Nowhere have I read an analysis of Jeremiah Wright's preaching which describes what he actually was doing. Take away all of the theatrics and he was simply following in the time honored tradition of all preachers, dating back to the Old Testament. He was talking to his congregation about morality.

In the case of Rev. Wright, his moral teachings to his flock focused on the actions of the government of the country in which they are citizens. He talked about the violence perpetrated by the U.S. government & the consequences for America (9/11) of that kind of immorality. He certainly wasn't the first one to suggest that connection. He talked about the violence done to inner city males by immoral drug laws which disprportionately punish users of crack cocaine as compared with users of powder cocaine. The basic theme in the clips that were played were violence by the government.

Why is it worse to criticize American society for violence by the government than to do what right wing preachers do & criticize American society for the immorality of homosexuality & abortion? Whether from the left or from the right, both are attacks on American society.

Why is it any more wrong for Wright to angrily rant against American foreign policy & blame it for the attack of New York on 9/11 than it is for Rev. Hagee to rant against American social policy & blame it for the assault of nature on New Orleans in 2005?

I have not seen anyone in the media ask in what way Rev. Wright's preaching would or has influenced Sen. Obama's behaviour as a public official. This would seem to be a necessary question to establish the relevance of his comments regardless of whether they are offensive to some or not. After all, the senator is running for president and the pastor's sermon is only important if we can establish that Obama's presidency would somehow be different as a result of listening to any teachings like this.

The only relevance to an Obama presidency that I can see is that Mr. Obama might think twice before committing us to war. Is that a bad thing? He might question the consequences of wreckless foreign policy that might create blow bck for Americans here at home. Is that a bad thing? He might look at the consequences of our drug laws and question both the financial and social costs of imprisoning a large number of young minority men, thereby removing them from their communities. Would that be a bad thing?

I contrast that with the preaching of Rev. Parsley of Cincinnati, whom John McCain called "a spiritual advisor." Rev. Parsley advocates the elimination of Islam, a religion practiced by well over one billion people on this planet. Would President McCain listening to such advice be a good thing? Rev. Hagge would like to hasten the arrival of Armageddon in order to bring us to the Rapture - well, not the rest of us, but himself and his followers. Would Pres. McCain listening to his opposition to a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian problem be a good thing? Would Pres. McCain listening to the advocacy of either of these preachers for social sanctions against gay citizens be a good thing?

It seems that the media gives right wing nuts a free pass on their moral preaching regardless of how dangerous such preaching may be for the security and well being of American citizens. However, when a preacher condemns the morality of our government, the media doesn't simply report the fact. They overemphasize it in relation to the rest of the news of the day and label it with biased terms such as "incendiary" and "inflammatory." Prophets of the Old Testament frequently and repeatedly criticized Israel and called the nation of Israel to task for violating God's will. Was Rev Wright's preaching any different than those that this supposedly Judaeo-Christian nation claims to hold dear in its own religious traditions?

I found the attacks on Rev. Wright to be particularly repugnant and disgusting because they were clearly racist in their intent. The critics of Sen. Obama for his association with Rev. Wright might just as well have come out & called him the N-word. But they just didn't have the guts. They took sound bites out of context from the unique social milieu that is the black Christian church experience in America and held it up to public scrutiny. Such a milieu is so foreign to most whites in America that they might just as well have been viewing something spoken in a different language. This was the basest kind of scare tactic, designed to exploit racial fears & misunderstandings. It's bad enough that it once again brought to light the racial bigotry of the likes of Pat Buchanan & Fox News. The fact that it also brought to light this side of Hillary Clinton should be enough to tell us all that she is unfit for office.