Thank you, Joan, for another thoughtful and objective post. I know you well anticipated all of the "hits" (both figuratively and literally) that you would take for pointing out the obvious and I appreciate your courage in doing so.

Saying that America is evil and deserves annihilation (and yes, a preacher who invokes God to damn America qualifies) is just as wrong and reductionist as saying America is glorious and love it or leave it. The key word here, of course, is "balance". That is what always seems to be missing from both the extreme right and the extreme left. I think that is what Joan meant when she spoke about radicalism.

But once again the argument devolves into a back and forth as to whether Rev. Wright is right or wrong and whether or not he has a right to express his beliefs. Rev. Wright's beliefs are NOT the issue. The issue is Sen. Obama's beliefs. That is what the general electorate (not just liberals) will consider if he is the democratic nominee.

And that is where the problem lies. Yes, I know he gave a great speech. He rejected Wright's statements in terms such as "wrong", "divisive", "distorted". BUT how can we judge whether Obama was sincere in those characterizations or merely pandering to the electorate?

A prior poster said:

You're trying to equate Obama's views with Rev. Wright's views, despite every shred of evidence pointing to the contrary.

Let's look at the evidence.

He remained in that church for 20 years despite the wrong, divisive, and distorted views of his pastor. Maybe that can be explained away (for some). He made the active, conscious decision to bring his young, impressionable children to listen to wrong, divisive, and distorted views. Would you bring your children to listen to someone whose views you considered wrong, divisive and distorted? I believe Sen. Obama loves his children. I do not believe he would consciously subject them to such views if he truly believed that those views were harmful. The only conclusion I can reach is that he, on some level, agrees with those views. Not totally, of course. But enough to think that they would not be harmful to subject his children to.

The entire basis of Obama's campaign is that he is the one who can get us all past views like those of Rev. Wright and the corresponding distortions of the right. But, again, what do his actions say? Has there been any evidence that in his 20 year association with Trinity, that Obama made any effort whatsoever to change the attitudes? Has anyone from the congregation come forward to say "I used to speak with Sen. Obama about the nature of Rev. Wright's sermons, and we both thought they were wrong, divisive, distorted"? Has Rev. Wright said that Obama used to speak to him about his rhetoric?

On the contrary, this is what Rev. Wright said about Obama's repudiation:

"...he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician...He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. Those are two different worlds. I do what I do. He does what politicians do. So that what happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the sound bytes, he responded as a politician."

How do we interpret all of that? How does a politician respond? To put it as kindly as possible, a politician "massages" the truth for his/her benefit. Hillary has done it. Other politicians have done it. And Obama did it in Philadelphia. Clearly, Obama did not and does not consider Wright's views "wrong, divisive, and distorted" in the absolute way he stated in his speech. So, where does that leave us? We can continue to argue as to whether Rev. Wright's views are accurate or horrific. But in doing so we have to remember that, to a greater or lesser degree, these views are Sen. Obama's as well. And as such, they are certainly fair game for the American people to consider when choosing their president.

Finally, my point is not to argue whether Black Liberation Theology is right or wrong, good or bad, valid or invalid. This may be a good discussion/argument to have. And if Obama is the nominee, it probably IS the discussion we will have. You can rant against Joan for addressing this issue in Salon, but it is out there and to not address it is burying your head in the sand.

Some here believe that raising America's consciousness about these issues is worth losing the general election. Others think that this election is too important to lose.

You can't handle harsh reality.

Joan, you are wrong on this post of yours. I think this letter below will explain.

Recently, Lanny Davis, another Clinton supporter, wrote a very tough Rev. Wright piece in the WSJ. He is a serious flame thrower and the piece was in that vein, sort of a less temperate version of your article.

He heard from an old friend, Jeh Johnson, a lawyer in NY.

I urge you to read this letter and perhaps you will begin to understand how your liberal hand wringing is so utterly silly. I will post it in the next letter, as it seems to be too many words.

----------------------

Message from Jeh Johnson:

Lanny-

I write this for myself, and not as a representative of Barack Obama or his campaign. I was prompted to write you when I saw your question “Why did he stay a member of that congregation?”

