Since we are in the midst of the playoffs, may I say, "swish"!

Hitch, I have been wondering about your thoughts on this very matter. What started me thinking was how Michelle refused to discuss this in all the recent interviews. Repeating, that Barack had already put it best.

I believe that Barack missed most sermons over the course of his affiliation. Like most families, the mother dictates the religious tone for the household. I think Barack was out and about enjoying his Sundays watching The Bears. I do not believe he was in the pews when Wright spewed his lies.(Thou shalt not bear false witness?) I believe it was Michelle in the pews and she may well have kept Barack in the dark.

Behind every great man is a great woman

Who is behind a man that maybe isn't great?

Wow, you make about as many unsupported assumptions as Hitchens. Congratulations.

Hitch is onto to the notion that if it's now OKAY for Barack Obama to distance himself from Reverend Wright, what does that say about what he said earlier. And why did it take so long? Obama is either the worst judge of character since Christ and Judas, or he did what was politically expedient. If he's the worst judge of character, I guess he can be forgiven, however is that a character you want in a world leader? But, if it was politically expedient, what does that say about the "Politics of Hope?"

Like it or not, there is fairly and accurately something here that needs to be sifted through before we make our decision. Do we want to be surprised in October with something else that could finally do Obama in?

So I take it you've never admired someone who later turned out to be not as admirable as you thought? Never had anyone close to you who did a lot of good things in his life, but who later acted like an ass? If yes, did you display poor judgment in liking that person in the first place? If not, then wow, I guess you've led a really sheltered life.

There's lots that's admirable about Wright. I can guarantee you he's helped a lot more people than I ever will in my life. When Obama was working as a community organizer in Chicago, he was exactly the person Obama needed to know.

If I happened to meet Wright, I'd listen to him with respect. I think his conspiracy-theory ideas are out to lunch, but I'd still want to hear what he had to say about a world of poverty and deprivation that thankfully I've never had to experience myself.

But Wright is limited to that South Side Chicago world. He doesn't really get Obama, and he has a big ego and not much self-awareness.

Obama's been very clear about the areas where he's learned from Wright. Stuff like the discredited OPV AIDS hypothesis clearly does not fall into that category.

The fallacy here is that people think that because Obama respects Wright for his work in the Chicago projects, Obama must believe everything that Wright does. It's sad that it's necessary to point out how totally frigging stupid that is.

What's much more important is that when Obama had a clear route to wealth and success coming out of the Ivy League, he instead decided to go work on the South Side. It bums me out that people can't get that Obama is one of the good guys. He's someone who's made clear sacrifices to help people who didn't have his chances. There's simply no denying that.

Whatever. This guy is a lifeline to a country that's sinking into the Republican swamp. But if it's on TV, it must be true, right? I thought Homer Simpson was supposed to be satire, not documentary. So go with McCain, and good frigging luck to you.

Rowena:

So I take it you've never admired someone who later turned out to be not as admirable as you thought? Never had anyone close to you who did a lot of good things in his life, but who later acted like an ass? If yes, did you display poor judgment in liking that person in the first place? If not, then wow, I guess you've led a really sheltered life.

I'm sorry, but most people I've talked to who go to church (and they are white and not racist) said that if their pastor/priest made similar remarks during sermons, they would have WALKED OUT.

But, no, Obama kept going back for more. He calls this man a mentor, a spiritual advisor! This is not crazy Uncle Carl. Obama could have walked out. Apparently, Oprah did.

And it does say something about Obama's character. I'm not saying that Wright talked like this at EVERY sermon, EVERY Sunday for 25 years. But how could Obama sit there and listen to this man talk like that even once and then continue to go to the Church and then claim he didn't agree with him? Then why would you sit there and listen to it? Go to another freakin' church. How hard is that?

Again, either he's a poor judge of character (but Christ and Judas is a bad example; not a church-goer myself since childhood, but I thought that Christ KNEW that Judas was going to betray him. That was the plan, wasn't it?) or he's pandering and lying.

What kind of conversation would he have as President with Aquavelvman from Iran? Would he believe all the lies that man tells? Does he excuse his comments about the Jews and Holocaust?

Again, if a white person were to say similar racist remarks he/she would be reviled by most of the public (discounting the real bigots out there). But if a black person does it, there's an excuse and it's okay.

Why is that? Why is "reverse discrimination" okay? What happend to MLK and the content of character rather than the color of skin? He died and that was lost, wasn't it? Now its okay to hate if you are a minority.

*shakes head*

Where does this "reverse discrimination" come from here? Most of the people were speaking of Wright's content of character with everything he has done for the people of South Chicago. Yes, he has made some outrageous statements over the years and just over the last week especially. But so has other men of God that have been accepted into the ranks of supporters by the other candidates.

McCain has refused again and again to cut Hagee loose. And Clinton has called Billy Graham a friend and advisor since her time in Arkansas well after his little talk with Nixon on how the Jews were destroying the United States.

Have your "white friends" walked out of churches with pastors that support Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, two men who discussed openly the fact that America's secular ways brought about the wrath of God in the form of 9/11? If not . . .

