To all those posters who started their posts (regarding the Rev. Wright interview) by saying "We must have been watching different interviews..."

What an utterly dismissive and silly way to start presenting an opposing viewpoint. We all have different 'takes' on almost every thing there is in life. If we didn't, there would be no need for any kind of debate discussions since we'd all be thinking alike and would be one big happy family.

Sorry...it just drives me nuts when people use that expression.

I'm not a Salon subscriber, and never will be one.

common sense is restored by the letters to this article (screed). I am also saddened that a supposed "liberal" publication would have a person who doesn't understand the history of racial turmoil in this country.

Yes, Clinton's problems are the obvious ones!! That might be another reason Joan doesn't focus on them. But Barack, man, you've got to work pretty hard if you are a person who is enthusiastically ready to support him (as Joan says she is) and want to shed light on his problems. But Joan is showing us that it is possible to select out his weaknesses and focus tightly on them, making as many possible negative connections as possible. Once you do that for a while, you can really start to see that he is a person.

Joan is incredably aware that Barack is a person.

"Any minority candidate running for president will find themselves subject to a "loyalty test""

I see Obama as being practically crucified by this test. He's supposed to denounce and abandon an important progressive institution in his community, that has done real, concrete good deeds, to show, essentially, that he is not black.

So he can be the first white black man to run for the presidency.

He's being scolded for not abandoning his BROTHERS. To heck with anything Wright said in his theatrical (I'm an atheist) expression of burning spiritual (but not soul-less) truths.

The test should be turned back on those that would brand Obama with his FORMER pastor. What demons drive their fury? "You Denounce," we should demand of them, "and abandon the WHITE institutions that stood by while Obama's BROTHERS hung in trees on fire!"

"OH, NO!" They will say. "The American judicial system is necessary. It has accomplished much that is good. Not all its members are filled with racial hatred. Fair trials and just convictions far outnumber railroads, frame jobs and turnings over to seething mobs." "The American entertainment industry provides narratives to the world. Yes, it has denigrated blacks, propagandized fear of dark skinned criminals, incorporated as repeated tropes woven into the fabric of our daily entertainment images of black thugs, drug merchants, junkies, hookers, convicts, rageful maniacs, and also, equally perniciously, helpless victims. But look at Hally Berry! We gave her an Academy Award! Look at Eriq La Salle! We made him a doctor on T.V.!" Etc., Etc. "America, that enslaved generations of blacks and to this day is manifestly infected with seams of hatred and heart-breaking scenarios of inequality, cannot be defined by these things."

"BECAUSE, as the great poet said, we ARE woven of a mingled yarn."

To which we say, "yes. Next."

We should not be dallying with this questions of whether Obama's tenuous connection with Rev. Wright makes him unelectable, or even by degrees less electable.

When the questions comes up, when the aspersions are insinuated, we should meet them with fury. They are illegitimate! They do violence against our national identity!

Whenever I hear that I wonder: Is Obama supposed to win? Does Rev. Wright want him to win? I am talking here about the general election. What does it do to the grievances of the black community if Obama becomes president? Does it then say that many historic grievances no longer apply?

I ask these questions because some people who post in these threads act as if it is not important that Obama have a plan for winning the election when the demographic that could elect him necessarily shifts. Already he has the black community. They are overwhelmingly for him. What happens and how must his message change to capture people who are not black and are not progressive and will inevitably be offended by Wright's message.

Too often, I have gotten the feeling that many Obama supporters will be satisfied for Obama to merely mark an historic milestone by gaining the Democratic nomination and that it is almost secondary whether or not he wins. Do some of you think beating Hillary is more important than defeating John McCain?

(I will not respond to personal attacks or a mere barrage of insults to Hillary. Give me something rational and logical in response. I am truly curious.)

bush said: "this is not the result of american foreign policy."

wright said: "the chickens are coming home to roost."

the truth is painful, folks, and you're going to turn away from it, like humans do. but it's still the truth, and reality will keep disturbing the fairy tale you live in.

wright is more connected to reality than you are- he has no personal interest in propping up the sugar-coated lies that make america a comfortable place for middle class americans. he's only mortal, of course, but on evidence to date- he's a better reporter than joan walsh.

Why don't you respond to some of the things other people have posted? Anyone argues with you is full to fall into your framing of the debate.

Why do you associate Wright's words with Obama, but don't hold white candidates to the same standard?

I do agree that Wright's declarations, (be they right or wrong depending on who listens and what they actually hear from Wright's words) will ultimately link Obama to a face in America that scares and disturbs people across the spectrum of the country. This will be hammered by media pundits, the Republican machine and of course Hillary Clinton and will at least be in the minds of voters. Many African Americans can easily place Wright in the context of hurt and wounded soul seeking redemption through public introspection and projected self condemnation. For others who might not have the same "racial" perspective, it is a bit more difficult to place Wright in a context or even move beyond dismissing an internal questioning of what role their "race" plays in Wright's rhetoric. And as the greater corporate media structures contend or pervert this geniune dialogue on "race" and systemic features of our country that allow for the huge disparities in wealth and access to tools for securing prospertity in vast communities throughout our country, Wright will be written off as an "angry" black reverend who lives in the past and like a virus infects those who connect to him. This bunks the truer questions such as exploring the conditions that could lead to this type of perspective and addressing, through action, this as a national and eventually international reflection on the state of our souls, as did de'Tocqueville, Emerson,Mahler,DuBois or many others.