As a 45 year old white woman, I've been aching for these words to come out of someone's mouth. I cannot bear to watch the news and the "gravity" they place on this stupid issue. As if somehow it says Obama is a closet black panther and African Americans are poised to take over the USA.

Rev Wright was a nationally respected minister, by both white and black clergy. His "radical" views were a small part of what he was about and it's entirely conceivable they never came up in Obamas presence. And even if they did? Prior to Monday, what exactly did he say that was so controversial? That the gov't infected blacks with AIDs? That's about it. All of his other statements were, in context, in line with the tenants of Christianity. Naive, perhaps, in terms of foreign policy, but not without some truth. He never advocated harming any other human being, just condemned policies that did.

Let's look at McCain's preacher friends, on the other hand. Advocating war. Advocating dislocating millions of human beings to fufill some obsure biblical passage of a return of Israel, only so they can have their rapture while the majority of their fellow unsaved Americans endure a tortuous death. Yikes. Who associates with scary, radical people???

What about the 51 Americans killed in Iraq this month? The Iraqi wedding party, wiped out. The hungry masses. The struggling poor in this country.

You are absolutely right. Whities are afraid of you. It's so pathetic.

Get rid of it.

I stand in awe before this immortal prose. Who would expect Hawaii to house such a massive literary intellect?

I feel my personal IQ has increased by 30% after reading this, my complexion is clearer, and my teeth are whiter.

You rock, MacDaffy!

Let me start by saying that I disagree that Obama should be judged by what Rev Wright is saying, or by the fact that he did not leave his church due to past Wright statements.

While I find this media tempest in a teapot appalling, I disagree that it's racist (except by a small minority of over-reactors). Apparently this Table Talk member has not been following politics very long, or he'd know that this type of concern is not new. John F Kennedy's Catholicism was an issue in his presidential campaign because some voters wanted to hold him accountable for Catholic doctrine and were convinced that the Pope would set his presidential agenda. Former British PM Tony Blair faced a firestorm because his wife Cherie and he were involved with a New Age lifestyle guru that a media storm claimed unduly influenced his decisions.

Tying Wright to Obama and spending endless television hours discussing the issue is stupid, annoying, and takes attention away from the real issues. But I contend that the underlying cause is much more likely to be the voracious 24-hour cable news cycle that needs to be filled than racism.

You've just chosen a post from a campaign thread wherein a passionate Obama supporter claims that anyone who disagrees with his premise ("Anyone who continues to judge Barack Obama in the reflected light of Reverend Jeremiah Wright is guilty of racism.") is a racist.

I disagree with the poster and I am no racist.

This is NOT post of the week material. Come on, Salon! Surely out of the thousands and thousands of weekly posts on Table Talk, you can do better than this.

Obama likes to say he's got this superior judgment. It's practically his only claim to superiority. Well I'm not impressed with his judgment at all, and Rev Wright is part of that. This episode also reflects poorly on his integrity - he stuck up for the Rev as long as it was someone else's ox being gored, but he turned on him as soon as the Rev said something negative about Obama.

If Obama were as smart and his judgment as superior as he claims, he would have distanced himself from Wright long ago. Or he would not have made the stand that he could no more renounce him than he could his grandmother or the AA community. He should have done one or the other, because he can't have it both ways.

Does that make me a racist? No, it does not. No matter what McDaffy says.

It's unfortunate that Obama supporters like to throw the racist charge around so blithely. It cheapens charges of real racism and it does not reflect well on them or their candidate.

Obama has divorced himself from Rev Wright because of his outrageous words. This is a good thing. You can't think it's a good thing and then turn around and call someone else racist for also finding the Rev's words and actions outrageous.

The irony to me is that the reverand is angry and getting payback precisely because Barack distanced himself by not having him on his campaign or introduce him when he announced his candidacy.

The fact that Barack had shown this judgment has been completely lost in the conversation.

Those primary voters in Indiana or North Carolina who choose to vote against Mr. Obama over the current regurgitations of the Rev. Wright, would have found another excuse for voting against Obama because their vote was racially motivated from the start. The Reverend Wright is just now the most convenient excuse. I agree thoroughly with the author of this article that to tie ones vote for or against Obama to the rantings of Reverend Wright is out and out racism of the first order.

Who among us would make a decision about who to keep or eject among our friends based on what their pastor said at a Sunday sermon? And yet if a black preacher says something controversial, we're immediately supposed to condemn the whole congregation as if they were all black sheep, and just as dumb, without a mind of their own?

I was raised a Catholic and over the years disagreed in silence with almost everything our priests and pastors preached from the pulpit up to my 20th year. At which time at the University of Notre Dame I let my feet do the voting and I walked out of the Catholic Church and never looked back. I still get tagged with some of the crap they used to preach, but I didn't buy it then and don't now....so vote against or for me for that? I doubt that the good voters of my alma mater's state Indiana, or the good voters of North Carolina are any dumber or smarter than I was or am. The Rev. Wright will matter little to them when they go to vote.

In the final analysis, I find it disgusting that Hillary and Bill have so desperately played this race card as they struggle to stay in the race. Even their subtle racist selection of the theme from Rocky to kick off their Pennsylvania primary race was less disgusting than their playing the Rev. Wright card wherever they can.

After all didn't Rocky go up against Black fighters much better than he in all of his bogus matches? Was that the real message that Hillary, raised in an all white suburb and educated in all white schools, wanted to get across to the white racist leaning voters of Pennsylvania.....at least those who would listen and vote like the white sheep that they are.

John H. Higgins cazador@nnex.net