All through the early months of this endless campaign when Obama's success rested largely on a well-wrought reputation for idealism, there were legions of Hilary supporting media types who just seethed with resentment that their sure-fire insider candidate was being shoved aside by someone who seemed so untouchable. Their various attempts to paint his supporters as a "cult" and the always reserved, circumspect Obama as some kind of wild-eyed, voodoo preacher expressed a frustration not so much with any political position represented by the Illinois Senator, but with their own feelings of deprivation that the usual media consensus on how to cover politics, stuff that makes up their bread and butter work product, was being bypassed.

The reaction to Obama went straight beyond the usual media grist of gotcha and gaffe and personality scrutiny, straight to an incredibly profound desire for deep seated change and elicited a kind of enthusiasm that mystified and alienated media types used to wielding a certain pernicious kind of power, that of imposing their own cynical, gossipy, superficial insider point of view on the electoral process. Some (although many fewer than alleged) media folks stood apart and welcomed the change in tone and atmosphere introduced by Obama's campaign. The usual consensus-centrist suspects however, CNN and the New York Times come to mind, were indignant at having the Democratic primary contest deviate from the Hillary Sweep script they had signed off on before the process began.

The whole "Obama's a Voodoo Shuffle Artist" meme was obviously predicated on the fact that Rev. Wright's existence and his past relationship with Obama were already well known, had been discussed, "vetted" even; they were working the theme of a crazy black preacher into the campaign narrative in hopes it would bring Hillary's opponent down; when it didn't stick with respect to the candidate himself, his former pastor magically re-appeared in the campaign spotlight at the crucial moment, in the lull between Ohio and Pennsylvania. If they couldn't get the image of loony black crackpot into voters' minds by directly caricaturing Obama (whose stump personality is really almost kind of dull), well, the good Rev. would offer them the possibility of bringing in the idea by indirect association.

And now we have Hitchens, who may not in fact be a Hillary supporter, but he knows a good phony political scandal when he sees one and has a certain genius (see Monica situation, suing Sydney Blumenthal, etc.) for projecting himself into the middle of one for the sake of any old sleazy publicity he can snatch. Hitchens has the modicum of sense required to acknowledge that there's no point in trying to paint Obama himself as a Farrakhanesque weirdo, so he goes the guilt-by-association route via the wife. Because Michelle Obama mentioned Stokeley Carmichael in her Phd thesis from over 20 years ago, we're supposed to imagine that she's a Farrakhan loving anti-Semite. ..... ....... hmmmmm .... ... right.

So there you have it. The media morons have what they want at last. Everything Obama has done or said as a politician, everything he projects as a person and an American, all that substantive stuff defeats their attempts to marginalize him, to ghettoize him as a crackpot, so now, by means of one of the most determined smear campaigns, using the cheapest, ugliest, dumbest devices of guilt by association they can think of, they have achieved their "two-for-one" goals: 1) the fierce Clintonites among them (note the irony of Hitchens back together with old pal Blumenthal in their common use of right-wing rhetoric to get Obama) have defended the interests of the centrist, corporatist 90's Democratic consensus and its stalking horse in Mrs. Clinton; and 2) the dim-witted smirky cretins determined to rule the style and content of our political discourse by dragging every event down to their level have got the only kind of campaign they can handle: god forbid the people have a democratic discussion of just what kinds of fundamental change we really need to get our nation out of the screwed up rut it's in.

No. no no None of that silly idealism crap. The kind of insider "pros" who are stupid enough to buy into Hillary's image make-over as a white trash loving populist (even as she backs away from all her rhetoric on rolling back the Bush tax cuts for her wealthy pals, including, presumably, the sort of "experts" who write for Newsweek and the Times), these smarmy oafs are determined to instruct the rest of us on who belongs in the mainstream. So we must suffer being lectured to on the fine points of political morality apropos a bunch of trivial, gotcha, sensational, mind-numbingly shallow and repetitive "scandals" by a bunch of wizened, catty, gullible, ignorant pricks.

But you know what, morons, I'll bet you the brainwashing doesn't work. I'm still willing to hazard Obama wins anyway; then you can choke on your schadenhorror for eight long years.

Thank you for this. One small correction, and I think it's kind of important -- it was Michelle Obama's bachelor's thesis. I.e., she was really, really young, and while the little I saw was not that wonderfully written, it was obviously more about an undergraduate trying to figure out where she was going than an advanced grad student making a statement about original research.