I think much of the debate over Rev. Wright and his statements overlooks the unique role of the black church in the black community. I’ve never been to Trinity in Chicago, but I’ve been to many churches like Trinity. Historically, the black church is the one place for blacks free of any white influence, something blacks can call all their own. It’s the fraternity, the funeral director, the marriage counselor, the lawyer, the tax preparer, the therapist, the AA anonymous. Black churches such as Trinity are often the center of the black community, the one place where people of different economic classes come together to see each other, worship God, engage in community service and outreach, and it is about much more than the pastor.

I am not biracial and I did not grow up in Hawaii. I did grow up in an overwhelmingly white community, and was constantly plagued by my minority status. I had no place to turn to find my own identity. My parents then had the wisdom and good sense to send me to Dr. King’s alma mater, Morehouse College in southwest Atlanta, the only all-male black college left in the country, and that four-year experience basically made me who I am today.

While there, I started attending the Baptist church across the street (though I am an Episcopalian). It was a real, down-home black church. My very first reaction to it was shock and slight amusement. The pastor was often over the top in his sermons, and he drove a Mercedes despite his poor congregation. I would listen to the good Rev. and often disagreed with much of his overheated rhetoric, but I kept going back to this church.

Why did I do that? For the first time in my life I felt like a full participant in the black experience, with no conditions. No one questioned who I was, where I came from, what I had done before to prove my blackness. There was just an elderly lady with a big smile at the door who handed me a program and said “God bless you son.”

While there I witnessed poor and uneducated black people shake off misery, poverty, addiction, alcoholism, death, sickness, relatives in jail and all the other stuff that makes life challenging in the big city. Women in white uniforms walked the aisle to catch people as they passed out from it all. During the service, a deacon or someone else would describe all the different church-related activities for outreach, helping someone who had lost a job, or visiting the sick and shut-in who could not make it to church.

On the way out, someone else would say “come back again and see us young man” though they didn’t know me at all. By attending that church, I felt part of the community around me, and it was quite uplifting on Sunday after I went back to the books. Barack has never explained it this way, but I suspect given the way he was raised he felt some of the same things when he first started attending Trinity, and why he found a home there.

In the course of my own life, I have encountered many very militant and angry elements of the black community, much of them as formative for me as the large corporate law firm in which I am now a partner, the Clinton Administration, or growing up in Wappingers Falls, New York. But, it would be an act of sheer hypocrisy for me to try to renounce any of this. For example, at Morehouse many educated teachers and invited speakers blasted the white man, black men who acted like the white man, and condemned our whole society as fatally racist.

When I graduated in 1979, Louis Farrakhan was our baccalaureate speaker and Joshua Nkomo, leader of the armed struggle to liberate Zimbabwe, was our commencement speaker. With Coretta Scott King sitting near the front row, I vividly recall Nkomo preaching “the only thing the white man understands is the barrel of a gun.” I certainly didn’t agree with that then, and I don’t now. But I love Morehouse and would rather quit all involvement in public affairs before I had to sever my ties of support to the school. Morehouse is part of what makes me a proud African-American.

A good friend to me from my parent’s generation, a retired ivy-league professor who is like an uncle to me, was branded a dangerous radical and subversive by our government in the 1960s. J. Edgar Hoover wiretapped his conversations with Dr. King. But, if someone combed his books and found something he wrote with which I disagreed, I’d rather disassociate myself from my right arm than publicly renounce this man.

The reality is this: Those of us who participate in both the white and African-American experiences will very likely have a Jeremiah Wright in our lives - it could be our teacher, our uncle, our brother, our father, or our pastor. It is simply part of the American experience.

But, here I am, a patriot who - I can honestly say - harbors no “anger” or racial animosity toward anybody, including my white law partners, my white neighbors, or my white family members. I can’t guarantee much about anything in life, but I can guarantee, from what I know about Barack Obama, that he feels the same in his heart and soul.

- E-mail from Jeh Johnson, a lawyer and Obama supporter, sent to Lanny Davis