There's no evidence, and Hitchens alludes to none, that Michelle made Barack join Wright's church and stick with it through all the vile spewings. Remember, she was from the area already and had her own church. he was the one looking to establish, in his words, "street cred" in the black community, as he looked to establish a political base there. That amply explains why he stayed in the church. And the same political expediency accounts for his decision now to cut ties with Wright. You can make fun of the awkward writing style of a 21 or 22 year old sociology major, but the insinuation that the wife is to blame for the cynical political calculations and poor judgment of the husband smacks of sexism, and is any case totally unfounded.

Dead on. This article is sexist tripe. I read the Princeton thesis, which actually did a good job of mastering the conventions of writing sociology, which aren't the same as whatever you'd say Christoper adheres to in his often overheated shout outs. No fair minded person could read the thesis and go after her about it. She was a pretty good Princeton undergraduate as evidenced by her writing. I don't especially like her today, but cheap shots are out. Christopher is doing nothing better here than attacking her for wanting to write about the circumstance of being an upwardly mobile black person in a society still heavily affected by race and for choosing sociology as her major and her means to examine the question. He is claiming that he is a smart white man who does not write sociology and is too good ever to do it. Maybe he prefers to direct his ire to Mrs. Obama, because it puts him more in his comfort zone to assert his manifest superiority to a woman who is black rather than to the candidate, who is black and white and male.