The blogosphere has been rife with speculation that HRC was behind the disastrous Reverend Wright presser the other day. More generally, many have sought to connect the fervor over the Reverend to the Clinton campaign’s purported plan to tear down Obama by injecting sinister racist overtones into the contest.
 

This conspiracy theory begs the question of why HRC waited until March, after the race was as good as lost, to spring this on the national news media, even though Reverend Wright had been flagged as a potential liability, and the videos of his sermons had been kicking around for even longer before that.

So, for you conspiracy theorists out there, how about trying a new one on for size? Could the Obama campaign be responsible for Reverend Wright’s sudden reemergence? The theory goes like this: Obama’s speech on race did not kill his Wright problem. Obama needed to repudiate the Reverend more forcefully in order to get his flagging campaign back on track. Enter Reverend Wright stage left, spouting more of the same inanity that landed Obama in hot water in the first place. Only this time, BHO was ready with a forceful denunciation that not only landed him on the front page of the New York Times (together with a favorable editorial), but quelled the anxieties of the “white working class” voter whose support has eluded him thus far. BHO created his own Sister Souljah moment.

Of course, this is pure nonsense. No less nonsensical, however, than the claims that the controversy over Reverend Wright (misguided in my view) is the product of HRC’s race-baiting strategy, claims that do more to undermine party unity more than anything coming from the Clinton campaign.