If Wright is the victim of self-immolation, his bonfire produced neither heat nor light. And its doubtful Obama's campaign will be soiled by any ashfall.

One of the most perceptive appraisals of the Wright affair was delivered when it first broke a few weeks ago, by none other than moderates' moderate David Gergen. He noted on a weekend cable yap show that, simply, African Americans address life and history differently than do whites, using an entirely different language. (Wright was right about that in his wandering, jagged NAACP diatribe Sunday night.)

If I was a black American, my views of this country’s history would be as blunt and condemnatory as Wright’s. Centuries of slavery followed by decades of contemptuous abasement as a national toter class - insulted and shunned - haven’t mustered feelings all warm and fuzzy. Few white people are unaccustomed (if not receptive) to harsh assessments from African-Americans; those who are just disembarked from Latvia.

This idiotic “gotcha” fixation we have – whereby we lurk, ready to pounce on any perceived social offense – must go. It’s as debilitating as the moral and legislative restrictions of the past; as tolerant of Jim Crow ugliness as our grandparents may have been, at least they weren’t quite as hypocritical in aggressive, showy indignation. Our contemporary moral base rests on self-aggrandizing pantomime. We are in constant fear of actually revealing ourselves - we are terrified of what may come crawling out.

There’s nothing wrong with giving voice to what's inside us, getting it out in the open and arguing our points of contention. Wright’s grave crime is speaking his mind, and Obama’s is hearing him out; I don’t recall either of them racing through the streets, kicking white ass.

African Americans address life and history differently than do whites, using an entirely different language. (Wright was right about that in his wandering, jagged NAACP diatribe Sunday night.)

That's a nice relativist rant that some here on this site could relate to. But not me. Relativism is poison to race relations.
There is only one way to strive to look at the world and that's: we should aim to be truthful and honest with each other. All of us have had different paths in life. African Americans have had to endure a very difficult and unjust path.

But if we are ever going to achieve reconciliation and harmony we have to walk down the path of truth together. The path to truth not only about ourselves but of each other. This nonsense that “they live in a different world than us” which is what Gergen seems to be saying is garbage.

My hunch is that many white liberals (of the guilt-ridden variety) are paralyzed by a conviction that race relations cannot handle the truth and must be couched in myth and fiction. It is sad that many blacks buy into that lie as well. African Americans, after all, have the moral high ground in this process we must go through in order to reconcile as a nation.

As a teacher I come across many students both black and white and in the confines of my classroom we practice communion with each other on the path towards greater knowledge.

That’s what is needed in the open society in general.

No one is gloating but the Republicans, just as they have gloated over the malicious attacks on Clinton. The question is: would you have written this yesterday? Now that Obama has rejected and denounced, it is easy to address the “race-man” in Reverend Wright. The right reverend did not say anything yesterday more radical than previous comments. Could it be that it is only a political problem that is now getting a new political solution that is driving the reconsideration? What’s different? Where is the Speech II?

What changed is that Wright went live, that’s all. The most dangerous political threat is the one that you can’t control. Everyone is pretending that Wright suddenly became unhinged or tried to sabotage Obama. Please. Wright is no more tragic, sad, bitter or angry than he was last week. He was just doing what he does and what he has been doing. “The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago,” Obama insisted today (CBS News). Nonsense. What the electorate saw yesterday was a political indiscretion that can’t be brushed off easily now.

I’m not gloating but I won’t hold my tongue either because some posters here have been incredibly hypocritical about race (and using it politically), and this episode highlights that. I would hope that those who have been using race to bludgeon their political opponents would step back and look at themselves. Prof. Sleeper, you are taking an event that pointedly shows race as strictly a political matter for Obama, and instead of reckoning with that, you again turn it on Clinton and try to use it to refute the Willentz article. I applaud your frank look at leaders on race matters who have a deleterious effect on the change they’re seeking and would love to hear more, but you're doing the same when you use race towards political ends.

Sleeper,

That was an excellent post.

It's very true there is a general dysfunction in the left and right. I'm 36 and my generation, especially people like myself raised in liberal multicultural environments tend to be more post-ideological pragmatists. We see the entrenched combatants on all sides and have watched them fight bitterly all our lives, for nothing. There are too many special interest all around who make a living fanning the flames.

We can't keep doing this. People need more than pandering when there are serious issues to fix.

If we don't, if we keep going for the partisan games and the short term objectives, the logjam will remain, programs proposed and then passed without bipartisan support will be undermined and gutted, and things will continue declining as we neglect serious issues.

Other countries are more mono-cultural and far smaller, which has some advantages. They work better together and are less divided. There is more trust and commonality in countries like Japan, Germany, S Korea, France, etc.

If we don't make multiculturalism work for us and get the country together, getting past these demagogues and divisive pandering, we're dead.

We'll not find a solution to healthcare and make our economy competitive, or address climate change, or the Iraq war, or a myriad of issues, without unity. Without some unity and bipartisanship, requiring pragmatism on both sides, it's no more possible we fix those problems than if we had attempted to go to the moon without NASA nor a mandate from the President nor bipartisan support nor a country unified in that goal.

People need to realize, we may have differences, but either we're all going to win this coming election with a pragmatic candidate we can all live with, or we're all going to lose with a divisive candidate that will accomplish nothing besides kicking the pendulum around a bit and major problems down the road another four or eight years.

If, as is now being reported, Rev. Wright's appearance at the National Press Club was arranged by a longtime friend of Rev. Wright who also happens to be an "ardent" Clinton ally; then Dr. Wright has been used in one of the most cynical and tragic dirty political tricks in our ugly political history.

To see Rev. Wright's career come down to this personal disaster, and the orchestrated betrayal of a man who deserved so much better from him, should sadden all of us.

The people who used this man's anger and his understandable resentment at seeing his life of service reduced to a caricature, should be exposed and condemned.

Rev. Wright embarrassed himself. But the people who used him to attack Obama betrayed him coldly and without conscience. My heart goes out to him. He is too intelligent to not realize now that he has been used by the Clintons from the beginning of this campaign. Obama tried to protect him until yesterday, and someday I hope Rev. Wright will understand and respect that. But I hope he has now learned that in a fight with the Clinton machine, there are no civilians.