America is in deep doo-doo because of its long-running immoral policies. Along comes a pastor who calls the government out on it, and a presidential contender says he's wrong. I don't buy it.

For too long the US has been crippled by political pastors, the Billy Grahams who pandered to Tricky Dick and the like. Now we have a pastor, one with military experience no less, who calls it the way it is.

The First Amendment in the USA separates church and state, but people still want to combine them. A huge banner on a church near me states: "One Nation Under God, Indivisible" The clear implication is that the US and God are indivisible. Baloney. We have watched presidential candidates being grilled on their religious beliefs, in clear denial of the Constitution which states that there should be no religious test for office in the US. It's wrong to expect God and his followers to pledge allegiance to the USA in a church.

Reverend Wright is not a politician, that's clear. His calling is not to make politicians look good, but to deliver the word of his God. For heaven's sakes, let him do it. Don't put a leash on Reverend Wright; he is a patriot and we need him in Gitlin's "Big Tent."

As for what Obama should do, here's another test of his self-promoted judgment. If he does the (w)right thing he will separate politics and religion. If he does the wrong thing he will make nation and church indivisible.

Wright is not hurting Barack. The phony journalists and ignorant bigots are doing that.

Maybe someday this country will grow up and learn how to think.

Well, sort of...

Part of what many people reject about Clinton style politics is the staged political creature that Bill seemed to be at times, and that Hillary is most certainly demonstrating to be now. If Obama dropped his pastor over statements made 5, 7, or 10 years BEFORE his declared candidacy because of "outrage" of his critics, he would be acting with the exact same political calculus that many love to hate about the Clintons.
Critics criticize. Around presidential campaigns the criticism is especially toxic, one sided and opportunistic (sickening really). In this case however, we should make NO MISTAKE. Obama is currently being TRIANGULATED. Anyone wondering were the money Hillary raised post Penn. is going? You bet, it's contributing to staged press events that are preying on Wrights ego, and producing new sound bites and new excuses to rehash old ones. Ok, that's the game currently. But Obama also has a problem (hence the triangulation part) with several INDUSTRIES that his grassroots fundraising and "new politics" rhetoric are threatening. Media outlets make 10's and 100's of millions off of the revenues streams that are tied to the current spin machines (not just mil-industrial, them, but ALL the other interests that are sucking money from the public teat, and sucking favors from indebted politicians). Look at the headlines man, msm is not stupid to ignore all things McCain, all things torture, all things tax cut, all things Iraq, all things incompetent, all things corrupt, THEY ARE FULLY VESTED IN IT).
As such, Obama needs to deliver on some of his new politics rhetoric. Perhaps he should distance from the Wright based noise machine, but I would prefer he didn't do the "monkey dance" just because the screechers are screeching. Perhaps Obama should increase his general election fundraising and then with a healthy war chest, make it clear that he would NOT exclude an independent run at the Whitehouse if the Dem. nomination is not available to him, run as an independent Democratic oriented candidate. If he is prepared to piss on BOTH parties, he may bring clarity (and break a leg of that "triangle") to ONE party. Just a thought.

Hi MJ,

I'm not sure if you follow Barnett Rubin's writing over at Informed Comment: Global Affairs. I read this piece this weekend and thought you'd enjoy it - been waiting for a post from you so I could post it in the comments.

http://icga.blogspot.com/2008/04/rubin-against-holocaust-denial-against.html

Obama refers to Wright as his former pastor. What more does it take to be considered dumped?

Is it too optimistic to think that an anti-Wright backlash will do the work for Obama?

Maybe we should all take the Myers-Briggs test, and reflect on the implications, at least as a new way to frame this conversation. Obama is probably an INT- type, by far the least common, and one which does not rush in to fight bombast with bombast. It is a reflective, but by no means ineffective, profile and one which is badly needed in the US nowadays. Let's stand back and let the man show us how different he is from his FORMER pastor.

I believe Dr Zaius has nailed it.

