I too am impressed that Obama did not "reject and denounce" Wright completely. This may be my personal feeling (and I am a perpetually nervous and hope this doesn't hurt him too badly) but I would be turned off if Obama completely turned on this man as soon as it was politically expedient. I personally know plenty of people with whom I disagree fervently but whom I still consider close friends or acquaintances. If I were ever to run for public office, and things those people said were used to represent my beliefs, it would be a gross mischaracterization.

I understand this will turn some people off. I hope it doesn't. I truly believe this country deserves a President like Barack Obama.

You must learn there is a huge difference in McCain not critizing a Jerry Falwell because he doesn't want Falwells followers to not vote for him and Wright who is Obama 20 year long male role model and mentor.

Yes there are wacko preachers on the right, the left and the middle, but they are not so directly engaged in the life of any candidate like Wright and Obama.
Wright is Obama's spiritual mentor, and has been for a long time. As we've learned from Obama's biographical details, young Obama was lost and searching for an identity. His father had abandoned him, and he wasn't sure where and how he fit in to the black community. He found a father figure in Wright and a connection to the black community in Wright's church.

So what do we really think will happen when Obama is elected President? Start echoing Wright's words? Put into action policies that reflect Wright's rhetoric? Obama has written two books, has been speaking on the campaign trail for the past year, has campaigned in Illinois for his Senate seat, and has had numerous reporters interview him about what he stands for politically and personally. Where is the proof that Obama believes exactly what Wright says about America, Jews, or whatever else is freaking people out? Has Obama himself, in the 20 years he has known Wright, said anything remotely similar to Wright's views? Find it. I dare you.

Obama has gone on record as saying that Wright never said those things in any of the services he attended.

I give it a maximum of 2 weeks before a video comes out showing Obama in church during one of these racist rants, proving him to be a liar.

When that happens, (and its a when, not an if) then Obama's credibility will be totally destroyed and his white support will drop to below 25% and Hillary will get the nomination.

This post demonstrates that political correctness allows bigotry against only one group: Faithful Christians (including faithful Catholics). And by the way, lots of the fundies just love the pope, who is after all also opposed to the homosexualist and radical feminist agenda. True, the pope is against the Iraq war, though he does keenly see the evil of radical Islam. Of course, the pope also denies the legitimacy of any other church except his, so everybody else is en route to hell. Oh, boy, I'm thinking of converting.

Was Ezra talking about American society in general or the GOP primary electorate?

If its the latter, everything he said was credible, if the former, the statements range from ridiculous to debatable.

"Does anyone believe a long association with Jerry Falwell's church would have done anything but help McCain in the Republican primary, and gotten Democrats tagged as anti-religion when they tried to point out Falwell's nuttiness in the general?"

According to the explicitly conservative media machine and the GOP primary electorate, ie, people who who Democrats could never expect to win over, the Democrats would "get tagged as anti-religion".

A majority of the public though, would be creeped out by somebody that tight with Falwell.

"It's fine to be a Christian extremist in America."

This makes it sound like you are talking about American society in general, not the GOP primary electorate.

" It's fine to believe, and say publicly, that everyone who hasn't accepted Jesus Christ into their heart will roast in eternal hellfire, fine to believe that the homosexuals caused Hurricane Katrina and the feminists contributed to 9/11, fine to believe we must support Israel so the Jews can be largely annihilated in a war that will trigger the End Times, fine to believe we're in a holy battle with the barbaric hordes of Islam, fine to believe that we went to the Middle East to prove "our God is bigger than your God.""

Again, you can be associated with people who say this and still get the GOP nomination. But if you said it yourself, you could not get elected Prez, and you could even have difficulty winning the GOP nomination (look at Huckabee).

"What you can't believe is that blacks have suffered a long history of oppression in this country, that they're still face deep institutional discrimination,"

Huh? People all over America hear this. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Clinton all said words to this effect, and others may have as well. You can believe this and say you believe it and still be elected President.

"and that a country where 100 percent of the presidents have been rich white guys is actually run by rich white guys."

You're allowed to believe this. But it's not that potent a statement, because well, duh, everybody knows it.

"More to the point, even if you do believe those things, you certainly can't be angry about it!"

You can be angry about it, as long as you don't make it sound like your vision of trying to fix these problems involves a need to take something away from the majority of ciizens who happen not to be victimized by this.

