Obama Cuts the Ties of Controversy with Wright

Wright's inflammatory remarks could be a turning point in the presidential election.

Sen. Barack Obama couldn't afford to wait any longer. The shockingly timed betrayal by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright last week forced him to disown his longtime pastor. And not just because of his more incendiary sermons. Obama in the past has disagreed with but defended his pastor's right to his more radical views, including an assertion that America's own actions invited the attacks of 9/11.

The inevitable endgame came when Wright suggested in a confrontational appearance at the National Press Club that Obama, the man whose wedding he presided over and whose daughters he baptized, would say anything to get elected. The proud, aging activist had been stung by Obama's increasing distance and remained a believer that without national penance nothing can be left behind, not the wounds of slavery or the unfulfilled promise of the civil rights movement. Obama has predicated his campaign on a forward-looking movement. And Wright's rearview rhetoric has increasingly flown in the face of Obama's historic ascent. "His comments were not only divisive and destructive but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate," said Obama.

The fallout has already begun. John McCain has used the reverend's words against Obama, and Hillary Clinton said that she would not have stayed in Wright's church. "I am saddened that this has created some very big challenges for the Obama campaign," says Wright's friend, Morehouse College's Walter Earl Fluker. Wright last week ensured that he will remain part of that challenge.

But Obama continues to rack up superdelegate endorsements. Whether Wright's rancorous 15 minutes of fame will contaminate Obama's enormous appeal is up to the American voters. In his March speech, Obama planted tender seedlings of promise for a more honest national conversation about race—no matter where his campaign ends. Whether those seedlings have been crushed under the boot of a pastor's pride is a question many are asking.