Will Fox stop playing Wright's clips?

Will somebody find a whole new cache of them?

Is there really time to have a serious conversation about race between now and next fall?

And most of all, will people want to have that conversation after being subtly accused of racism for the last few months?

I dont' agree with him.

I didn't have the heart to ask "why don't you walk out of the church?"

I think that cuts too close to home.

Agreement or disagreement isn't the issue.

I can no more disown [Rev Wright] than I can my white grandmother...

You didn't need to disown him, but you made an affirmative choice to associate with him for 20 years.

Having said that, of course this was politics first and foremost. For example suggesting that perhaps Ferraro may have a deep seated racism. Especially when all she did is say what Obama himself said previously. Of course Ferraro was a political idiot for saying such things, but to equate her with Wright is pure politics at its worst. And then of course to defend Wright and the members for some of the anti american hate speech will not play well in many areas. But just the same, I think this is the best speech he could have made.

The Ferraro remark is a misstep IMHO; it will harden feelings against Obama in some quarters and it was unnecessary.

The part that jumped out at me was when he took Wright and connected him first to himself, then to the black community, then to his family (in particular his white grandmother which is of course quite a clever choice of an example), and then to all Americans.

That's the case for unity IMO and so now he's immunized against attack.  He is once again the post-racial candidate.  Disowning Wright is like disowning America. We are all part of the big American conversation.  

I just wrote a short new diary over at MyDD about how BHO's speech was good, but not enough:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/3/18/115855/268

Please read it and recommend it if you like it. People need to see the reality here, not fall for empty rhetoric.

Anyway, if you haven't heard it, you should listen to the speech. The best speech on race that I've heard going back to Martin Luther King and the sixties.

If one is a supporter of Hillary (and side issue: I wish she wouldn't officially go by her first name) or a supporter of Republicans, Pastor Wright is a godsend (God, capital, perhaps).

Otherwise there are two issues: one which Jeralyn wrote about, Obama's Judgment; and two, Is Obama a person who shares Pastor Wright's harsh critique of America?

Full Disclosure: I was a huge fan of Robert Kennedy (I am old). I have heroes with clay feet. This campaign has taught me to hate politics because people I admire seem awful to me and people I oppose, McCain and the Republicans, seem even worse.

Jeralyn and Big Tent know I teach at a Catholic College (my e-mail address for Dem08). I love my faith. I disagree with that faith's position on homosexuality, I cannot imagine why God cares if people are homosexual, and Ordination, again, why would God deny women the power to consecrate the Host?

But every Sunday, come to the 11:30 Mass at St. Jospeh's and you will find me there (on vacation, I look around and often go to Methodists Services); three times a year, or more, you will find me at some combination of Kairos, Emmaus, and/or The Men's Retreat; many times a day, you will find me praying for people I don't like as well as my company of love.

This is a good wedge issue to drive Obama out of the race, and that is sad.

Talk about his hypocrisy and judgment and I agree; talk about Pastor Wright ruling Obama out of The Public Square and I say judge and evaluate Obama by Obama.

Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.

Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect.

We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country.

Obama blows away the chattering class with Philadelphia speech.

Delivers historic remarks on race in address that was wide-ranging, personal, and (at times) passionate.

Widespread praise from anchors/pundits/reporters for sweeping remarks drawing on American history and his own biracial upbringing to explain struggle of race in the country.

Suggests his campaign can help unify a long-divided nation.

No comment.

Obama said this:

      And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

I don't see things changing until people actually take to the streets and are willing to sacrifice for this cause of what causes the division in real terms.  We cannot just pretend, from the comfort of our computers, that a speech will get us to equality and beyond the promise of our ideals and the reality of the time.

And I'm UCC, by the way.  It's a slightly left, usually upscale denomination in which every individual congregation has full authority to hire, discipline, and fire its own clergy & staff.

Barack was a player in this church, as evidenced by his close friendship with the senior pastor and his very large $$ contributions to its funding.  He approved of Wright's message, is what I take from that.  That's how it works.