Spin Cycle

This piece from the Washington Post captures pretty effectively just how damaging Jeremiah Wright likely was to Obama today -- he even had guards from Farrakhan's Nation of Islam providing security at the National Press Club!!!

"Speaking before an audience that included Marion Barry, Cornel West, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his view that the government created the AIDS virus to cause the genocide of racial minorities, stood by other past remarks ("God damn America") and held himself out as a spokesman for the black church in America."

Read it all. Wright seems insistent on arguing that his inflammatory quotes were part and parcel of his entire theology (which he pretends is not political), thus undercutting significantly Obama's central claim that he had never heard the really bad stuff. Maybe not, but surely he understood the underlying beliefs.

He also implies that Obama was insincere in his speech on Wright. This seems to be driven by a view that Wright's beliefs are more important than Obama's candidacy, and a decision to not allow Obama to disown the beliefs but not the man. It almost seems as if Wright wants to challenge Obama's legitimacy if Obama won't embrace Wright's theology.

The upshot: Obama is going to have to revisit the subject of Wright again. A week before two critical primaries, that seems pretty fatal. Most Americans -- black and white -- probably don't think liberation theology and the inner workings of Jeremiah Wright's mind are the most important thing on the nation's plate right now.