...including Jeremiah A. Wright's theories, and Obama's claims of ignorance about them.

The Wright mess has bruised Obama very badly, much more than some of you want to admit. Sure, O was able to deal with the first outbreak by using the "out-of-context" and crazy-but-still-loved uncle arguments, and by delivering a very nice speech.

Many O supporters right here on Slate, after the Wright videos first emerged, demanded to know what Wright had said that was so bad or untrue, anyway?

Well, they aren't asking that now.

And even his staunchest supporters must squirm a little at O's claims that he didn't know about this weird stuff. Honestly: does Wright seem like a guy you could listen to for very long without understanding he had these views?

It seems pretty clear that the truth is that Obama had heard it all many times before, but thought Wright would have the decency to keep it "in the family", so to speak.

He reckoned without the Wright's desperation to vindicate his own lifelong claims of white racism. That means Obama has to lose. Obama's success among white voters is a direct threat to Wright's essential "teachings", to his life's work, to what he thought he left when he retired from the pulpit. He sees Obama's success as destroying all that.

I predict that if Hillary does lose the nomination to Obama, Wright will be back with even crazier, uglier crap, if he can dream it up. If Obama becomes President, then Wright is wrong, and he won't stand for that.

I think that after the recent rants of Wright that now the majority of the Black church has told him to shut the h*ll up or give up all respect from his own circle. Many blacks are extremely proud of Senator Obama --- for Wright to "swiftboat" him even more will be to the detriment of Wright's mission.

First of all, as to Wright's white racism: there are white members of his church. How does that add up?

Second, as to his sermons and his wacky ideas. Part of the issue is that, for the most part, his wackiness is often inserted into a very compelling narrative. This becomes clear when you understand the context of the speech. Here are three prominent examples:

His "chickens coming home to roost" comment was paraphrasing a comment given by former Ambassador Peck who was speculating on the reasons for the attacks of 9/11. So, it's ok for Peck to use language like "blowback" which is a nice, governmentally sanitized term that basically means your chickens are coming home to roost?

Second, his God Damn America comment was spoken in a specifically biblical context. It was not a matter of hating whitey or being anti-american. That sermon was about the ability of governments to change. In fact, Wright spends a good ten minutes or so leading up to that phrase going over the positive changes that America had made. In particular, he was referring to the negative changes that had been made under Bush. There is a biblical tradition of prophets condemning Israel when it strays from the path of righteousness. They were not simply writing off Israel, they were condemning it in the hopes that it would return to God. When he says, in that sound bite, "it's in the bible" he is absolutely correct.

Finally, when he makes his absurd comment that the United States government invented AIDS to kill black people, he inserts this amongst a string of historically accurate statements about actions of the government (though I don't agree that FDR knew pearl harbor was coming specifically, it's no secret that he was doing everything he could to provoke a Japanese attack). It's easy to discount one absurd thing if it's surrounded by 9 true things.

Part of the reason Obama can't explain these things is that we live in a sound-bite world where any somewhat complex explanation and (god forbid) debate are out of bounds because they are bad for ratings. I listened to every speech that contributed to Wright's sound bite loop. While I disagreed with some of the statements he made and some of the conclusions he came to, I never came across anything that I considered anti-American (being anti-government is not anti-american, remember that the founding fathers felt that dissent was the highest form of patriotism) nor did I encounter anything that was either separatist or racist. Sure, we can detect anger from a black man who grew up in an overtly racist country, but nowhere that I've come across does he ever say white people are bad. There are Jews today who are still angry with Germany today over the holocaust, even though Germany's current government bears no resemblance to the Nazis (remember the outrage when Germany's Prime Minister visited Israel?)

P.S. For those who will angrily ask "Are you comparing racism in America to the holocaust?!" My answer is no, the horrors of the holocaust are far beyond the misery caused by racism in America. I was simply highlighting the legitimacy of anger towards a current government for actions of the past. For those who might accuse me of anti-semitism, I'm Jewish.

Wright's church has thousands of members, and I bet many of them have been members for many years. I seriously doubt that those thousands of people are all racist. They should all be insulted; I would be.