"It isn't about him. He's a pawn. If it wasn't Jeremiah Wright, somebody would be going to find some 6-year-old that went to school with Obama."

I like to think that person would be Joan Walsh.

The most brilliant analysis of Rev Wright was on Bill Moyers PBS show on May 2nd. No journalist has come close to being in his league.

He nailed this. Look up his comments. Well worth it.

Every MSM journalist alive should strive to shine that man's shoes.

...according to Rasmussen's poll. I think that means they consider what he said is controversial including the tenets of black liberation theology as Wright states them. I think that says more than anything. I also think this apologia will do more to hurt Obama far more than it will help him. It is radical to middle class white America and that is who Obama needs to convince to win in November.

Also, if we are to buy that the insistence that Wright's AIDS statement is just a "trope" - someone better inform 12% of the Black population that actually believes it's true, not as a trope, but as a fact.

I already knew the most basic elemetaries about black liberation theory and its past origins in slavery.

"....referring to the "white consciousness," of which many whites have embraced, which perpetuates white supremacy and power."

yeah, they're called YUPPIES.

steer clear.

This interview is absolutely, 100% right-on, and I'm so glad that someone finally said it. If it hadn't been Wright, they would have found some other scary black man with radical views in Obama's past. I've been saddened throughout this affair to see how quick almost all of the liberal voices I respect have been to discount Wright's views, including DailyKos and Salon. I don't believe the entire essence of a man can be summed up in a handful of media clips, and I don't believe he owes any apologies to anyone for stating his views. Isn't it sort of accepted wisdom that African-Americans have gotten a pretty raw deal in this country? Why does it continue to shock us when we see that some black Americans are pissed off? Shouldn't it just make Obama look all the more even-handed by comparison?

..made Sen. Obama dance for them. It is shamefull, I tell you.

I really feel bad for the guy. He has a good heart.

But, the man had to do it to placate that all important "middle class white vote".

The poll doesnt differentiate between whether or not Black folks disagree with what Wright says or the fact that he is speaking at this moment. I think you have to take into account that Black folks are hoping that they will be represented in the White House. We have had the faith that Obama is the closest thing to doing this for us. The politics of that kind of representation are different from whether or not Black folks agree with Wright's comments. Black folks are much more complicated than that. Including that 12% you mention. That 12% (and I would argue more) don't think it is beyond the government to do such things. The feds have copped to infiltrating urban black communities with drugs, the u.s. government has a relatively recent history is turning a blind eye and participating in medical experiments on Black people. Not only the Tuskeegee Experiment, but the Mississippi appendectomies that left many black women without the means to reproduce in the 1960s... It amazes me how folks think that it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE that the U.S. government would want to kill black folks... it seems as if Black folks only have this memory that the U.S. government has a rich history of doing just that.

"...what Jeremiah Wright has in common with Gennifer Flowers."

That line alone says everything one needs to know about the discourse on Salon.com.

Frame that line and post it over the main Salon.com entrance way. You can slap it like the Fighting Irish do with "play like a champion today" as you run out to gather more inane facts for your next irrelevant article.

Why attacking Salon and its editors (which these posters obviously enjoy) - and other sorts of in-fighting - is *possibly* going to help us win back the White House in the Fall?

Anoter apologist saying, "What Cone really meant was..."; "What Rev. Wright really meant was..."

Come on, folks. KKK of America is mere "rhetorical excess?"

The AIDS conspiracy theory is a "trope for Tuskegee"?

If you want to defend what someone says, they defend what he says. Don't rewrite it and tell everybody there's no problem here.

No one can justify bigoted hate preachings. Invoke names of Donna Rice and Flowers and somehow Rev. Wright is a sweet old man. Let's pretend you are correct in this theory and that's what it is a theory. Do you really think we need to go to our Churches and have a cult like pastor teaching us how to damn America, damn white people, insult Senator Clinton and insult me the reader.

Senator Clinton is an innocent by stander and to add Flowers to the mix somehow takes the burden of poor judgement away from Obama and slam it at Hillary Clinton. When someone is telling you to Goddamn America and you comeback for more, what parts become your own new philosophy carrying the same hate? There is no reasonable explanation for irrational preaching and to compare the words of MLK Jr saying the same words is NO justification, Dr. King was as wrong for damning America.. This is my country and I am proud of it. I wear a flag pin and a pin of the twin towers as a reminder of those who damned America on 9/11/01. This sort of justification is irrational as the bigot preacher and no comparisons will change the dynamic of the Rev Jeremiah Wrights hatred of America or Obama's devotion to Wright for two decades. Slavery was abolished too many years ago to use it as an excuse for the 21st century. We don't liberate people teaching hate, we liberate people teaching them love and forgiveness. I am a Catholic and I have never heard an inappropriate word from my priest. As for Flowers, who cares? Obama's negatives are running high, Hillary's life is open and exhausted.