Thanks, Philoclea (history lover?). That's a significant point.

No one would be able to gather from your usual overlong rant that the primary promoters of Wright the Loon have been Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright. It is Obama who spent 20 years in Wright's church, was married by him, had his kids baptized by him, appointed and un-appointed him to a religious council, invited and uninvited him to speak at the launching of his presidential campaign, and described him as "spiritual mentor," "teacher," "sounding board" (and "spirit guide"?). If it weren't for Obama we would never have heard of this turkey.

And Wright himself was unable to resist staying out of the spotlight after Obama's race speech and went on a whirlwind tour, reprising his "greatest hits."

But of course this fiasco is eveyone else's fault, just because some people are uncomfortable with the idea of a POTUS whose 20-year pastor is a paranoid, bigoted loon. Picky, picky, picky.

'Some people', Varian-HitchTwin?

No. The polls have shown consistently that the people are tired of this made up scandal, have no use for it, and want the debate to get back to real issues. In a Presidential campaign nothing takes place in a vacuum, and when the media decide to focus on one made up scandal to the exclusion of everything else, that is nothing less than a deliberate attempt to skew the race in a certain direction.

The "twenty year" relationship that supposedly existed between Obama and Wright is an empty cliché. No, Obama was not in the pews every week, No, he didn't faithfully attend Wright's every word for 20 years, and No, to call someone a "mentor" doesn't mean you agree with their every position. Obama has explained his fealty to Wright's church: that body has done a lot of good for the community; he feels respect for the angry elders of his community who experienced the humiliations of Jim Crow; he's devoted to the spirit of fellowship the church embodies and to channeling the energy and spirit of his fellow believers in a positive direction, away from the divisions of the past. His relationship with Wright has been well known for quite some time, he has completely separated himself from the Rev's more radical positions and No, no one, not even you, Varian, believes that Obama somehow secretly shares them.

So why make an issue of this? Because guilt by association is the only hope you and Hillary and the GOP have for derailing Obama's campaign. It's disingenuous and dumb. Every politician has acquaintances who espouse out of the mainstream ideas. But for reasons that have more to do with reactionary media prejudice than with intellectual honesty, many of those freak associates of powerful statesmen get a free pass - just who, I'd like to know, just who decided to appoint a clearly racist right-wing freak like Pat Buchanan, for instance, to be the spokesperson on racial matters in our society? If all the Republican candidates and their media pals can get by associating themselves with a man who ran his own White House campaign on the basis of an open appeal to white supremacist bigotry --oh, that's just gruff but lovable ole Pat -- then I don't think Wright should be much of a problem for anyone.

And it really isn't. You can keep cramming images of Wright down the people's throat, but I don't think they're buying this time. They have other things on their minds -- jobs, prices, war, to name a few.

Geez, couldn't you utter even one sentence without telling a lie? The polls show that 80% of the public was following the Wright business closely. Only Obama and his supporters are peddling the self-serving crap that the public isn't interested ("This isn't helping my kids").

As has been said about a million times, the issue isn't whether Obama agrees with all Wright's views, but what does his relationship with Wright say about Obama's judgment and integrity. For example, are you really dumb enough to believe that Obama is only now offended by the same Wright statements that he dismissed a few weeks ago as unrepresentative "snippets"? Did you notice that the only thing new that Wright said was that Obama is just a politician?

Polls show that a majority of the public that you say isn't interested in this say that Obama dumped Wright only out of political expediency and that Obama does share some of Wright's views.

As for Obama's now largely "inoperative" race speech, wjhatever happened to Obama's being unable to disown Wright any more than he could disown the black community or his grandmother? That "angry elders' business is an assumption about people like Wright that Obama induced you to indulge. Wright attended the same elite, 90%-white Central H.S in Philly that Bill Cosby attended. He's never lived in a Jim Crow state.

Obama has already been a bad influence on the country by encouraging white liberals to continue the deplorable double standard that excuses black racism on account of the assumed different experiences of blacks. The collective racial guilt and grievance involved in blaming members of another race for what their ancestors supposedly did to one's own ancestors--Wright's stock in trade--is itself the epitome of racism.

material. Shall we accept on faith, or on your recommendation, that the Wright Stuff is immaterial to Obama's nature and qualifications? Funny you mention Pat Buchanan in a post bemoaning gratuitous guilt-by-association---in his political heyday, thanks to commentators of your political persuasion, guilt by association morphed neatly into brow-furrowing "deep ties" with "extremists"....right-wing extremists, that is. Ah, the "climate of hate" connections with gun groups and Eric Rudolph! Those were heady days of innocent guilt by association, eh? Let's just examine the merits this time.

