The Wright controversy allowed critics of Barack Obama to lay into his judgement, his political instincts and reaction time, and his temperament.

This Sunday, the chattering class will be intensely involved in a post-mortem of the controversy, and might find it profitable to ponder an example from American history.

"[He] had no spontaneity--no emotional nature ... He was never a man of gushing feelings.

"[He] shrank from controversy as a general rule--hated quarrels, hated to say hard & sharp thing of any man ...

"He was slow to form his opinions. He was deliberate, cool & demanded the light of all the facts surrounding the case. When he formed his opinions he was firm, especially about questions of justice [and] principle ... [He] had unsurpassed reasoning powers. His logical faculties were great ...

"[His] statesmanship [lay in his] adherence to principle. He studied where the truth of a thing layand he acted on his conviction. He looked far into the future and was philosophical, true, scientific, in his inductions."

The opinion expressed above was held by Supreme Court Justice David Davis and the Illinois politican he was talking about was the same one for whom he had organized a successful presidential campaign in 1860--Abraham Lincoln.

Only time will tell if, once in office, Barack Obama will show the same wisdom that his fellow prairie lawyer Abraham Lincoln did.

But the gathering storms we are confronting as a nation suggest that such wisdom we will need.

Obama's promise is that, like Lincoln, he is cerebral, eschews petty politics, is "slow to form his opinions" and demands "the light of all the facts."

Obama, like Lincoln, possesses great "logical faculties", and he has shown he is firm on questions of justice and principle.

After all is said and done, Sen. Obama's promise remains great, and is fuelled by the phrase he like to invoke of Dr. King's, the "fierce urgency of now."

It is something one hopes the chattering classes will take into account, as they assay the political landscape and the hopes for our country. Martin Edwin Andersen