I think that Victor Davis Hanson has diagnosed the situation spot on, and it's good news for Republicans, because it means that a) Obama is almost a lock on the nomination and b) there's no way he can win the general election. Particularly since Hillary! will do everything she can to prevent it, as long as her fingerprints aren't on it.
...privately they acknowledge:
--that their candidate made a devil's bargain with a racist to create an authentic black persona in order to jump start a political career in Chicago;
--that their candidate was so inured to de rigueur anti-American speech from his church days, black-liberationist friends, assorted reverends, and former radicals like Ayers, that he never really thought things that Wright said were all that big a deal -- hence his deer-in-the-headlights approach to the initial scandal and serial hedging. After all, in Obama's adopted world, his church really isn't "particularly controversial;"
--that their Obama messiah is hardly a new politician, but instead a very gifted and charismatic actor, who, in skillful fashion, can talk about utopian politics but then backstep, hedge, and get away with more than anyone since Bill Clinton in his prime in 1992 (one of the reasons that those two dislike each other so is that they are so much alike) -- and that is not such a bad thing after all.
Yes, I can easily imagine letting such talk pass, while not necessarily agreeing with it, accepting it as well within reasonable discourse. I remember doing it a lot in college.
But I grew up.
Still no time to debate (not that you missed me) but I did spot the following alternative explanation for Obama relationship with his church and his pastor:
Why'd Obama Join Trinity in the First Place?
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/04/29/why-d-obama-join-trinity-in-the-first-place.aspx
Rand, I don't expect you (or the majority of the people who comment on this blog) to agree with this alternative explanation but it would be interesting to read what you and/or this blog's regular contributors think of it.
I had to share this:
http://groups.google.com/group/triangle.general/browse_thread/thread/2dccf8a497b3d1f9
'We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an election.
On one side, you have a lawyer who is married to a lawyer, and a lawyer who is married to a lawyer.
On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a blonde with a huge chest who owns a beer distributorship.
Is there a contest here?'
C'mon. The whole point of joining that church was to show that despite having a white, over-educated, hippie-commie mommy, Barry O from Hawaii and Harvard was a 100% "authentic" black brother. ( I went to the U of C back in the Carter era, and I can see why the guy would want to, and did, fit right into the both the pseudo-intellectuals of Hyde Park and to the post-Daley/Harold Washington Chicago machine politics.)
from Robert's linked Article:
Trinity was the place where, despite the potential pitfalls--and he must have noticed them early on--Obama felt most true to himself.
Sure, sounds plausible to me. It fits with the evidence of close association too. I don't think that this reasoning precludes the theories that Barack gained clout and local political connections with the AfricanAm. community by joining.
Of course, this makes it difficult for BHO to win the general election -- this being another piece of evidence of a pattern of "progressive" anti-Americanism. The country isn't bitter, it doesn't damn America, and it won't vote (in the majority) for a candidate that has that philosophy.