"But we didn't. We let the children run the show. Now we're letting the children run the show again. Instead of talking about blowback, we're talking about someone being Anti-American for talking about blowback."

The thing Democrats never seem to "get" is that the term "anti-American" has a double meaning. And that is simply because the word "American" has a double meaning.

For most people, the word simply refers to people who live in the United States, which is reasonable enough. For the rest, it refers only to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and then only to those that vote Republican. Attacking this group is anti-American, while attacking other people who live in the country is not.

This is why it was okay for Falwell and Robertson to blame feminists and gays for the Trade Centre bombing while Bill Maher got fired for suggesting government (Republican) policy had anything to do with it. Maher's statement was anti-American and Falwell's, while it might have been "regrettable", was not.

Let's be clear on this: Wright's heresy is not that he attacked Americans in general, but that he attacked white Americans, and white Republican Americans in particular.

Democrats will never take back the political centre until they deal with this. It is the most important weapon the Republicans have over them. And they are not going to do that - ever - until they learn to defend people like Wright when it is appropriate.

Is Wright correct about the things he's said over the years? Well, sometimes. He's wrong about AIDS being deliberately inflicted on black people, but he isn't exactly wrong to claim that the prison system is a tool to keep black men from excelling financially. The numbers speak for themselves on that issue, and if the situation wasn't deliberately contrived, why don't politicians seem more interested in fixing it?

The Democrats can throw the ball back in the Republicans' court by supporting Wright and saying "WE are willing to fix the problem, you (Republicans) are not." Instead they habitually throw people like Wright under the bus (exactly as they did to Media Matters, over the General Betrayus ad) for daring to criticize "Americans", which is to say "Republicans". The Democrats cannot expect to win anything of importance until they break this habit, regardless of who they choose as their nominee.

The mistake Democrats keep making is to search for the most "electable" candidate under the rules the Republicans have laid out for them, instead of changing the rules to make elections easier to win for Democrats. This is the real basis of the Obama Revolution (really the Dean Revolution), not electing a black man or grabbing a few swing states. Democrats have internalized the eleventh commandment - "Thou shalt not criticize Republicans" - and the Republicans laugh all the way to the bank. They need to stop doing this, pronto, or defeating McCain in November will not ultimately make a bit of a difference.