Why Obama Has to Distance Himself...

In February, after a sweep of several states, the Democratic nomination was Barack Obama's to lose. He had a message of hope, of change, of potential. Then, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright train wreck took place.

Rev. Wright is a fiery preacher, there's no doubt about that. He becomes passionate, energetic, and often boisterous. His 24-hour YouTube looped news coverage sparked controversy that Obama's campaign did not need.

However filtered, chopped up, and taken out of context, Rev. Wright's sound bites stung at middle America, at our government, and at the nation as a whole. In one fell swoop, Obama's campaign had been sucker punched, and now they were gasping for air.

Obama reacted, as politicians often do, with a muted response, focusing on the hope that helped to put him in his current position. And it worked, kind of. The talking heads on cable news applauded Obama's Philadelphia speech as moving, inspiring, and healing.

Now, only a week away from key primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, Rev. Wright decides to speak out to the media. He appeared on one television program and gave a nationally televised speech in the nation's capital, where he explained that, "This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright. It has nothing to do with Senator Obama. It is an attack on the black church launched by people who know nothing about the African-American religious tradition."

He then went on to perpetuate the myth that the US Government created the AIDS virus to eliminate the African-American race and that hard drugs were brought into the urban cities by government agencies in an attempt to trap and imprison African-Americans.

Today, Barack Obama separated himself further from Rev. Wright. "The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago," Obama said of the man who married him.

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia explaining that he's done enormous good. ... But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS. ... There are no excuses. They offended me. They rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced," concluded Obama.

I am not a news reporter, but we should understand the seriousness of the situation before we attempt to dissect, point fingers, and lay blame.

Many people asked why Obama had not more harshly separated himself from Rev. Wright initially. Barack Obama was literally in a no-win situation. Although on the fringe, Rev. Wright is an important figure in African-American Christianity. For Obama to sharply denounce Wright would potentially devastate Obama's potential to get the support he needs from the African-American demographic in upcoming primaries. On the other hand, to do nothing rings of cowardice or complicity, two attributes nobody wants in a President.

Here is my take on why Obama finally chose to strongly separate himself:
1) The fringe that Wright represents is small even in the African-American community. The impact is measurably small among the demographic.
2) The mistrust that has been inflated within white middle-American voters is not going to help Obama win states like Kentucky, Nebraska, and West Virginia.
3) Jeremiah Wright is not as concerned about the "Black Church" as he says he is. He is concerned about Jeremiah Wright. If he was the activist he portrays, he would be doing EVERYTHING he could to HELP Barack Obama secure the nomination. Instead, he is behaving as if he is anti-Obama, actually hurting the Senator's chances, and helping Senator Clinton. Instead, Rev. Wright is proud and is sucking up as much limelight as he can, much to the demise of the hopeful people who believed that we could finally be a country where social and political civil rights have been actualized. Alas, because of Rev. Wright's antics, we may never see a "non-white" president in our lifetimes.
4) Finally, Barack Obama had to strongly distance himself from Rev. Wright to show that he is not the passive, unassertive, idealist that many have made him out to be. He needs now to find a way to give his campaign a huge PR booster shot and somehow turn this fiasco into evidence of his courage, strength, and determination to protect and defend the USA.