You began by citing Obama's "well-wrought reputation for idealism" early in the campaign. I'd prefer to call it "well-marketed", in that Obama certainly said all the right things in appealing, bite-size servings, but remained rather elusive to those expecting a systematic explication of those ideals and the policies through which he intended to implement them. Still, there appeared little reason to doubt Obama's sincerity and the supposed big-tent component to his optimistic idealism.

Until the Wright story broke, that is. Would you not agree the nature and duration of their relationship qualifies on its face under the "deep ties" rubric of yore? Is it not a valid area of inquiry when Wright's racialist, reductionist worldview is diametrically opposed to what Obama had suggested was the content of his "idealism"? And especially so when Obama's eleventh-hour flip-flopping on the subject of Wright is consistent not with forthrightness and integrity but with disingenuousness and old-school politics by exigency.....

Your suggestion that the Wright imbroglio is a media fantasy-creation was laughable even before the Detroit NAACP leader called him the "hottest brother in the land" amid Wright's standing ovations in Detroit and elsewhere. Like Farrakhan, he is respected and considered "legit" in the black community because he puts black first among unequals, and sinister whites and Joos are the number one enemy----because entrenched anti-establishment fatalism, frequently irrational anger, and perpetual-victim resentment are still the only sure means to "legitimacy" for black leaders and their progressive white sychophants and enablers.

Is all this part of Obama's "idealism"? Was it once? When so, in relation to Wright's rather unceremonious jettisoning as two-decade family friend, mentor and advisor....all of a few days ago. If not part of his idealism, why then was Wright central to the perfervid Obama hagiography which inspired the early momentum and enthusiasm you cited? And is it part of Mrs. Obama's idealism? Is it possible she's bristling with outrage at her husband's milquetoast conciliation of the white racist establishment (read: American society)? She may be like Nicholson in "A Few Good Men", just about ready to howl out "You Can't Handle The Truth!".

I can handle it. I think it's better we all know it, one way or another. But the burden's squarely on Obama now to make it right, and properly so.

Funny, I don't recall seeing that 80% figure; doesn't mean it doesn't exist, of course, but that also doesn't mean one could plausibly accuse me of lying for not being aware of it. The fact that you fail to source your assertion would seem to indicate that if anyone is making stuff up here, Varian, it is, as always, yourself. Never mind the fact, more importantly, that the statement to which the idiotic 80% figure is attached -- about people "following" the story -- is meaningless. Of course they're "following" the story, when the MSM is cramming it down their gullets 24/7. Considering the round the clock play this story has received, the fact that people have resisted being brainwashed by it is nothing less than remarkable. Exit polls last night showed that among those for whom the Wright story was "important" Clinton indeed did very well; turns out that the portion of the electorate that really cares about Wright wasn't that great.

So choke on that word, "liar," will you, now, Varian? It couldn't possibly be clearer how things really stand, now.

As for your dim-witted statement that the different experiences of blacks in our country are merely "assumed," you know, geez, your stupidity defies argument here. It's like arguing with a child, as if we could wave away 200 years of American history and the palpable after-effects of that history in everyday life for tens of millions of people by claiming, in smarmy facile neocon fashion, that only a "racist" would "assume" that there was any real difference in the experiences of blacks and whites to begin with. How clever of you to turn the tables like that, throw the word "racist" back in your opponents' faces -- see, it's actually more racist to "assume" there ever was such a nightmare as systematic racism in our country, or that any effects or remnants of those institutions could still exist in today's America. ..... see, the conventional idea of racism is itself a racist myth.

In other words: the usual reactionary babytalk on race. If you want to know Rev. Wright's first-hand experiences of racism in his life, you should consult his narratives of being a black soldier in the US Army before it was integrated, among other themes. But something tells me you don't want to go that far into the facts of the situation. You're only interested in "facts" that can be spun to make it seem as if the legacy of racial problems in our country is just a big "lie" being perpetrated by the Obama campaign. What Obama stands for, on the other hand, as perfectly embodied in his relationship with Rev. Wright, is the ability to stand up to our racist past, in all its most toxic psychic and social after-effects, without denying their sources in historical reality, and then get past it, to move on to the next phase of our history with a chastened, salubrious, mature attitude.