We don't care about Wright's views on racism, the Middle East or Farrakhan. He's just another media preacher. And not one of us believes that Barack Obama shares any of his views.

First, Wright was dragged into the spotlight by the media, he didn't start this fight. He's been saying pretty much the same things for decades without imperiling the republic.

Second, exactly what is it that should be repudiated? That racism still exists in the US? That the US has mistreated minorities (Indians, slaves, Japanese-Americans) in the past? That the US is currently breaking international and US law by torturing prisoners and holding them without charges or trials?

Apparently you belong to the school of realpolitik which feels that freedom of speech should be suppressed when it reveals uncomfortable topics that your candidate prefers to avoid. Wright is being invited to speak at these forums, so do also want to tell the press club and the NAACP who they can invite?

The truth of the matter is that there is a great deal of racism and sexism in this country and either Dem candidate is going to have a tough time winning the election. If you think that a person like Wright can really make a difference in the outcome then you need to get out more.

Do you think that the woman who said she wouldn't vote for Obama because he doesn't wear a flag pin was concerned with jewelry. No she was hiding her racism behind an acceptable screen.

Obama is a black candidate just like Clinton is a woman candidate. They can try to keep these issues off the table, but as events keep showing that doesn't work.

If you want to see your candidate win then come up with a strategy which explains why he or she is best despite being black or a woman.

ugh...quote should say "we just don't KNOW this guy"

Sorry. How about an "edit" function?

Pretty much everyone I know supports Obama, morally and financially. But, to a person, they are beginning to believe that Obama will not be the 44th President, no how, no way.

Well then tell your gutless, fair weather friends that Obama requires their help now more than ever in this hour of need, and they should buck up and take a stand. Instead of joining in the piling on, and engaging in the usual chickenshit Democratic "sky is falling" cowering and self-loathing, they need to go to the ramparts and defend their guy. Their courage is going to be tested several times in this election. You say,

It is not Wright himself that bothers us. It is that Obama does not utterly and completely repudiate a man who is willfully and with malice aforethought doing him profound and possibly fatal damage.

That's tough. You may have noticed that over 90% of black Americans support Obama, and a whole bunch of them would be just as turned off by a wholesale repudiation and "divestment" from Wright as you and your friends are by Obama's failure to pick up a gun and joint the political firing squad taking aim at his old mentor. These supporters would quite rightly worry about what other black leaders, causes or opinions will be thrown under the bus the next time the going gets rough. Many no doubt disagree with many of the things Wright is saying, but they are looking to Obama to at least defend his right to say them. Obama has more constituencies to worry about than just your friends.

He's in a real bind here, and the "repudiation" game will never end if fear and interracial animosities are allowed to win the day here. It is time to take a stand. Obama has already made his differences of opinion with Wright as clear as as any reasonable person could require. All that is going on now is the frenzied desire of some parts of white America to see some sort of black-on-black cage match, and an ugly spectacle of repudiation and counter-repudiation. This is a racial double-standard and it needs to be denounced as such.

Obama does need to do something, but throwing Wright under the bus ain't it. He needs to change the subject.

Gitlin seems to argue that because Wright has given Obama the opportunity to repudiate him, he should take it. But that way lies danger for Obama: the appearance of weakness, the embracing of the sort of politics Obama has campaigned against, not to mention the personal cost of further rupturing a personal relationship that is obviously valuable for him. (I say *further* rupturing because Wright is obviously not doing Obama any favors right now, either personally or politically).

The bigger message, in Obama's frame of reference, is that the "issue" of Wright is a distraction. He is absolutely correct about that, and all of us here on TPM cafe, whether or not we support Obama, should agree on that. So why are Todd Gitlin and MJ Rosenberg urging Obama to further embroil himself in the Wright issue, to raise Wright from the dead?

No matter what Wright says from here on out, Obama should be able to, rightly, argue that this dead horse done been beaten. The big question for Obama right now is whether he can change the subject back to what we should be talking about -- policies, platforms, the need for transcending "politics as usual" (in other words, all of Obama's political strengths) -- without it appearing that he is changing the subject because he wants to run away from the Wright issue.

