Barack's Chickens are Coming Home to Roost

Barack Obama made a deal with the devil when he joined the church of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He got a political career in exchange for turning a blind eye to the devil behind the pulpit.

When Wright's opinions became front page news in mid-March, Barack did his best to distance himself from the comments without distancing himself from the devil. He was keeping his part of the deal.

But with his re-emergence over the weekend, the devil went too far. Wright confirmed for the world that Barack had covered-up for him when he reiterated the comments that had supposedly been taken out of context. The funny thing about Reverend Wright is, the more context he's given, the worse he looks.

On Monday, Wright essentially called Barack a liar:

“Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls,” Wright said to the National Press Club.

Barack hadn't distanced himself for real, said Wright, he had just pretended to for political reasons. That was not something that Barack could allow to stand, nor was he inclined to. Barack's co-conspirator had turned on him. Barack's chickens were coming home to roost.

Now we know, despite both men's attempts to mislead us, that Pastor Wright believes what he believes. Barack was forced to do what he should have done in mid-March, but lacked the leadership skills to do - to stand up and say this guy is a nut, and I severe all ties. "I don't know how I missed it for all these years," he should have said back then, "but I did, I missed it, and I'm embarrassed."

Instead, he said:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

That paragraph reeked at the time - but the stench it leaves now is unshakable.

Watch out black community. What out grandma.

The reason yesterday's press conference can't put this story to rest is that in terms of Reverend Wright's comments, there was nothing new yesterday other than a political imperative. All of the comments that Barack listed as being problematic from Wright's weekend media foray were repeats, blasts from the past, his greatest hits.

So when Wright said Barack was being politically expedient in what he said about him before, he's been proven correct. The whole race speech in Philadelphia was a ruse, a distraction, to take America's eye off the ball.

The trick failed, and Barack was forced to do yesterday, for political reasons, what he didn't have the backbone to do 6 weeks ago.

"I actually did vote for Pastor Wright before I voted against him."

Here we go again.