I bet there's a good excuse and it's all okay.

As far as I read, Hagee is not McCain's spiritual advisor and mentor. And he should cut him loose and that will be taken into consideration.

I'm not voting for Hillary, so whatever, but she should cut him loose as well.

I haven't had that kind of detailed discussion with my friends. Just general questions and they all agree. Of course, many of my friends that happen to go to church are also politically liberal so they probably would not like to hear from Robertson or Falwell anyway. And, as such, they would definitely not like to hear sermons that are negative about minorities.

And BTW, I distinctly remember that Bush slapped down Robertson and Falwell for saying such things and Bush is a Born Again Christian.

And it's nice that Wright has done nice things, but as others have pointed out so did Mussolini and Hitler - and like they said, not to say that they are on the same page as Wright, not at all, but the comparison is there - are we to tolerate such teaching of hatred just because he does good for the community? So do pastors that agree with Robertson and Falwell, I'm sure and they are still not excused in my book.

After all, the Mafia are always good to their mothers and they give money to the Church - yeah, right, I'm sure that will get them straight into Heaven.

BTW: I am not religious in the least. I am an agnostic and do not give my money to any church or my allegiance.

But what bugs me the most is that he can say these things and it's okay, but AGAIN if white people said similar things, they would be skewered and no excuses are allowed, not even for drunk Mel Gibson (whom I am not defending by the way).

That's my real problem with it.

are "blue collar" americans REALLY this daft?

Nothing in that six year-old sermon was even close to inflammatory and HIS audience fully understood what he was saying, because THEY could relate. The fact that people keep holding on to these 30-second soundbites is ridiculous. Is it not true that the gov't's foreign policy is a mess? Is it not true that the american gov't has been at times complicit with the majority on racial issues? I mean, really. Are people refusing to see the point because they're stupid, or they just don't wanna own up to the fact that America isn't all that great?

First of all, it wasn't Bush but McCain took them down but he later suited their endorsements. And how is Wright getting away with anything? Just the fact that we're having these numerous posts and articles means that his words are being questioned. And I am really bothered by the fact that twice you bring up the fact that if white people have said the same thing, they would be shouted down. Or perhaps elected to the Senate over and over again. Or invited to the White House. So I do agree with you that there is discrimination. Just not the one-sided you seem to be trying to push.

More like an airball, actually.

He wrote, "I direct your attention to Mrs. Obama's 1985 thesis at Princeton University. Its title (rather limited in scope, given the author and the campus) is "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community." To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be "read" at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language. "

Funny, I always thought that English was a well known language. Well, maybe not well known to Hitchens. Perhaps he would have preferred that it be written in "drunk"?

Not sure how the fraywatch editors selected this as a top entry, as several assumptions are contained in this piece that are beyond merely arguable.

Firstly, while Obama has denounced his pastor for the remarks that have been edited together on YouTube, he has denied being in attendance during those Sundays when they were spoken. If those clips came from two or three or even four sermons across a 20-year ark, that is a more than plausible occurrence: would you grant that even an active church goer could miss up to 10% of Sunday sermons across a 20-year span? Even if you allowed only a 5% absentee rate, that would still equal one full year of missed sermons. Your assumption that Obama heard even one sermon of this type is not plausible - unless you have knowledge of either attendance records for Obama or frequency of these outbursts by Wright.

Secondly, you toss away the example of Jesus and Judas, as though there is some requirement for metaphors to be perfect - which denies the learning implicit in the concept of metaphor. When Jesus himself taught through metaphors, even rabbinical scholars argued with him at the time and theologians still argue about the meaning of those metaphors to this day.

Additionally, I reject your casual description of the 'imperfections' of the metaphor: i.e. Christ Jesus knew that he would be betrayed by Judas. You just made an assumption that is not contained in the Bible, to wit: that Jesus knew from his first meeting with Judas that this was his betrayer. Perhaps this was knowledge that came to him later, perhaps on one of his walks alone in prayer; it could even have been the knowledge that was given to him as he struggled with whether to go through with the task that was before him. What makes the trials and temptations of Jesus so important as examples for our lives is that it was not guaranteed what decision Jesus would ultimately make. He was born a man and had in him the same capacity to choose to do the will of His Father or to go against him as we all do and just as Adam before him. Your presumption of Jesus having known from the start about Judas is not documented in the New Testament: that is you assuming to know the mind of God.

*shakes head*

Can you spell hypocrisy? Obama is not the choir boy that his campaign staff hawks. He cynically remained a member of a church operated by a bilge spewing bigot BECAUSE that gave him the contacts within the Black community that allowed him entry into Chicago politics and then state politics.

G.W. Bush was AWOL.

Bill Clinton liked the ladies.

Hillary Clinton couldn't divorce her husband.

Michelle Obama IS a bigot and joyfully exposed her children to the same spew.

Obama found it convenient in the previous segment of his political CRAWL up the political ladder to associate with a hate spewing bigot, allow his bigoted wife to associate with the same and allow his children to become steeped in the bigotry of a minister for twenty years. Now live with it.