If you harbor a notion that Obama's Wright controversy will die down soon, I want you to gird your loins for at least another week and a half of news cycles.
Months ago, the Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University decided to honor Jeremiah Wright with its Black Church Leader Award in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's (life, legacy, and) death. Weekend after next, there will be Fora, Summits, Panel Discussions, Dinners, and Presentations in the city of Fort Worth, Texas. All of them will feature Dr. Wright as a primary participant. TCU has moved all of the events off campus, due to "security issues", but to their credit, they are forging ahead with the planned festivities.
I doubt that the original plans called for a media riot, but one's sure to happen now.
This will be Wright's chance to put his own story forward, in his own words; no supporting player in a celebrity story since Kato Kaelin has gotten a shot at such an audience. There are sure to be new video loops on all the bobbleshows.
I have tremendous faith in Barack Obama's ability to navigate the pathological maze of what passes for public discourse in America today. Jeremiah Wright? Not so much. At the end of March, we will have a very public test of Obama's judgement of people.
It is unprecedented for so much of a political candidate's future to ride on the performance of someone else, but here we are. It is, of course, totally unfair, and completely silly to invest so much importance in words of the candidate's preacher. We haven't done that to anyone but Obama. Still, he has taken the bet with eyes open. He trusts Wright not to screw this up.
I am not one to write doleful, doom-filled diaries, and I hope that this one doesn't come off that way. Yes, it's depressing that we'll have to put up with this crap for another eternity, and yes, it's nervous-making that so much will be riding on Wright's performance under the kleig-hammers, but it's just reality. That said, I'm pretty sure that I didn't recognize these hazards before Obama did. He has thought all this through, and staked his bet on Wright.
So far, I'm still putting my money wherever Obama puts his.