I've been struggling to make sense of Rev Wright's remarks at the National Press Club yesterday.  In one sense Wright was performing as the clown prince of theology, the Dizzy Gillespie of activist Christianity.  Great performance, Reverend, but this wasn't really a be-bop audience.

Just who was the Rev Wright trying to portray? 

The spectacle of a father-figure publicly calling out and embarrassing his son seems as old and profound as the Greek myths and Hebrew scripture.  Was Rev Wright the titan Chronos intent on devouring his children?  Was he Abraham willing to sacrifice Isaac to express his faith? 

Or maybe we should turn to Shakespeare in which Wright is Falstaff and Obama is Henry IV, the prince who must ultimately give up his pals in order to take office.  But in this case, of course, Falstaff does not retire to the pub; he heads into the spotlight to deliberately disrupt Henry's royal campaign: "I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;/
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!"

While each of these stories can be illuminating, there seemed to be more to the story, another act of betrayal that kept eluding me.  (Not the Judas analogy, Jimbo!)

This morning it came to me.  Perhaps what we saw yesterday was Elija Mohammed taking down Malcolm X after he committed himself to a world beyond the pastor that had done so much for him. 

The analogy is incomplete, and in no way do I suggest that Wright is a racist who believes in white devils and the like.  As revealed in Friday night's interview with Bill Moyers, Rev Wright is smart, learned, committed, engaging, and dead serious about many things.  (Dead wrong, too.) 

But yesterday he seemed like an assassin hoping to terminate the next generation's revolutionary change. 

He's got the organization.  He's got the money.  He's got the votes.  It is now up to Obama to make sure the revolution continues regardless of what the old men do, say, or think.