I have to admit I'm beginning to enjoy sitting on the sidelines of the Presidential race.  My horse has effectively called it quits, and so I'm pretty much sitting back and watching the others duke it out.  It's been particularly interesting to watch the Rev. Wright controversy unfold, and gage the reactions of both sides.  And to be honest, I'm probably somewhere in the middle on this one... not knowing exactly where I stand.

On the one hand, you have a minister who Obama clearly viewed as a spiritual leader and confidant who has said some awful things about our country.  He's also said some perfectly awful things about a lot of Americans that is not true.  That's fairly damming.  Then again, when Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy (as he has many other Presidential candidates), nobody really batted an eye.  And this is someone who has said that AIDS is God's punishment against homosexuals, and suggested that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment against the sin of New Orleans... essentially that those residents deserved what they got.  Clearly then, Obama is in the good company of Presidential candidates who have had asinine spiritual endorsements and confidants.  Maybe he's a viable presidential candidate after all.  And don't even get me started on Jerry Falwell.

Of course, the thing that many people on the right don't want to come to grips with is that there is a large segment of the black population that believes what Wright says, just like there is a large segment of the population who actually believe the garbage that Robertson and Falwell have spewed.  How do you deal with these people?  Is it possible to change their minds (no matter how gradually), or is the only solution to push them to the corners and let them believe their hateful and ignorant views in isolation?  That is the dilemma that is brought to the forefront in this controversy, and the question that Obama had to answer.

In that, I think Obama pretty made the best speech possible, and hit it as much out of the park as he could.  He acknowledged the realities of the black community, while at the same time underscoring how he doesn't believe in those ideas.  He is essentially placing himself in the role as the middleman.  By doing this, he is stating very clearly that isolating those groups is not an option.  Unfortunately at the same time he is trying to unite black and white America together, he is trying to pit Americans against immigrants and foreigners:

This time we need to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you will take your job, it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This was the most unfortunate gambit in the entire speech.  It's a classic move though.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.  Of course, the voters will decide whether they agree with him.