Obama's Double Standard on Reverend Wright

And in comparing his unwillingness to abandon his minister, just as he said he would not have abandoned his own white grandmother, Obama ignored the difference between breaking with a relative whose home you occupied as a child and distancing yourself from a religious mentor whom you selected as an adult. You don't choose your grandmother, but you do choose your pastor and your church.

In his speech, Obama finally rejected his pastor's radical views and stated that Wright's incendiary language has the potential to "not only widen the racial divide but...it denigrated both the greatness and goodness of our nation." Alas, he also admitted what he previously had denied, to wit, that he was present when Pastor Wright made some of these outrageous comments. What would have happened to any other presidential candidate who might have admitted such an inconsistency?

Much of Obama's speech covering 400 years of race relations in America was remarkable and thoughtful. It served to reassure many white voters that they had been right in not tuning him out the way they had tuned out other black candidates. It would have been more reassuring, though, if the speech had not come in the context of damage control, for it left the impression that Obama was broadening the subject to all race relations to deflect questions about his two-decade involvement with a radical anti-American.

Nevertheless, Obama's speech clearly affected many Americans who seek to advance the stultified dialogue on race relations. It helped us learn from our history and understand the experience of others. Senator Obama's formidable rhetorical talents and manifest intellectual skills should enable him to address other difficult subjects in what is clearly a brilliant future in public life.