You could make a greatest hits tape of Parsley, or Hagee, and they'd make Wright look tame. But we didn't get videotapes played on TV whenever they say outrageous things. That's Ezras point. I think that a lot of the folks freaking out about this in online comment boards don't go to church. You have a spiritual and emotional bond with your minister; they sometimes say things that you don't agree with. People projecting that "this will be fatal with Middle America" appear not to understand this. It's similar to why the Schiavo case was so disastrous for the GOP. A lot of families have had to have painful end-of-life conversations, and the idea that these should be compelled by the state and broadcast on a national stage was repulsive. The idea that we are all rersponsible for anything a preacher ever said to our congregation will, in similar fasion, not be appealing. Because tens of millions of us, including those swing white voters, can imagine being on the wrong end of that judgement.

I hope that the politics of the 5 Minute Hate are losing their sting. We'll see.

It's amazing how little it takes to panic the average Democrat. Worst case scenario, the Wright stuff is a non-issue. Best case, it serves to refute the meme that Obama is a Muslim.

That we waste time discussin this is an indication of how eight years in the wilderness have turned us into nervous wimps.

The only thing I worry about is that by worrying about this so vocally we give the the media permission to focus on it. ("Even Democrats see this as a problem...")

"It's fine to be a Christian extremist in America."

Sorry, Erza: you're in need of an edit:

"It's fine to be awhite Christian extremist in America."

Fixed.

"It's fine to be a Christian extremist in America."

Actually, it's not. The extremist right wingers are constantly ridiculed by liberal academia, much of the mainstream press, talk shows, blogs, radio, etc. Lefties look down their noses at right wingers and sneer at people like Jerry Falwell. After Huckabee said he believed in creationism a lot of people declared they couldn't vote for such a loon. Huckabee isn't even taken seriously by many members of his own party because he's a fundie minister.

Now the same thing is happening with Obama, but this time it's not the lefties that are appalled, it's the righties.

My favorite Onion story from about 10 years back was "Clinton Breaks Relations With Chad." The story went on to tell how Chad drinks too much, and that the friendship has become burdensome for Bill, so he's ending it.

Theo Horesh

Everyone has close relations they disagree and argue with. If we assume Obama's associates determine his views, what shall we make of his meetings with Bush in his book? Obama has clearly demonstrated his ability to question the extremes of his own team. This is what he's known and loved for. Perhaps Obama needs to re-emphasize the scrutiny he has given to all extreme positions.

If the Clinton strategy is to break relations with Chad when he gets out of hand. Obama's seems to be about maintaining relations with an Iran, Cuba, Wright, or Bush. In fact, there is another right - the right wing - which he has neither disavowed nor repudiated but rather mainatined a dialogue and open friendliness with. So, the right or Wright; his approach seems the same.

John,
Yeah, the extreme right wing has been so mocked, so disenfranchised they've only been running the country for almost a decade now. Poor little things.

Jesus f-in christ, how obtuse can you get?

The problem here, see, is not that this hateful Wright character might support Obama.

The concern is that maybe Obama supports him. That would be bad.

A more apt comparison.
If John McCain had spent his entire adult life attending Fred Phelps hoedowns, would you be defending him? Probably not.

I think Obama's half-baked explanations will do more damage than the actual sermons of Rev Wright. I also think a lot of people are relooking at Michelle Obama's comments in a harsher light than before.

Well said Ezra! God forbid someone admit that our ancestors practiced slavery. It is the truth, but the truth makes right-wing white people uncomfortable. So of course, it has to be denounced.

Maybe there's two sides to this issue, but I found myself agreeing with Ezra 100%. Capital-C Christians have to get it through their heads that there are other belief systems in this world that are legitimate and need to be respected.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/obamas-minister-committe_b_91774.html

News Flash: Reverend Wright’s Christianity isn’t the Right kind.

Now that the Right-Wing knows that Senator Obama is likely a Christian (although I'm sure there are those who are reluctant to part with his being a Muslim), maybe it's now time to suggest that Reverend Wright is the wrong kind of Christian leader as opposed to Francis Schaeffer (link above) who was the Right kind of Christian leader for several U.S. presidents.

Seems that it's okay for religious leaders to condemn America, and even call for insurrection, as long as those leaders are the Right kind of Christian leaders.

For instance, condemning America for bigotry and injustice against Blacks and gays is very wrong. There’s no way that particular condemnation of America could be tolerated. It’s (of course) unpatriotic. It just isn’t Right.