As I predicted, the voters last night gave their definitive response to the Wright controversy. They've had quite enough of it. If you and your GOP hack pals are planning to use this issue to foist off McCain's 100 Year Neocon Rule in November, you might want to think again. The people who vote do have ways of separating the real issues from your carefully crafted bs, Varian.

Senator Obama has now made perfectly clear where he stands in regard to Rev. Wright's most off the rails opinions. In fact, he did so at the very start of his campaign, well over a year ago now. That means those who want to pin the Wright bugaboo on his parishioner have had an eternity, in political time, to find a way to somehow make it seem as if Obama shares any of Wright's more unpalatable ideas; they have completely failed to do so. Now why is that?

Those who approach the story from the Hitchens angle of an atheism dismissive of any religious faith are hindered by the fact that they would have to agree that all religions are full of crackpots espousing failed ideas and morally questionable political intentions -- if Rev Wright is reprehensible and any association with him should disqualify Obama, then shouldn't all Catholics be disqualified by association with the Antichrist of Rome, that protector of child molesters? At least Hitchens in various of his other writings has sort of suggested as much, without wanting to spell it out for some reason. You have to grant him at least a limited rhetorical consistency.

And for those who are believers, they are hindered from laying unqualified anathema on Sen Obama's head, I would say, by virtue of their and our common experience of religious authority in everyday life. There is simply too much empirical reality in support of the notion that people can be religious without sharing all the ideological nuances of their spiritual "mentors." To whom, for instance, are our conservative Anglicans turning for support in their intra-ecclesiastical battles with liberals over gay marriage? Well, as a matter of fact, to the African bishops, some of whom preach the same sort of anger-mismanagement-based, fiery "prophetic" gospel that is often as resentful of outsiders, in this case decadent homo-loving Westerners, as anything handed down from the pulpits of Chicago's liberation theologists.

The theme of AIDS as an affliction visited on the African community by the white man is one that, eerily, unites those two groups. And yet, we don't see anyone coming out with blanket condemnations of Episcopalians, any op-eds about how anyone with a "mentor" in this hate-spewing crackpot religion should be barred from the White House. On a basic, concrete level, many millions of people have had the existence of belonging to a church whose leaders, or at least some of them - besides organizing food drives, community education, advocating for the most disadvantaged - also preach eschatological, self-martyring nonsense. And millions of believers in various faiths have learned to accept such preachments with a grain of salt. That would certainly seem to be the verdict of the voters, judging by last night's results.

Which is where your complete inability to understand the contrast between Obama and Buchanan comes in. Buchanan wasn't just "associated" with white supremacists; he is one. The entire basis of his political career is his proposal to undertake a program of political measures for the sole purpose of ensuring that America remain a "white nation." Obama, at the furthest possible remove from any such accommodation with extremism, stands for reconciliation across the dividing lines of race, class and historical experience. If you share those values, I advise you to join his campaign. If you honestly believe Sen Obama is outside the mainstream on any of the issues that really matter, including racial conflict, please give concrete evidence, and leave all the Wright-ist scare-mongering out of it.

Whew, they don't call this Fray "Fighting Words" for nothing!

Your post was well-written, Mark, as most of your posts are. But unless you and others here just enjoy writing for its own sake, I don't understand the purpose of all these posts. Surely, nobody here is going to change anyone's mind.

I read your accusations of the MSM being pro-Clinton, and then I read someone else's accusations of the MSM being pro-Obama. And then I remember why I don't bother with the MSM and stick to NPR and The New Yorker.

One of the few topics I've enjoyed reading and thinking about has been the reactions of the mostly white Slate Fraysters to what some blacks like Rev. Wright think. As Obama said some time ago, as I've felt for years, blacks and whites in this country need to engage in a serious discussion about racial matters.

Other than that, I just hope Ms. Clinton drops out soon so we all (especially people who don't read and post on Slate) can begin the political discussions that really matter....

Cheers,
Mary Ann

Obama's call for a "national converstion on race," was answered by Rev. Wright, encouraged by Obama's suggestion that Wright represented the black community and the black church. Wright proceeded to regale us with, among other things, his views on the different brain structures of blacks and whites. Obama promptly told him to "shut up"! What Obama obviously meant was 'let's talk about anything but Jeremiah Wright.'

Hi MaryAnn:

Nice to hear from you. It looks like we may be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The Clintons seem to have spent all they care to to keep their campaign going.

See you in the Poetry Fray, sometime soon.

Mark