There is something that doesn't make sense to me about the Wright business.

I think Barack Obama could have had a hundred other pastors on the South Side of Chicago, that were not as clever or fast on their feet as Reverend Wright, but who were not as controversial either.

My question would be, When did Obama consider running for President? Because it would be obvious to anyone and certainly obvious to anyone with his enormous skills that Wright would be poison to a lot of the people whose votes he would need to ever win the presidency and the Roves of this world would be going over him with a microscope

When he "distanced" himself from Wright, didn't he know that Wright might be mortally offended and that his pastor was a man of formidable verbal skills and a mighty ego?

Like the Bittergate gaffe, there is something dumb about all of this and if there is any label that I would not have thought applicable to Barack Obama it is the label, "dumb".

Well, I hope the Rosenbergs of the world are happy now that Obama has thrown a better man than himself (let alone them) under the bus.

"I repudiate Reverend Wright after 22 years of listening to the guy preach" You think that works?

It's like the hooker who gets caught practicing her trade by the police saying to the cop "I repudiate prostitution and everything it stands for" and expecting to get a break.

If Obama had been an occasional visitor at Rev. Wright’s Church, repudiation might work. 22 years and two baptisms is not going to be erased by a convenient act of repudiation just when you are trying to convince the rednecks that you are in their corner.

As I've been saying since Obama announced his candidacy....he's NOT a fighter. If he was he would have reacted to Wright's first black/white tirade and sent the hypocritical SOB to the mat with a political uppercut that would put the matter to an end AND make points as a bona fide contender. He didn't and now, since Obama made the cardinal sin of pledging to stand by his mentor come hell or high water, he's now stuck with him. Wright is now Obama's own, personal, too-heavy-to-carry MiniMe...right up through June.

If there's anything American voters like more than a winner its an underdog who slowly gets up off the floor and comes back fighting like a tiger. So, be honest. Who seems the tougher candidate now?

So, you've come over to the side of "idiocy"?
/M.J. Rosenberg, January 15, 2008, TPMCafe:

It's pretty ugly and today columnist Richard Cohen is taking it mainstream. Check out his column in the Washington Post. He shares the story of Obama's Farrakhan-admiring minister and sounds the alarms to Jews everywhere. He demands Obama repudiate the pastor. What idiocy!

M.J. Rosenberg - March 14, 2008:

The Irrelevance of Obama's Minister....

You really blasted commenters here on those threads and others, basically as enemies of Obama, for pointing out that Rev. Wright might be a dangerous problem for Obama and that merely trying to hide him or excuse him might backfire. This is why I don't take you seriously as a political commentator here: you often post with righteous wrath and absolute certainty on things before you know the full story. By the way, Cohen in his column did not ask Obama to "repudiate" Wright, he asked him to explain his connection to him rather than simply trying to sweep him under the carpet. (Which Obama did by disinviting him from doing the invocation at his announcement of his presidential run.) At the time, I remember thinking that he was wise to see this possible political firestorm that Obama was avoiding. Now I think it is too late to strongly "repudiate," as he took a more nuanced approach earlier and it will make Obama look like a flip flopper to do so now, so I think you are wrongly overdoing it here, too. As a political analyst in January, though, Cohen was right to ask Obama to address the issue, and you were wrong.

Cohen then:

I don't for a moment think that Obama shares Wright's views on Farrakhan. But the rap on Obama is that he is a fog of a man. We know little about him, and, for all my admiration of him, I wonder about his mettle. The New York Times recently reported on Obama's penchant while serving in the Illinois legislature for merely voting "present" when faced with some tough issues. Farrakhan, in a strictly political sense, may be a tough issue for him. This time, though, "present" will not do.

M.J. Rosenberg now:

Not doing so, allowing this buffoon to hurt the most promising campaign of a generation, would demonstrate a weakness we cannot have in a President.

Did you even really read Cohen's piece, or did you just do a knee-jerk when you sa