He ran to his strength ...

... I'll give him that. The man can give a speech. I just watched the Obama speech on race, entitled "A More Perfect Union." Perhaps it's because I have almost 8 years of George W to compare it to, but I have to admit he is a fantastic orator - I am sincere when I say I wish he was playing for our (conservatives) team. You can go watch it if you want, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU, it was 37 minutes long and involved his personal story, and race in general from both white and black perspectives, but on Wright - the cause of the speech - he finally fessed up to being in the pews when incendiary and controversial comments were made over the course of 20 years. I assumed he would, to do anything else would be laughable. The way he played the relationship was clever: he rejected and renounced those type of comments while stating that he is, "like family to me", and compared the relationship to his own grandmother (who is white) whom loves him, helps him and helped raise him and whom he loves yet she routinely made racial slurs in his youth towards other minorities. He was getting at the fact that we most likely all have a grandmother or uncle etc that have said things we don't agree with yet we don't disown them. He went on further to infer that he stayed at the church because of the clips we don't see - about Jesus - and in spite of the clips we do see. Those are my words, but that was his theme regarding Wright.

Here's the problem as I see it - were he running for Civil Rights Leader-in-Chief that would all be fine - the parsing of the relationship that is (yet the latest version of his relationship to Wright), because you represent only one segment of the American population. However, the standard for your views on America herself is much higher when your aspirations are the presidency, and that standard, in my opinion, will not allow for you to love a guy in spite of his rabid anti-American & racist views as you focus only on his messages about Jesus. Especially when with 207,000 minutes of video we are sure to find another clip every day, as was the case even as Obama gave his speech - in a sermon released today he refers to Israel as a "dirty word." That's Obama's problem - although it is feasible that he loved a guy like family in spite of those views and because of how he brought him to Christ, it is highly questionable at the very least, and in a presidential race for that questionability to be routinely raised as new video is released is politically fatal. Couple that with the natural & understandable inclination people will have to believe that after 20 years at least "some" of those radical views must have been passed on to Obama and help shape his world view, and I think the legitimate shot he once had at winning the general election is now over.

I could be wrong. In any event the only one running that has the stones to do the job is McCain.