That is my opinion. And I'll tell you why (with some Mark Steyn thrown in for good measure). Long read ahoy!

I know there's been a big hubbub over the whole Reverend Jeremiah Wright story. Some say it's been done to death. Au contraire. I find it funny that Obama claimed that - after going to this man for 20 years - he had never heard such rhetoric. Never mind the fact that, just days before 'The Speech', he claimed that he had never heard such rhetoric...then, in 'The Speech', he admitted that he had heard such diatribes before. But hey, he's a politician, par for the course.

Let's consider how he spoke of his white grandmother, who - after his Kenyan father left his white mother - helped raise Obama with her husband. In 'The Speech', he essentially threw her under the bus.

Here's that bit of Steyn I mentioned. Bolds are my emphasis.

'I'm sure," said Barack Obama in that sonorous baritone that makes his drive-thru order for a Big Mac, fries, and strawberry shake sound profound, "many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed."

Well, yes. But not many of us have heard remarks from our pastors, priests, or rabbis that are stark, staring, out-of-his-tree flown-the-coop nuts. Unlike Bill Clinton, whose legions of "spiritual advisers" at the height of his Monica troubles outnumbered the U.S. diplomatic corps, Senator Obama has had just one spiritual adviser his entire adult life: the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, two-decade pastor to the president presumptive. The Reverend Wright believes that AIDs was created by the government of the United States - and not as a cure for the common cold that went tragically awry and had to be covered up by Karl Rove, but for the explicit purpose of killing millions of its own citizens. The government has never come clean about this, but the Reverend Wright knows the truth. "The government lied," he told his flock, "about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied."

Does he really believe this? If so, he's crazy, and no sane person would sit through his gibberish, certainly not for 20 years.

Or is he just saying it? In which case, he's profoundly wicked. If you understand that AIDs is spread by sexual promiscuity and drug use, you'll know that it's within your power to protect yourself from the disease. If you're told that it's just whitey's latest cunning plot to stick it to you, well, hey, it's out of your hands, nothing to do with you or your behavior.

Before the speech, Slate's Mickey Kaus advised Senator Obama to give us a Sister Souljah moment: "There are plenty of potential Souljahs still around: Race preferences. Out-of-wedlock births," he wrote. "But most of all the victim mentality that tells African Americans (in the fashion of Rev. Wright's most infamous sermons) that the important forces shaping their lives are the evil actions of others, of other races." Indeed. It makes no difference to white folks when a black pastor inflicts kook genocide theories on his congregation: The victims are those in his audience who make the mistake of believing him. The Reverend Wright has a hugely popular church with over 8,000 members, and Senator Obama assures us that his pastor does good work by "reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDs." But maybe he wouldn't have to quite so much "reaching out" to do and maybe there wouldn't be quite so many black Americans "suffering from HIV/AIDs" if the likes of Wright weren't peddling lunatic conspiracy theories to his own community.

Nonetheless, last week, Barack Obama told America: "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community."

What is the plain meaning of that sentence? That the paranoid racist ravings of Jeremiah Wright are now part of the established cultural discourse in African-American life and thus must command our respect? Let us take the senator at his word when he says he chanced not to be present on AIDs Conspiracy Sunday, or God Damn America Sunday, or U.S. of KKKA Sunday, or the Post-9/11 America-Had-It-Coming Memorial Service. A conventional pol would have said he was shocked, shocked to discover Afrocentric black liberation theology going on at his church. But Obama did something far more audacious: Instead of distancing himself from his pastor, he attempted to close the gap between Wright and the rest of the country, arguing, in effect, that the guy is not just his crazy uncle but America's, too.

To do this, he promoted a false equivalence. "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother," he continued. "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." Well, according to the way he tells it in his book, it was one specific black man on her bus, and he wasn't merely "passing by." When the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dumped some of his closest cabinet colleagues to extricate himself from a political crisis, the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe responded: "Greater love hath no man than to lay down his friends for his life." In Philadelphia, Senator Obama topped that: Greater love hath no man than to lay down his gran'ma for his life. In the days that followed, Obama's interviewers seemed grateful for the introduction of a less complicated villain: Unlike the Reverend Wright, she doesn't want God to damn America for being no better than al-Qaeda, but on the other hand she did once express her apprehension about a black man on the bus. It's surely only a matter of days before Keith Olbermann on MSNBC names her his "Worst Person In The World." Asked about the sin of racism beating within Gran'ma's breast, Obama said on TV that "she's a typical white person."

Which doesn't sound like the sort of thing the supposed "post-racial" candidate ought to be saying, but let that pass. How "typically white" is Obama's grandmother? She is the woman who raised him - that's to say, she brought up a black grandchild and loved him unconditionally. Burning deep down inside, she may nurse a secret desire to be Simon Legree or Bull Connor, but it doesn't seem very likely. She does then, in her own flawed way, represent a post-racial America. But what of her equivalent (as Obama's speech had it)? Is Jeremiah Wright a "typical black person"? One would hope not. A century and a half after the Civil War, two generations after the Civil Rights Act, the Reverend Wright promotes victimization theses more insane than anything promulgated at the height of slavery or the Jim Crow era. You can understand why Obama is so anxious to meet with President Ahmadinejad, a man who denies the last Holocaust even as he plans the next one. Such a summit would be easy listening after the more robust sermons of Jeremiah Wright.

But America is not Ahmadinejad's Iran. Free societies live in truth, not in the fever swamps of Jeremiah Wright. The pastor is a fraud, a crock, a mountebank - for, if this truly were a country whose government invented a virus to kill black people, why would they leave him walking around to expose the truth? It is Barack Obama's choice to entrust his daughters to the spiritual care of such a man for their entire lives, but in Philadelphia the senator attempted to universalize his peculiar judgment - to claim that, given America's history, it would be unreasonable to expect black men of Jeremiah Wright's generation not to peddle hateful and damaging lunacies. Isn't that - what's the word? - racist? So much for the post-racial candidate.

