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17 Mar 2008 10:07 am

"He's Toast"

Paul Burka:

I thought that Obama was exempt from racial reactions because he was the Tiger Woods of politics. People looked at him and saw him not as someone who is black, but as someone who transcended race because of his unique skills and accomplishments. Not any more. He just triple bogeyed the presidency. He's done. He was done the day he first heard Wright's outbursts and didn't resign from the congregation. There is no way that the superdelegates will send him out as the Democratic nominee now. The truth is, Obama did fine until the Clinton campaign began to attack him, and then he showed that he just wasn't up to it. Better we find out now than later.

I really think this is off-base, but since some want to and others fear to believe it, it's worth airing. Why do I think it's off-base? Because I think that the kind of politics that ensures that someone's pastor's rhetoric trumps every other issue in a campaign is waning. Because many Americans understand that the country's problems are really too deep for this kind of thing to be dispositive. Because Obama's long record is transparently not in any way equatable with Jeremiah Wright's worst moments on YouTube. And because of what David Kuo says here.

I have one other thought, which is that at some point Obama and Wright should maybe sit down together and thrash out what they believe in common and what they don't. Give them a platform and let them talk. They're both eloquent and could even do us a service in showing how an engaged, adult Christian can interact with a spiritual pastor with whom he doesn't always share perspective or politics. In general, I think the best way to confront and defeat Morris-Rove politics is transparency. The best way to defuse fears is by exposing and airing the root of them.

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