I'm sorry about the dead horse, but...

Look at the correction that Joan just made to the article:

We could get mad at her and say that she purposfully left out the fact that Barack made a speech in which he pointed to the weakness of his preacher and all that. We could say that Joan left it out because she has an agenda to make Hillary the winner so that Hillary can run against McCain. As if we have ANY reason to believe that Joan wouldn't be equally worried about the outcome of that.

But I think that Joan's correction validats my theory of how Joan is reporting and why Joan is reporting in the way she is.

Joan does have an agenda, I just don't think it is overtly to destroy Obama. It would have been utterly inconsistant with Joan's approach if she had written an essay about the media's fixation on certain topics related to Hillary and Barack, using Wrights comments as an example. Joan is simply not writing articles that look at the narrative that shapes the media's focus; Read Greenwald if you are looking for that kind of analysis (or wait until the general election: I promise you that Joan will then find that kind of analysis more significant).

Joan had to write about the Wright interview from the point of view of her approach, which means she needs to link the troubling aspects of Wright to those concerns she has about a weakness-based Obama. She does not do this as an attack on Obama. She does it partly to increase Obama's chances of winning, but also so that Salon will not be looked at as a site that has fallen in love with Obama and believes that Obama will end all problems.

Joan is a big believer that the core of America's problems won't go away until a much higher percentage of the public takes responsibility for their own participation in the messy affairs of democracy. Joan is under no illusion that anybody in the office of President can serve as much more than a good cheerleader and example of what healthy participation looks like.

When Joan links the dark side of Rev. Wright to the weaknesess of Obama, she feels concerned and sad and she might even be scratching her head, especially if she does this dance while thinking of those Barack supporters who do think he is a God and who inappropriately call her names and find nothing of value in Clinton. No matter how flawed or upsetting or inappropriate some of us may find Joan's approach, I don't think there is evidence that it is an attack on Barack and I don't think there is evidence that she'll take a new approach; until she's fighting for him against McCain.

That is really funny, about the running mate comment!

in terms of racism: as far as I can tell Joan readily acknowledges the reality of racism but in the context of Clinton vs. Obama she believes that sexism is playing a significantly larger role and deserves more comment. Also, Barack is winning which for Joan requires that she not ignore very many of his weaknesses and the possibly ways they mind upset, sadden, disappoint the wider public and quite possible (if enough people focus on them and consider them significant)lose him the election.

You have to admit that if Barack does lose we can sadly point to the Wright issue and say things like, "Well, back in the primary we knew that Barack wasn't perfect and we even had examples of his weaknesses right before out eyes. I guess too many people thought that the election was just about getting a great speaker in office and didn't care about the years of experience and vetting that Clinton was offering us."

I don't think that's how Joan would respond. I think she would simply point out that she had never really believed that Barack was anything more than human and that she wrote about his weakness repeatedly once he was heading in the direction of the general election.

I think Joan thinks we should focus on these Wright type issues until republicans do and then the trick is to point out the relative weakness of such a fucus in the light of the larger issues related to electing a president. That might be the point in time in which Joan will intelligently reveal the role that racism plays in politics. I don't think Joan will let her previous blogging stop her from such a reversal of tact because I think she can justify her current approach just by mentioning that this is still an ongoing primary.

"Walsh slathers Obama with the fiery part of Wright’s rhetoric as if its Obama’s own rhetoric. I have been unable discern any of Wright’s rhetoric in Obama’s platform or speeches. Maybe Obama secretly holds these views and we are too dumb to understand it."

You are missing Walsh's point:

first imagine what it would be like IF Obama really was giving speeches just like Wright's sermons. Ok, you have to admit that would be a big problem.

Then imagine that Barack, even if he is not giving such speeches, secretly wishes he was; if that was true then Barack doesn't even have the courage to say what he really thinks. Barack would be a weak anti-American without the guts to even say that he is disgusted by our country's history.

But then imagine that Barack is just a normal, decent guy but that his supporters think of him AS IF he were just like Wright. Now, I think you see Joan's point.

If you take any of these three imaginations, you've got yourself a situation in which Barack is in trouble.