It's a reasonable response. But I should have to insist that Reverend Wright is not out of the mainstream of black ministry. He simply isn't. If you have black friends, of which I've had one in my life (though he was British West Indian, but the experiences are not as dramatically different as you might think), you begin to understand how. There is a degree of tacit supposition that the power structure is their nemesis, and that anything positive coming from it is pried out of its cold dead hand by warriors like MLX, Malcolm X, etc. (speaking of which, MLK was far more of a firebrand with echoes of Wright than his sanitized sterilized 21st century multimedia experience would betray). And I also think there is far less in the way of delicate sensibility in black discourse.

In any case, whether or not my explanations are valid, I am pretty certain Reverend Wright was nothing like a fringe character. You can see this echoed by prominent black pundits, of which the most I've heard is, "this type of thing is not heard in all black churches". Hardly convincing. And so, indeed, Obama could not have been more correct when he said, "I can no more disown Reverend Wright thank I can disown the black community".

And there is a lot to be said about what that means for this country and our existence as a single nation- or not (going by the 9/11 sermon alone, the thing I can't get out of my mind is America's instance that Muhammad Ali enthusiastically enroll in Vietnam. That his not doing so was, in the eyes of White America, a form of treachery, and showed the blacks were not thankful for all they'd been given). But it also says a lot about any political strategy that would make Wright's affiliation with Obama any more a factor in this campaign than it already is. As inextricably as Obama is linked to Wright, Wright is linked to the black community even more so. So while that's great news for Republicans, I fail to see the advantage in Democrats playing it up.

So, if you agree to accept the hypothetical, at least for argument's sake- is what Senator Clinton's doing right now wrong for her party and this country, or not?