Wright: U.S. Government Created AIDS????

Whoa! How'd I miss that one? I tuned in late and was in and out of the room...but whew! I can't believe I missed that! How can we be sure people didn't get it from alien probes?

In a way, Wright may have made this easier on Obama in the long run. By going full-bore wacko--Farrakhan: good; AIDS: government plot--it's easy for Obama to completely repudiate the guy, despite whatever affection he may have for him qua preacher.

I think what Obama ought to point out, though, is that, in relationships of the kind that we have with people like preachers and teachers and so forth, we only know one or two aspects of people. It's not that uncommon to find out that someone who seems sane and interesting and good from one angle can turn out to be a loon when you get a more complete perspective on them. Their institutional face can be misleading.

It's too bad, though, that Wright mixed in this nuttiness with some truths that are rarely asserted: e.g. that the U.S. has committed terrorist acts (which is more-or-less beyond reasonable dispute), and that the 9/11 attacks may very well have been in response to U.S. policies (though the issue of what motivated OBL et. al. is still rather unclear). Unpleasant as those truths are, they're still truths. You don't have to be part of the blame America crowd to acknowledge them, though that's what the right seems to want us all to believe.