On the other hand, condemning America for the existence of homosexuality and for being like Hitler and like Russia is very Right. Anti-Catholicism is very Right. Racism is very Right.

When it comes to what some Christian preachers preach, there's the Right way or the highway.

The Right-Wing is totally hypocritical for its smearing of Reverend Wright and its false claims that Senator Obama is guilty by association. Ironically, the Right-Wing’s hypocrisy contributes to the bigotry and injustice that Reverend Wright is yelling about.

For an historical prospective, read http://www.hnn.us/articles/48444.html.

"""It's fine to be a Christian extremist in America. It's fine to believe, and say publicly, that everyone who hasn't accepted Jesus Christ into their heart will roast in eternal hellfire"""

You're an idiot.

Ezra,

Believing in hell does not make you a Christian extremist, it makes you, simply, a Christian. Christ taught that hell existed.

Christianity is not like Judaism, where different sects believe in different vital aspects (afterlife/no afterlife, hell/no hell, etc)...to be a Christian you must believe what Christ taught, otherwise you are simply not a Christian, regardless of your claims otherwise.

Try to understand this basic precept: One can never be an extremist based on one's belief of what happens after death. Extremism by its very definition denotes activities that are bound by the physical, i.e. blowing up cafes of 'imperialists', physically assaulting homosexuals, stoning women for showing too much calf, etc.

Are you getting this? Your accusation of extremism based on a Christian's belief in hell is at best a gross ignorance of the world around you, or at worst a cold cynical premeditated attempt to demonize spiritual people.

I call on you to take back this statement.

Believing in hell does not make one an extremist.

No, Ezra, it is not "fine" to believe any of the crap.

I will be voting for John McCain, but there is no way in hell I would even consider it if Jerry Fallwell were his pastor for 20 years.

John: Lefties look down their noses at right wingers and sneer at people like Jerry Falwell.

Only lefties? I'm not a lefty, and I've always thought Fallwell was revolting. I don't know a single person who liked or agreed with him. He was a batshit crazy extremist, very far out of the mainstream.

Ni: God forbid someone admit that our ancestors practiced slavery. It is the truth, but the truth makes right-wing white people uncomfortable. So of course, it has to be denounced.

Bullshit. It isn't about slavery.

The US government invented the AIDS virus? Are you kidding me?

You need to pay closer attention.

News Flash:

The Rev. Jerry Falwell died Tuesday May 15,2007 shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University. He was 73.

I suggest that you find a live boogeyman.

This is liberal whistling past the graveyard.

Obama' entire raison d' etre was that he transcended race. He is now revealed to be exactly what he claimed he was not: just another race hustler along the lines of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, removing the entire reason for his campaign. Instead of transcending race, he's another practitioner of victim politics and "blame Whitey" mentality that causes MORE division, not less.

If you think white Democrats are going to appreciate being told they are hate-driven racists who owe it to the black community to elect Obama as the only means of atoning for their centuries of evil against the black race, you're in for a big surprise. I think this story dooms Obama, and if it has come too late to keep the Dems from being obliged to give him the nomination, it dooms the Dems to at least 4 more years out of the White House, and a lot of recriminations and self-destructive behavior.

The polls are already proving this is a disaster of epic proportions for the Dems. Obama has lost a 14 point lead on Clinton nationally and double digit leads on McCain in a number of critical states. This is the kind of issue that doesn't go back in the toothpaste tube. It has permanently seared an image of Obama as another race victimhood monger in the minds of voters who might have been inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt before.

Its probably coming out too late for the Dem party to deny Barry the nomination without losing the votes of Obama hard liners like those above who think there is absolutely nothing wrong with what Wright said and are blind to how it will play among non-KoolAid drinkers in the general public. The realists who posted above are ridiculed and shouted down. But its a fact that for the common white middle class voter, this is the death of Obama's campaign. He's so damaged now, even if they give the nod to Hillary!, she would be mad to give him the 3rd slot (VP, after first lady Bill) which he would by now be glad to take.

Rarely do we see a candidate's viability destroyed by one story. This does it for Obama. You'll find this out as more and more poll results come in. I foresee a fast and spiralling nosedive. We already see it, let's see if he loses Pennsylvania by more than 20 points. That will pretty much seal the deal.

Which, being a Republican who supports McCain without reservation, (well, without many) this only makes me happy.