Hitch, I love you baby, but this is uninspired and stretching reaching grasping. I know you've written a book on the subject and all--and we thank you for it--but your misunderstanding of church communities, politically important or not, is glaring. There isn't a Sunday that passes in this country where parishioners don't return home griping about the sermon--the preacher is often just an adjunct to the ceremony, the tradition, the whatever. I applaud your moxy, but for Christ's sake, save it for something else. This issue is dead, and the backlash has served its purpose and elicited, I think, the best response one could have hoped for. It's time you began casting your eye on some of the issues that are dogging your new home "on the ground." The macro-view is unbecoming of a citizen. Not only that--Have you seen Michelle speak? Here is one of the most impressive articulators of urban and national issues to have come down the pike in a long while--not a shred of cynicism or Clinton two-facedness. Don't be a part of the problem, dude. You're too smart for that pap.