Dear Joan,

I have great respect for you and Salon. But after reading your column about Wright, I really have to say - and I don't mean this to sound nasty - but you're really white and you're really American.

Wright is clearly wrong about a lot of things. But he is also clearly correct about many other things. Surely only the most cursory examination of American history, as well as modern conduct, reveals such a long list of atrocity that the very idea of an American leader condemning anyone else - including Al Qaeda - for his/her conduct is transparently ridiculous? Surely it's fairly clear that the same depraved indifference to life that is the hallmark of AQ has long been the hallmark of many American leaders - indeed, of the powerful, in general?

At any rate, thank you for an interesting column. But I just hope that most Americans don't think like you do. Being self-critical is important, and there is already far too little of that in the US today.

Sincerely,

Shaun Narine

Because anything Wright couldn't be any more wrong.

You said:

But I think it's utterly naive to assail Joan for this column, as if the issues she raises are ridiculous or imaginary, when they instead they point to a very real problem for any politician seeking the broad mandate necessary for high office. No one's going to get elected president trumpeting the views of Rev. Wright. Period.

And as far as I've been able to tell, no one is trying to get elected president trumpeting the views of Rev. Wright. Obama has gone out of his way to distance and divorce himself from Rev. Wright's inflammatory rhetoric, and even Rev. Wright himself said in the PBS interview that he's never heard Obama share or espouse these views. You're trying to equate Obama's views with Rev. Wright's views, despite every shred of evidence pointing to the contrary. So, basically, you're either ignorant of the situation, or you're deliberately misrepresenting Obama's views.

To which the natural rejoinder is, "Obama isn't trumpeting those views in his candidacy", and no, of course he isn't - but that sort of makes Joan's point, because those views are associated with him, whether any of us like it or not...

They're associated with him because people like you and Joan and others who are opposed to Obama's candidacy keep bringing it up over and over again, as if there's anything left for Obama to say on the issue or any questions left unresolved. Seriously, where is the good in doing this (unless you consider undermining Obama's candidacy to be a good thing)? What public benefit is served by obsessing on this story? What are you expecting to get out of it that you don't already have?

No one with any knowledge of Obama's views or his relationship with Rev. Wright claims that Obama shares these views, and there's been no evidence that Obama has ever publicly or privately declared otherwise. Again, anyone who claims that Rev. Wright's opinions are Obama's opinions is either lying or hasn't bothered to do even the most cursory research.

...and the idea that the Republicans are going to leave this alone is crazy. Every sound bite will be chopped to its most corrisive form and blasted into every red and battleground state until our ears bleed.

So you're saying we should all join the right-wing chorus and rake Obama over the coals? What good does that do us? The best chance that any Democrat has for victory this November is if we refuse to allow the political discourse in this country to be distracted by non-issues. The Republicans are wrong on everything that matters, from the war to the economy to the environment. If we go down the path of zinging the candidates over meaningless garbage like their pastors' sermons, their misremembered sniper fire stories, or their bowling scores, we're going to keep the conversation at the absolute lowest common denominator, and that only favors the other side and their sound bite faux patriotism.

Your post is a perfect illustration of institutionalized racism.

No, it is not racist to ask questions.

However, it IS racist to base those questions on implicit assumptions that do not apply to whites, such as the assumption that Ayers and Wright are "anti-American" and that Obama "shares these viewpoints" or that Obama's search for his father is somehow suspicious.

Your post displays an inherent mistrust of Obama, as if he is somehow hiding something nefarious that he will unleash on an unsuspecting public once elected. Nobody seems able to define what that nefarious "thing" is, but it's just ... there.

This is absurd. It is also racist. Elevating the importance of his associations far above the importance of Hillary and McCain's associations shows an inherent bias against radical blacks that does not exist against radical whites. People like Jerry Falwwell, Pat Robertson, and John Hagee are celebrated leaders of the white religious community and welcome in political spheres in a way that Jeremiah Wright could only dream of (except when he's being consulted in the wake of Monica Lewinsky by the Clintons).

Now calling someone racist is an ugly charge, and I'm not saying that you're even aware of the racist undertones of your post. I'm just saying it's a far more pervasive problem than most people realize, and one does not have to be a KKK member to be racist or display racist tendencies. We all do it to some degree, because it's been institutionalized.

Ms. Walsh,

I am one of your long-time silent readers. I am far from America and do not have the time to post letters. But I registered today just to tell you that your recent postings, especially after the debate have been disgraceful.

You owe your readers an explanation. You cannot simply discount them as "obamabots" anymore.

You know, every time I come close to supporting Senator Obama, I read another virulently sexist post by one of his supporters, and I pause.

Why do you care what Obama's supporters have to say? I would no more make a decision about voting for Obama based on the words of his supporters (in particular in the letters section of a blog) than I would based on the words of his former pastor. Listen to what the candidate has to say! Read his positions. Make an informed decision for yourself. I realize it's easy to get thrown off track, but electing a president is not a popularity contest. You're voting for the person, not every single person who supports him.