Obama: Shed Wright

He's heavy, and he's not Barack Obama's brother, in any sense of the word. In fact, he's not even a pastor Obama can turn to.

It's obvious.... Obama and Wright are different kinds of men. Wright is unforgiving and bitter, looking for his 15 minutes of fame.... and he doesn't care if he tramples the hopes of the black community, and much of the nation, under his scrabbling feet.

Obama has tried mightily to spare Wright's legacy as the minister of a church that accomplished many good works.... to explain and even justify the reckless rants of the angry pastor he sees as a "crazy Uncle." He's turned the other cheek and shown Wright the forbearance of the true Christian that Wright only claims to be.

Wright claims a lot of things, including that he represents all black churches, and an attack on him is "an attack on the black church."

This statement gives us the lens by which to bring into focus Wright's megalomania. The reality of course is that African American churches are diverse. Yet Wright insists on being seen as something he's not: "an archetypal representative of the African American church. In fact, he represents one twig of one branch of a very large tree."

So explains Eugene Robinson today in "Where Wright Goes Wrong" (WaPo) .... "Historically and theologically, [Wright] was inflating his importance in the pride-goeth-before-the-fall kind of way. Politically, by surfacing now, he was throwing Barack Obama under the bus."

With so much at stake for the nation, Robinson sadly advises Obama, ".... it's time to return the favor."