On Wright and the Race

Barack Obama finally made like Danny DeVito and threw wright from the train on Tuesday. While there are many in the media who are now trying to question what took so long, a more realistic view of the situation shows that Obama did what he had to do in a measured and reasoned fashion.
It would have been easy to give in to the calls for Obama to throw Wright overboard earlier, but that would have been seen as caving in to the public discourse. Obama now has the cover of having let Wright hang himself. Furthermore, Obama is almost a sympathetic figure at this point as having given this person who once was a figure in his life the benefit of the doubt that real people give to each other when judgment is being made outside the public sphere. In truth, this is very much like the measured time that HRC took after finding out that Bill had been sneaking with Sally in the alley before coming out and standing by her man.

That being said, aside from fringe references, this should be the end of Jeremiah Wright. Clearly, this is a man who saw an opportunity to further his own warped vision through the sacrifice of his parishioner and thus deserves to be treated as the kook he sounded and looked like on Monday. Anyone who chooses to tie this clown to Obama at this point is clearly being intellectually dishonest and with intent.

I do think that this has prevented Obama from closing things out next Tuesday. He stood on the doorstep and Wright has now made it almost impossible for Obama to win in Indiana on Tuesday. The polls are continuously breaking her way by 5-10 points and unfortunately I do not see where he can yank these folks back. He also seems to be looking at a slimmer than expected win in North Carolina, at which point I suspect that the pundits will begin trying to stretch this out until the end. Unfortunately, the following week is only West Virginia (where she is torching him) followed by Oregon and Kentucky on 5/20. I am not quite sure how Oregon announces since it is an all mail in primary, but that seems Obama's best chance for a big win after 5/6.