Here's how Obama needs to respond to this shot.

"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."...

The Clinton campaign has refrained from getting involved in the controversy, but Clinton herself, responding to a question, denounced what she said was "hate speech."

"You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (who was fired from his radio and television shows after making racially insensitive remarks), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton said. "I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving."

1)  Actually Hillary, we do choose our families, and sometimes when a husband chooses an intern instead of his family, spouses have to choose whether they stay with the errant husband or not.   We all respect your privacy and your private choice to stay with your husband.  Can you respect Obama's choice?   Oh you stayed with your husband for your daughter's sake?   And how did staying with a philanderer help her?   I see.  He has some good qualities too.  I see.  Well then, so do the members of my church, including pastor Wright.   Surely as a Christian you understand that.

2)  The Black church and Trinity church in particular is my community.  I don't have to agree with everything that everyone in that community says, and I've told you that I don't.  If you say I can't be a member of that church, then which African Americans are good enough to meet your standards?   (And by the way, shall we examine the statements of some of the religious figures YOU have associated yourself with Hillary?   We have the information ready in a press release.)

3)  You've misunderstood who is a leader and who is a follower at my church.   Pastor Wright was a spiritual leader, but I am a political leader.  My goal has been to bring my community away from an older perspective and toward a more inclusive perspective.  (Have the evidence ready.)  He's not my guide on matters of race.  I am his guide, to the best of my ability. 

4)  The essence of my Christianity is not to leave people behind, not to leave behind sinners and those I disagree with, but to bring them along through engagement and persuasion.   That Christian perspective explains why I am a member of the church and it explains how I will conduct the affairs of the United States in the world... engaging and relating to those I may disagree with.

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This brings his Christianity to the forefront, explains how it relates to the Wright affair, connects to Christians in this Christian nation (said the Jewish guy), reverses his position from someone who is following Wright to someone who is trying to lead Wright and his community in a new direction.

Now that last move may not be fully justified if, as I've heard, he's not a fully involved member of the church.  But he might be advised to try it because he is not going to escape the Wright anvil, and so long as the focus is on Wright as leader, Obama as follower, the narrative works against him.

He needs to find instances, if not in church then in Chicago more broadly, where he worked against or spoke against some aspect of the Black church that he found objectionable.  He needs to position himself as a leader, not a follower, even though you and I think we know that he was basically just trying to gain AA creds/legitimacy by being a member of that community.

This response positions him as a Christian, as a leader, and as a forgiving person... toward Hillary, Wright, and in a sense toward White America.  Remember his possibly best move from his Race speech was understanding the fears of his White grandma.    This response eliminates any nonesense about being a Muslim.

This response is wiser than distancing himself from the Church.  They are going to try to lynch him with loops of Wright.  He needs to address it head on continually from now until November.  Everytime he does so he is emphasizing his Christianity, his rootedness in a church, AND his differences with the church.  If he runs away from it... "I didn't know"... "I wasn't there"... it will not work.  His response needs to shift to "this is my disagreement" with Wright... "this is what I did and said"...  "this is why Wright is wrong". 

It doesn't matter that so much of what Wright says is dead on.    They will make a caricature of him that will be almost impossible to counter.   Obama will need to respond to the caricature.   Distancing will just look defensive.   

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OK, that's my best strategy advice to the Obama campaign for today.

Is Obama too Black?  How about too smart?  The dangers of obvious intelligence should not be underestimated.  An incident in the career of Adlai Stevenson (two unsuccessful runs for Presidency) reminds us of the dangers of intelligence.

Stevenson's wit was legendary. During one of Stevenson's presidential campaigns, allegedly, a supporter told him that he was sure to "get the vote of every thinking man" in the U.S., to which Stevenson is said to have replied, "Thank you, but I need a majority to win."  (Wikipedia, but available from many other sources...)

Frank Rich observed the other day in the New York Times that it was remarkable that Obama seems to think in whole paragraphs, while McCain and Hillary seem to think in sentences (sound bites)... and Bush seems barely capable of thought at all.   

“I share the general view that Mr. Obama’s speech is the most remarkable utterance on the subject by a public figure in modern memory. But what impressed me most was not Mr. Obama’s rhetorical elegance or his nuanced view of both America’s undeniable racial divide and equally undeniable racial progress. The real novelty was to find a politician who didn’t talk down to his audience but instead trusted it to listen to complete, paragraph-long thoughts that couldn’t be reduced to sound bytes.”

Ha ha ha.   We over-educated bloggers laugh, but our laughter is dangerous, and comes at our own peril.

What should Obama do?  Dumb it down?   I don't think so.  His long and considered thoughts have integrity.  They are an expression of his integrity.  He's got to find a way to connect to ALL the people of Pennsylvania and everywhere else, but I don't think he does so by changing how he talks to them.  Or maybe he does need to change it a little?  Because one way or another, all the "thinking" people aren't enough - he needs a majority.