At least former Weatherman and current Friend of Barack Bill Ayers has the restraint to shut up. FOB Jeremiah Wright would rather capitalize on media interest in his politician parishioner at the risk of derailing his campaign than keep quiet and help elect America's first African American president.

"Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls," Wright remarked at the National Press Club, implying, as reporter Byron York has observed, "that Obama agrees with him but can't say so publicly for political reasons. Put another way, if voters believe that Obama fundamentally rejects Wright's views, they might question Obama's judgment in remaining close to Wright for 20 years. But if voters believe that Obama secretly agrees with Wright but is putting on another face to win an election, then all is lost." That's what is so damaging about Wright's continued visibility. It not only reminds voters that Obama sat in this crackpot's pews for twenty years, but that his disavowals of Wright's views come at too convenient a time to be genuine. In other words, it's an honesty issue atop a judgment issue.

Obama, after all, talks in his memoirs of purchasing copies of the Nation of Islam newspaper The Final Call, reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X to profound effect, and immersing himself in a college crowd of "politically active black students" and other leftists who stayed up late discussing "neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy." Most relevant for this debate, Dreams from My Father sees the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's "Black Values System" as a "sensible, heartfelt list." In fact, it's a separatist document that becomes quite obviously racist when the word "white" is substituted for every use of the word "black." Does Obama still find that "sensible" as he is running for president?

One can move away from ideas. It is harder to move away from personal history. Jeremiah Wright married the Obamas. He baptized their kids. He preached to them every Sunday. His sermons even provided the title for one of Obama's books. The senator, even after this campaign had started, referred to Wright as a "sounding board."

Barack Obama is learning in this campaign that human beings are often judged by the company that they keep. Did Obama really think that the preacher who hijacked God's hour with tales of the government creating AIDS would somehow become the model of temperence once he declared for president? As his National Press Club appearance and other media availabilities demonstrate, it's all about Jeremiah Wright. Obama can demonstrate amazing loyalty in announcing to the world in Philadelphia last month that he could not "disown" Wright, but for the narcissistic reverend even that was not enough. So he pays Obama back by criticizing him, appearing with Nation of Islam body guards, standing by his idiotic 9/11 comments, and spouting conspiracy theories about AIDS and the U.S. government.

The minister who basked in his congregants attention every Sunday can't get enough of the nation's attention. He is an egomaniac who certainly lives by the maxim that any press is good press. If Jeremiah Wright couldn't show respect for God on Sunday, why did Obama think he would show respect for him every other day of the week?

If nothing else, his twenty year association with Wright and now his unsuccessful attempt to disassociate himself with the bad Pastor shows his lack of judgment and experience, be it political, life or otherwise.

Worse, he read and signed this which should automaticlly disqualify him:

"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community. . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.”

I haven't seen or heard of that, where did it come from?

It is one of the main tenets that the TUCC follows and is in the document that all pledged members read and sign upon acceptance.