I loved the end and loved the show. But ultimately, the end reminded us, this is liberal journalism at its best. But not more. In this last episode, as in the show, everyone falls on their Wagnerian sword. The rhythm: leit motif, variation (challenge) and back on the single theme. Daniels: begins in moral purity, bends and returns; Kima, ditto, with a smile; Carcetti, begins in power hunger, finds a moral center, then returns; McNulty begins with ends (make the case)regardless of means, gets lost in means, then returns; Michael from institutional misfit (defending Dukie) to gang to misfit; Marlo, from personal power train to boss to power train..Gus,the core journalist, challenged to make power play re: Templeton and returns, gutless wishing Alma well...the big flaw is that no one learns from experience (maybe Bubbles, maybe "Cutty"...), no one grows. The other flaw is that there are no relationships. Everyone lives alone, juxtaposed, but never really joined..individuals and institutions and nothing in between. This is the fate parodied in the police sing along at the mock funeral of McNulty..we come together only through our common fate...there is no other option, no family, no real friendship-- why Michael can't remember the good times with Dukie--no community. Political solidarity is not an option. Only individual heroism, individual choice. The chorus is mere background noise, the electorate, the readership, the parents, the union members..This is Simon's journalism: each day, we start fresh, knowing nothing of what happened yesterday, learning nothing..a stunning naivite that lets the audience watch the fate unfold we ourselves cannot see. Simon and his crew deserve credit for the experience. Not the view. Baltimore is the setting..but the drama has no real historical or social address. Rarely have I loved hating liberal angst more.

Whenever I hear a political speech praised as courageous, it makes me cringe because it is a code word for tredding into territory everyone knows you shouldn't. In politics, this can only mean trouble. So did Obama's speech take courage? To answer this, we have to know what he put at risk. And what his options were.

At this point in the campaign, he had no choice but to answer the charges made about Wright, stupid as they may be. They are stupid, not because what Wright says is true, but radical as some commentators have suggested-- Do Salon readers really think AIDs was introduced into the Black community as part of a government plot?-- but because the assumption that what our preachers preach has something to do with how we think or live our lives. Maybe among Irish Catholics...and maybe some fundamentalists...but not for the rest of America. So, the question was how he would answer the charges. Nor did he have the option of renouncing any link to Wright, since the man was virtually his surrogate father. Nor could he get into the trap set by the Right, of renouncing the significance of racism en route to distancing himself from some of Wright's most outrageous remarks.

Let's be clear. Talking about the legacy of racism is not new in American politics. Compare his remarks with Lyndon's Johnson's speeches or even Jack Kennedy and you will see very little difference in the words used or even in the analogies to problems faced by white Americans. The difference, of course, is the messenger. It is one thing for a white President introducing the civil rights act to describe the shameful history of slavery, segregation and racism and quite another for a Black candidate to do us...since he invites comparison with all those who have been targeted in the past. So doing this took some courage, even now, and referring to that hour on Sunday as the most segregated hour took personal knowledge honed from personal experience.

But to me, as a political speech, the speech was a failure. Addressing race as an issue is one thing. Addressing race a public problem that he could help to solve as President quite another. Had Obama actually taken a stand on any of the myriad civil rights concerns now before the nation and promised to address these...even as he addressed the parallel fears in the white community...this would have been a major speech. It might not have been called courageous, but it most certainly would have put civil rights (rather than race) on the agenda, forced Clinton and McCain to address these issues. Instead, he dealt with race the same way he has dealt with every other issue, with platitudes about unity, coming together...he could have talked about poverty or health inequalities or the disproportionate burden Blacks continue to bear for dying in foreign wars...So, yes, this was a talk about Obama and race. But it was not a talk that inserted race into the political campaign. It would have made the speech less a defense of Obama's loyalties than how government can move us beyond the racist legacies he decried.