I feel kind of bad that Obama has had to deal with the black issue. A lot of us saw him as a regular guy until the situation with Wright came up. I listened to a couple of his speeches and he seemed pretty extreme to me. Teaching hate and racism is what I was hearing and that is never a good idea.

I’m still disappointed with Obama for choosing someone like Wright as his “spiritual advisor”–doesn’t show much sense. But, I also somewhat sympathize with him for constantly having to attempt to distance himself from Wright’s remarks. To be honest, Wright is not that unusual; in my time I’ve heard plenty of white “hellfire” ministers rant and rave, tout conspiracy theories, and generally blame whatever has gone wrong on the sins of the country and the people. (And, as for Wright, as a young man, he did voluntarily leave university to serve his country in the military, which is more than you can say for both Obama and Clinton.)

McCain is looking better all the time. By rights, the Democrats should win this one–two-time Republican president with low ratings, unpopular war, bad economy, etc. But once again, the Democratic Party is trying hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, wanting to present the voters either with, on one hand, a family that wants desperately to move back into the White House and, on the other, a “black” candidate who has been trying too hard to turn himself into what he really is not–an American black. At this point, drafting Gore just might be the party’s only chance.