It's utterly amazing, for this man to be casting stones (which I find especially funny, given that he was one of the first to call for Imus to go off the air last year during that particular controversy). The way he speaks and talks, it's like the 1960s never happened. It's like the Civil Rights Era never happened, as though racism were still institutionalized. The continual perpetuation of 'black victimhood' as reality has the smell of 'been there, done that, seen the movie', yet it continues on. At the same time, he also speaks of how he's the post-racial candidate (though he seems to have no problem with calling his grandmother a 'typical white person'), of how he's ready to move beyond the history of American racism completely (which is another subject in and of itself, as it seems the history of racism for some people begins in America. Take a look at the history of slavery in the whole world and get back to me later). Saying two entirely different things. Oxymoron comes to mind.

Obama did indeed give an eloquent speech on race: very eloquent. Unfortunately, it was also very outrageous.

As a well-spoken, credible black candidate for President (as compared to previous candidates such as Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson), Senator Obama had an incredible once-in-a-generation - no, make that a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rise above race - and really make a difference in helping to bring blacks and other races together. He chose not to. How outrageous.

He could have taken a statesman-like position and asked (or even demanded) that black preachers, ministers and churches stop - once and for all - the spewing of venomous, hateful, racist rants in black churches. He could have said that racist comments are just as inappropriate in black churches as they are in white churches or anywhere else for that matter. He chose to take the 'low road'...and not do that. How sad. How outrageous.

After all, what can those sickening racist rants accomplish, other than alienate and reaffirm racial biases? What can those hate-filled words do, other than convince free-thinking blacks that maybe black racism really is warranted? What can those outrageous spiteful, bigoted comments do, other than make a feeling of 'permanent victimization' the accepted norm? How outrageous.

Actually, those racist comments CAN do even more harm than the harm I just mentioned. Those hateful rants can poison the minds of young blacks - with generational repercussions! Those sickening comments do not 'set the example' for black youth - instead they serve to 'incite' black youth! How outrageous.

Senator Obama has admitted that he has been present during some of Rev. Wright's racist rants. That admission proves him to be a blatant liar (since prior to 'The Speech'). Doesn't matter that he had stated that he had only heard one or two of Rev. Wright's horribly divisive comments. Proving that he is a liar, however, is nowhere near the damage that is done to black youths who are exposed to that garbage.

Senator Obama never said if any of his children, or children of friends attended those horrible racist rants. If there were, in fact, children in attendance, what are the repercussions of poisoning young minds with filth like that? How would he feel if his kids (or any young kids) heard that hateful bilge being spewed by someone who is a respected member of not only the church, but of the black community? Why did Senator Obama ignore the damage to future generations of black youth? The damage is deep and long term. Very long term. How outrageous.

Instead of taking the 'high road' - by disavowing Rev. Wright and asking ALL black ministers to stop spewing racist hate - Senator Obama took the 'low road'...by trying to explain and justify it. He tried to explain why that sort of thing occurs in black churches. How outrageous. To the white community, using his impressive and eloquent verbal linguistics, Senator Obama said (my summation here, not his)-"just deal with it, white people, that's the way it is". How outrageous.

When Senator Obama tried to justify racist comments from his pastor, he also insulted any free-thinking person by saying, "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." How insulting is THAT? True, you can't pick your race or your grandmother, but since when can you not pick your pastor? How insulting and outrageous can you possibly get?

When Senator Obama stated that he disagreed with many things his pastor has stated in church, 'just like many of us have disagreed with our ministers' (to use his words), he insulted any and every free-thinking churchgoer. As Steyn said above, there's a difference between 'statements and issues with which you disagree' and 'just plum-loco'. How outrageous.

Senator Obama has stated that "Words do matter." Well, since he refuses to disavow a blatant racist who happens to also be a close friend and a spiritual adviser, that phrase apparently doesn't apply to black racists. One could question whether it even applies to his wife (reference her 'lack of pride in this country' statements, despite the fact her standard of living and current income is quite cushy compared to most people in America). How outrageous!

Senator Obama asked, "Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church?" Controversial? CONTROVERSIAL? Senator Obama is not only eloquent, he is also a master of the understatement. Those comments were not controversial; they were blatantly vile, hateful, venomous and racist. Yet he calls them controversial? If you say so, Senator. I call them outrageous!

Obama also tried to cite the 'good things' that a racist like Rev. Wright has accomplished in his life. Well, you can fill in the own favorite racist/dictator/leader's name (____________) in the space provided, and most certainly you will find many good qualities too. What an outrageous and pathetic attempt to 'sugar coat' and defend a racist. Didn't Mussolini make the 'trains run on time'? Didn't Osama bin Laden build hospitals? How outrageous can you get?

Senator Obama most certainly did an 'eloquent' job of justifying why hateful speech like Rev. Wright's occurs...and he did it well, almost as well as he justified his refusal to disavow himself from a long-term friendship with that racist. Let's hope he gives more speeches explaining why that kind hate and venom is spewed in black churches, and let's hope he makes more speeches justifying the same thing and takes ALL THE TIME HE NEEDS to explain why he refuses to (or cannot) disavow a racist like Rev. Wright.

I close my little diatribe concerning Obama the half-black half-white candidate (who only seems to proclaim his black qualities most of the time, but hey, at least he's post-racial!) with the following: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

How odd that the proclaimed post-racial candidate invokes race at nearly every opportune moment while exhibiting poor character.