Did you even watch the same interview? I just got finished watching it. I think you came away from it with the totally wrong impression. Having just experienced violence the way you personally did just recently, how do you jive your criticisms of a man trying to help his community, a community blighted with the same kind of violence that is more and more blighting our city, our neighborhoods (I live between Potrero Hill and the Mission, and gang violence has been especially bad -- not long ago I was ordered to the ground at gunpoint by officers in pursuit, my friends and I having wandered inadvertently into a crime-scene one warm weeknight evening). Daily, some new act of violence. Almost weekly, a new murder blocks from where I live.

This is the America that Reverend Wright ministers to daily, for almost 40 years. Give the man some credit. He has said things that show him to be "bitter" toward a system that is rigged against black youth, youth of color, the poor, the downtrodden. But when he says "God damn America", I'm not so proud that I do not stop for a moment and ask myself what I, an American, have done to prevent these wrongs, and to what degree I too am culpable.

This is the hard to hear message of the Obama campaign -- we share together hope and triumph, but also failure and culpability. So if "God" damns America, it is Americans who carry out that damnation.

You are doing, figuratively, the devil's work when you incessantly call into question the culture that made the Obama nomination a plausibility. When you lessen the real desires and complaints of this whole new group of politically active persons this election cycle, you are doing the opposition a favor. I don't see Clinton trying to capitalize on the real raisons d'etre of this exceptional election cycle: change, hope, fixing the rigged system, letting Americans back into the political process.

Wright was talking about Government failing, God damning Rome, England and ultimately America. First the government, but also the people who have for so long failed to stop the government. So yes, absolutely, yes, we did fail, all of us, and "god damn" us for it.

And every day you drive that spike deeper into the heart of the progressive left with your support of a pretend candidate, with an imaginary hope of winning, and you slag the probable candidate, you are doing Rush Limbaugh's work, you are doing John McCain's work, you are doing Karl Rove's work.

The game may be fixed, but I'm still betting on black. Do you want to change your bets, Ms Walsh? Hopefully its not too late.

Forget "tin eared", how about "Joan-deaf"?

Bill Moyers is a journalist, not Chris Wallace or George Stephanopoulis, you idiot.

what a bunch of sore losers.

cynthia45 -- first, is that the year of your birth?

second, what do you suggest i call a politician, who, for political gain, voted to authorize one of the most pointless wars in history, killing untold hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and sending 4000 and counting americans to their grave? who then failed to apologize for it? who has the gumption to run on a campaign highlighting experience? who voted for the kyle-lieberman amendment enabling this president to invade iran? you call that experience?

what do i call such a person? what's a good four letter send up of someone like that? dick? jerk? give me a suggestion, really, tell me how i'm a sexist for feeling that way about someone who is stealing the election from the presumptive candidate because they can't stand to lose, even though their record shows no sign of conforming to me values, my disgust with this war, my fear of the appaling power grab this government has made, my disappointment with the good will and political capitol that has been squandered since september 12, 2001?

your era is over, 1945. my era is now. deal with it.

KKK rally is thataway.. say "hi" to Proud Texas Girl..

Glad to see we're still talking about Wright on salon.com.

See sig.

AKA Smith is one of the few pro-Clinton voices whose arguments aren't drowning in logical fallacy, overt partisanship and defensive, reactionary arguments.

I'd like to nominate him or her to write guest editorials about Clinton (or, if you must, anti-Obama) in lieu of Joan Walsh.

Flaming out the way Wright did this week was probably the best favor he could have done for Obama, allowing Obama to distance himself without being penalized for disloyalty, and allowing his supporters within churches like Wright's to accept that "it's all in the game."

I feel the worst about this mess not for Obama, Wright or even Michelle Obama, but for Obama's children. This whole situation must be very hurtful and confusing for them.

I am not going to sit here an say that nothing Obama has done in his campaign has been hurtful, but the manner in which the Clinton campaign exploits these and other situations fills me with shame and guilt.

We aren't supposed to be the party that engages in politics of attrition.

Unless Elephantman is a brilliant concern-troll burlesquing right-wing ideology for the sheer art of it, I'm not counting him as either a Clinton or Obama supporter.

I'm saying that this thing needs to wind down.. we need to "move-on."

The Wright controversy is interesting because it highlights the divide between white liberal intellectuals in the Democratic Party and the (until recently) loyal urban black and hispanic members of the party. A division that, if gamed correctly by the fear-manufacturing right, will lead to a Democratic loss in November.

What a fete if Republicans can draw in low-income blacks the way they drew in low-income whites 40 years ago! This is what we all need to work to mitigate.

I see you're drinking too. Lachaim.