Although it was just announced that Obama had given a second press conference in which he denounced his former pastor, I think it is too little, too late. Basically, Obama has thrown his pastor under the bus, like his white grandmother, and so his pastor began his magical mystery tour to get even - playing politics, in other words. Now that Obama has taken his rejection a step further for politically expedient reasons, there will be more acting out by Rev. Wright, who will justifiably feel betrayed by his former friend. This is a classic case of how politics wins out over personal relationships when those relationships are inconvenient or, in this case, destructive. Still, I think Wright is an albatross that Obama can not remove permanently because his sudden anger has more to do with political expediency than his true values. If Wright's values were the real issue, Obama would have severed his ties with Wright 20 years ago. So, bottom line, IMHO, Wright will be hanging around Obama's neck (along with Ayers, Rezko, Michelle, God knows who else, and of course, let's not forget some very bitter arugula) when he concedes defeat to Sen. McCain in November.

If the rants of the past are any indication, Wright will continue to be a big distraction and contradiction to Obama's message. He appears to not really care if his words and actions doom Obama's candidacy. Wright will counter Obama's words of denouncement today, no doubt. Wright alluded to praying with Obama in the basement - big revelation - He thinks Obama is trying to minimize/hide his relationship with him, yet use him when needed. Wright is an angry, vindicative man, who will reve up his rants and make clearer attacks against Obama himself. Obama has made a huge mistake in judgement over the years associating himself with Wright, and this relationship may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Since Obama has little experience and is running on judgment, this is an especially paralyzing development.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, they've already invested in Barack Obama without digging deeper than his flowery rhetoric, and now all those skeletons in his closet are being put on display for the world to see that his rhetoric doesn't match his record. Rev. Wright, while I do respect him as a man of God, has made comments that are absolutely fair game for this election cycle, whether by Hillary or Sen. McCain. His comments, and Sen. Obama's continued association with him over the course of 20 years, demonstrate that Sen. Obama doesn't have the market cornered on superior judgement as he has claimed, and which is his only rationale for his meteoric rise to the top of the Democrat ticket. I believe he will be nominated by the Democrats, to their chagrin come November, since he will be playing in the big leagues come November, and will be sent back down to the minors after that.

Barack Obama has done now what he ought have done six weeks ago. Unhappily for him, he has done it because he was cornered by Reverend Wright and forced to repudiate his former mentor. Even more unhappily, the repudiation also undercuts his former statement that he can "no more disown Reverend Wright than disown the black community." So, now that has disowned Reverend Wright, has he disowned the black community. Well, no, of course he isn't doing that. So, what is then going on here? Is he twisting slowly in the wind of his own rhetoric? What DOES he believe? Frankly, I'm not sure he knows what he believes. I'm left with the impression -- confirmed, too, by all that I've heard from Mr. Obama before today -- that his life is an intellectual search for who he is and what he is: and while that is quite OK, it's not exactly where American Presidents need reside. We voters, beset with practical challenges every hour, may admire philosophers pondering their relation to life in an academic ivory tower: but from our elected officials, we want commitment and we want action and we want it all the time. Mr. Obama clearly has entered the wrong profession. (I do not even entertain all of the baggage, leftist and radical, that he continues to carry around with him like an overstuffed Book Bag, none a whit of which he has repudiated.....)

'nuff said. Let Hillary Clinton be nominated as she should be and let the race between her and John McCain begin -- as Bill Clinton so aptly said, "two candidates who both love America."