Too bad Barry O did not leave the Trinity United Church and the crazy uncle when he had the chance. Praise the Lord for the Reverend Jerry Wright. Barry O/Jerry W 2008!

I'm not sure how you got the impression that Reverend Wright is attacking Obama. He has a right to defend himself against the unfair attacks that have been leveled against him.

All snark aside, I do think Wright is far more articulate, convincing, passionate and honest than Obama himself is. Wright is an interesting guy who has never buckled under or been afraid to say what he really thinks. He preached. All Obama did was listen, and, apparently, never had the balls to take Wright on, though he disagreed with him.

I keep thinking about a scene in Synagogue MJ Rosenberg uses to demonstrate how crazy he thinks Charles Krauthammer is. According to Rosenberg, he witnessed Krauthammer shouting his rabbi down and making him apologize for saying the Jews might bear some blame for Palestine -- or something like that.

So here's this old guy in a wheel chair shouting down his rabbi for offending him -- but Obama?

And on FOX, Obama threw black men under the bus -- you know -- the kind of man who doesn't take care of his family. That's all Obama could come up with as an example of something he might have heard Wright say -- giving hell to black men. Is that a stereotype or what.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a good man. An angry man with a reason to be angry. It is his job to speak truth to power. And it is power's job to acknowledge that they heard him.

I apoligize. I FINALLY listened to the video. What he said was OK.

I do think however, by some of his actions on the video that he is making this about HIM, not his church. Isn't he being just as bad as the media by acting that way?

He makes a statement then slaps hands with a fellow next to him as tho to say, "I told them didn't I"

Perhaps the reverend is thinking that he is helping his church, his own reputation and Obama -- but I'm not so sure he is. If he acted RESPECTFUL toward the questions or after his comments -- it sure would help.

He COULD have said that Obama says what comes from her heart, what he honestly felt at the time of the questions. Instead he made it appear that Obama said those words ONLY because he HAD to.

I don't personally believe that's why he said them. I think he's going by what MOST of us saw, the 30 second clips and decided that they were awful.

I deeply admired Rev Wright on the Bill Moyers show. As I posted Saturday morning, I did not think it would impact a lot of voters (who would have a hard time following his theological reasoning), but I thought he came off very well.

His performance at the National Press Club today, though, is going to hurt Obama, and one wonders if it was intended to do so. Make no mistake: I get the jokes, I get the allusions, I get what Wright is saying, I get the dozens, I get it.

And I know that Obama is not Rev. Wright. Despite some impatience with how he's run his campaign lately, my faith in Obama is unshaken.

But Wright just gave the press a Christmas tree full of sound bites and gestures that will occupy every news channel until Labor Day. He presented himself as being more exotic, more performative, more clownish (as in Dizzy Gillespie's clowning on stage) than most Americans have seen him before. He was Falstaff to Obama's Henry IV, though this Falstaff was not going to retire to the pub. In a segment that will sure to be played and replayed, he joked how he'd like be Obama's vice president. Great stuff in certain contexts -- not great when you are trying to win a primary in the state that founded the KKK.

America is going to have to grow up and expand its consciousness real fast to get over Rev Wright. For reasons that go way beyond this election, I sure hope it does. But . . .

You know what this all reminded me of? The post from a few weeks back from Glenn Loury, Losing the Narrative. Losing the Narrative.

He wrote, in reference to Obama's speech on race:

he also threatens the 'black' narrative -- and powerfully so... If he succeeds, there will be far fewer public megaphones for the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons and Cornel Wests of this world, for sure. Many will see that as a good thing. But a great deal more may also be lost.

At the time I read that, it seemed to me like holding onto the "narrative" of the past to keep from moving forward. Which I thought was the whole point of the narrative in the first place.

He also wrote:

Advocates of the interest of black people have to consider what hand we’ll be left to play, should he be defeated in November.

That sounded to me like not wanting to try for fear of losing.

I can't help but wonder if Wright isn't falling into that trap. I thought the interview on Bill Moyers was great. I'm not sure how many people actually watch Bill Moyers. The stuff this morning is not going to go over well.

Last week, when I heard about this so-called "media blitz" by Wright, I assumed it had been coordinated with the Obama campaign. Now I wonder.

I think Wright seems like a very intelligent and honest person. I get the things he was saying. But the problem Obama is going to have in November if he is the nominee with regards to Wright isn't whether we can get people to understand the full context of Wright's comments, it's going to be whether voters will overlook them because they agree with him on the issues.