While I think this point is right in general, I think it misses an important nuance (and one which dovetails with the thrust of Obama’s speech) which is that race is part of the reason why Wright comes across as being so radical, so violently disconnected from the norm. For white Americans who have spent most of their lives in all-white or mostly-white communities, Wright probably comes across as terrifyingly foreign. Not only does he very likely seem like a relic of an uncomfortable past, but there’s probably very little sens of a contemporary context in which to anchor him. I’ve read lots of posts in various online fora who declare that it would be unacceptable for Clinton or McCain to belong to a KKK-run church, and that Trinity is no different. It seems to me, as an urban dweller in a racially-mixed neighborhood (same as yours, in fact) that those sorts of statements reflect a pretty profound ignorance about the state of race relations in urban settings, and about the black community in general. I don’t think it’s a malicious ignorance, but it does make Wright a lot harder to contextualize, and it makes Obama;’s refusal to repudiate him very difficult to understand, not only for those posters spouting crude Klan analogies but for commentators who simply can’t get past the idea that Obama should have left Trinity,

Didn’t Obama himself do a bit of that sliming? At various points he has compared Rev. Wright to his “crazy old uncle” and his statements as “profoundly wrong and divisive”?

I am wondering what type of “context” we should view Rev. Wright’s comments regarding, say, HIV/AIDS. Is there a way to “unedit” and contextualize the stated belief that HIV/AIDS was created as a tool of genocide against non-whites? Perhaps you would be so kind as to do so in a way that makes the raving conspiracy theorizing a big more understandable/palatable?

My bigger problem with the whole Wright/Obama kerfuffle is that, while I don’t believe for a minute that Obama shares these incendiary views, the unity and new politics and reconcilliation the Obama campaign is based on doesn’t seem to have any basis in Obama actually reconcilling anyone in real life, for example, his pastor. It would have taken courage for him to go to his pastor, even in private, and say “you know Reverend, what you said today was out of line, counterproductive, and here’s why.” Is there really any indication that he has done such a thing, put himself out on a limb like that? To put it another way, “Yes We Can” needs to begin at home, and I remain skeptical that Obama can unify the country to avoid these “distractions” if he couldn’t tend his own little garden back in Chicago for 20 odd years.

Look at how he reacted to the controversy. First he puts out a blanket statement stating that he had never personally heard any of the ‘controversial statements’, (this was made inoperative by his admission yesterday that he had) then he does an interview last Friday, and then, only then is he compelled to give “The Speech.” This has played out just like any campaign tries to tamp down any run of the mill scandal involving any run of the mill candidate. The danger for Obama is not that he will be viewed as some radical bomb-thrower, it is that he will be viewed as just another scheming, cynical pol.

The image that is generating the most damage for Obama is that of Wright as an “anti-American” and left-wing radical. His race is a significant factor in making this into a much larger firestorm than it would otherwise be–I’ll agree that much. But I don’t think that is what is driving most of the elite conservative commentary against Obama over the last week.

Wright has worked to build up the social capital of his flock, but this defense won’t matter to those who are primarily put off by his offenses against Americanism. The truly unforgiveable sin he committed was to suggest that U.S. policies abroad are anything but benevolent and altruistic; the details, some of which were ridiculous, some irrelevant, were almost beside the point. He suggested that America, and here he is really talking about the government, could err.

Probably my own greatest problem with any of the sermons was the idea that Christ was black. According to anything that Christians would regard as authoritative, that’s simply not true and it makes a mockery of the prophecies foretelling the coming of the Messiah.

As for Obama supporters using accusations of racism, where should I start? There was the episode where Clinton supposedly “insulted” MLK by stating a matter of fact, or when Bill Clinton was talking about Obama’s Iraq record as a “fairy tale” and this was spun into a denigration of Obama because of his race, or most recently the utterly over-the-top Patterson article that said that the “3 a.m.” ad reminded him of Birth of a Nation. I’m sure there are more, but those come to mind right away.

“The weird disconnect between Rev. Wright’s bomb-throwing and Obama’s “let us reason together” was jarring.”

It was, and I probably should have said more about this. But it doesn’t surprise me that the “meta-candidate,” as I have sometimes dubbed Obama, engaged in this grand sweep of history analysis to address a campaign controversy (and the commentary within the speech about the commentary on his campaign was perfect Obama meta-analysis). It comes across as another example of Obama’s rhetoric in which his campaign forms a new link in the great chain of progressive struggle. This was the “yes, we can” speech: instead of getting rid of “old politics,” he sets up an elaborate story about how to get rid of the “old race relations.” The problem is that his new model for that is just as incredible as the “new politics” he supposedly offers.

In my state, 60 percent of black students attend schools that are at least 90-percent black. From what I can see, the main reason for this is the great reluctance of nonblack parents to send their kids to schools with too many black students, which they assume are beset by all the problems associated with poorly run public schools.

What do you believe Derbyshire meant, in suggesting that “nonblack parents” (including himself) will avoid sending their kids to a school with “too many black students” because such a school can be assumed to have “all the problems associated with poorly run public schools”? If that’s the type of comment Sullivan was referencing, I don’t think his reaction is unfair.

Race is pretty darn close to politics in the brain of the movement conservative, though. You can debate the precise motivations and implementation of the Southern Strategy, but Lee Atwater was quite up front about the fact that he was putting a new gloss on the George Wallace approach to politics.

Maybe it’s been going on and I’ve been blind to it, but I disagree that “trot[ing] out accusations of racism” has been a common tactic from Obama supporters. I haven’t really seen that.

Also, “Let’s Not Get Carried Away” would be a good name for a blog dedicated to critiquing Andrew Sullivan.

Indeed, one of Sullivan’s readers described this dynamic exactly:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/03/the-right-and-o.html

It was actually a pretty good speech, but not the one that Obama needed to give for electoral reasons. Rather than a examination of the race in America question as seen from 30,000 feet, the controversy that Obama needed to put to rest was his relationship with his pastor, and what that tells us about his judgement. The weird disconnect between Rev. Wright’s bomb-throwing and Obama’s “let us reason together” was jarring.

Meanwhile, the reaction in Middle America generally will often be similar to the one this reader reported: mockery and disbelief.

There seems to be a link missing – which reader, Daniel?