I am assuming the answer is "no," Joan--that you have not listened lately to some of Martin Luther Kings more fiery speeches condemning America, and the way we have presumed that our worldview should predominate! Much injustice has been done by our wonderful country in the name of righteousness, and Cassandras like MLK and, yes, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, keep our mistakes in our faces--whether we like it or not! My view is that America has too FEW Cassandras, and too many people (especially pundits) going along to get along!

Would you honestly say that Rev. Wright is less patriotic than, say, Rush Limbaugh--who wants to ruin our electoral system. Or Rev. Hagee--who thinks being gay is a sin, and that gays have ruined America and should be punished?

Think about it!!!! Supposedly we live in a free country, where people can express all kinds of nutty opinions and still love America!

is like blaming John Kerry for Cardinal Law. Nobody made that connection then, but Joan Walsh would ignore that speech Obama made in Philadelphia as if it never occurred. She'll ruin Obama if that's what supporting a woman candidate over all other considerations dictate. I think Joan's behavior is now undeniably underhanded and despicable. What a phony, and what a blind unwitting stooge enabling the Republicans in the general election. Get over it Joan, he is the nominee.

In this article, Walsh pretends to be trying to give Wright an opportunity to redeem himself in her eyes, but in actuality she is looking for something to validate her rejection of Obama's candidacy.

Look, Joan, you don't have to prefer Obama. Democrats don't all have to think alike. Liberals (called progressives now? whatever) don't all have to vote alike. It's not like there are no weaknesses in Obama's record and policies. But don't go church-baiting. Don't keep playing the guilt-by-association game. (Obama and Ayers are "friend[s]" now? Good grief.) Can you honestly point to anything Obama has said or done in his own life to suggest that he does not love his country or its people? That he thinks America deserved 9/11? Of course not. Yeah, Obama accepted Wright's bad with his good. Do you presume to know enough about Wright--based on second-hand media consumption--to judge the depth or nuance of his character? Perhaps you could meet and interview him yourself and ask him your questions directly, instead of impugning Obama because Wright did not address the issues you wish he had in an interview with another journalist.

Make that three.

What's that smell, Joan?

and Pollyannaish assertions of American exceptionalism voiced by super-patriot Hillary Clinton is no surprise.

Of course, it is dishonest to pretend that our worst mistakes as a nation are behind us even as we perpetrate, every day, an illegal and deadly occupation of Iraq.

But honesty is not Joan's goal. Her goal is to see Hillary Clinton elected as president. If that means conflating Ayers and Wright and combining them into a poison pill, and trying to stuff it down Obama's throat, then that is what she will do.

If Hillary's ascendancy requires feigned horror at the notion that God (if she actually existed) might actually damn a country for its malign policies, so be it.

Wright speaks with the voice of conviction and candor. Walsh speaks with the voice of opportunism and deception. She is breaking faith not only with her readers, but with herself.

I didn't come away from the Moyer's piece with anything but admiration for Rev. Wright. Here's a man with a deep understanding of, and appreciation for all that is America. That Wright continues to ask America to live up to the things it claims to promise for ALL it's people should not be treated as if he's spitting in our punch bowl.

The man is only asking that all of us have to hold our government to account for its failures as well as praise its successes. This should be beyond politics and idealogy.

I've been trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, and I suppose you are editorializing here and that you don't really have to present any sort of "fair and balanced" view. (Ack! It makes me sick that Terry McAuliffe lauded Fox as presenting a fair and balanced view after all the bile they've spewed about both candidates!)

And I suppose you are merely trying to promote the candidate whom you feel most worthy, and really there shouldn't be anything wrong with that, and yet, and yet, it makes me feel sad and tired and so very disappointed in you, Joan, and in Salon.

King:

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom. (Clinton: I would obliterate Iran)

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. (Clinton: I would obliterate Iran)

If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos. (Clinton: I would obliterate Iran)

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness. (Clinton: I would obliterate Iran)

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood. (Clinton: I would obliterate Iran)

I have been reading Joan Walsh for months now, along with the comments, and the viciousness towards her from some of these posters is shocking.

it seems to me that Walsh may lean very slightly towards Clinton, but only in the same way that most media commentators lean all the way down and touch their toes for Obama. It doesn't detract from her clear desire to be balanced and to see things in this race as they are.

I had exactly the same take watching Wright's talk with Moyers. I suppose if you really thought that Wright was some kind of psycho, the interview and the longer clips would have disabused you of that notion. He's not. His style of oratory, though not necessarily what he says, is not unusual in the african-american church.

But what it did was illustrate that he is clearly an intelligent and thoughtful man of great gifts who is peddling a completely dumb and outmoded far left-wing idealogy of victimization and conspiracy theory. This ideology is not purely spiritual in nature but is inextricably bound up with very bad politics. That he appears to sincerely believe his flock is in need of framing God as that of the oppressed and not of the oppressors (and that we as a country apparently need two gods) doesn't detract from the fact that it strikes many Americans as distasteful and self-serving, AND, not coincidently, completely counter to what Senator Obama says he stands for as a candidate. The longer clips, rather than indicating that the "soundbites" were taken "out of context," actually confirmed that the longer sermons were reinforcements of the sense of them!

according to wright, what is wrong with this country is that we don't learn in school about the trail of tears, we only learn about 1776. I don't know what schools he's been visiting, but I learned about the trail of tears AND 1776. I learned about the slave trade, the writing of the Constitution, the Civil War, Jim Crow AND the Civil Rights movement. The Holocaust (the one Farrakahn says didn't happen) AND the firebombing of Dresden AND the Marshall Plan. If someone has a simplistic view of America, it seems to be Wright himself.

I also agree that Wright came across as so eager to clear his image that he didn't really care what it did to the candidate he has been supporting so fiercely from the pulpit.

It's not, rev. wright, that we are not sophisticated enough to understand you. it is that we are.