Barack Obama has done the right thing in the right way by dumping America-hating Rev. Jeremiah Wright. True, he did it at the wrong time, but in politics you take what you can get. When I read about Rev. Wright's self-immolating performance at Washington's National Press Club on Monday, my immediate reaction was that, whatever else might be said about this man, his theology is fatally flawed because he peddles hate. And Barack Obama singled out precisely that failing the next day. He didn't just call himself "outraged" and "saddened." He described Rev. Wright's comments as "giving comfort to those who prey on hate."

Exactly right. But years, even decades too late. So what is left of Barack Obama's political appeal as a healer, especially of racial divisions? (Which, parenthetically, he'd better be after his outburst of snobbery about God, gays and guns left him an extremely dubious healer of cultural ones.) Here I would caution against the unreasonable expectations habitually raised in politics by partisans, commentators and candidates including Mr. Obama himself.

When people said he could heal racial divisions, were they expecting a miraculous laying on of hands and an instant, complete national cure? For some of his more star-struck supporters the answer seems to have been yes. But it was, and is, fatuous to think anyone could heal America's racial divisions with a couple of soaring speeches and an inspiring book. On such a serious problem we should have reasonable expectations.

Indeed, Rev. Wright is correct on one key point: The depth of bitterness among black Americans about historical injustices and their lingering effects is extremely deep. But he is dangerously wrong on another key point, namely that it is the appropriate role of leaders in the black community to foster and nurture that bitterness. It does no good to anyone, least of all his congregation.

If there's a worse sin for a pastor than peddling hate, it's peddling despair. So let me cite another black preacher in response to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright: "We must not," wrote Martin Luther King Jr. in 1958, "let the fact that we are the victims of injustice lull us into abrogating responsibility for our own lives." It would be weird and tone-deaf to ignore the ongoing impact of that ghastly injustice. But to tell black Americans in 2008 they are still the victims of a giant conspiracy, where the CIA unleashes AIDS on them in a country run by the KKK, is to encourage lethal feelings of helplessness.

Rev. Wright is stepping down anyway and one hopes we've pretty much heard the last of him. But the larger issue will not go away nearly so easily. What is most troubling and important about the Obama/Wright affair is that for decades the politician heard this kind of thing from the pastor and, as far as we know, didn't find it odd.

Possibly Sen. Obama sat stone-faced through the weirder bits; possibly he rolled his eyes; possibly he objected; possibly he nodded politely; possibly he nodded enthusiastically. We cannot now tell. Anything anyone suddenly "recalls" about any man who is odds-on favourite to win not just a major party nomination but the presidency of the United States must be treated with profound skepticism. But we can be sure he heard the weirder bits. Just weeks ago Sen. Obama said Rev. Wright was "like family" and the reverend is not a man shy about his opinions.

So we also know, unfortunately, that whatever reaction Sen. Obama had to what he now calls "appalling" and "ridiculous," he didn't find it walk-out-of-the-room outrageous. He may have found it plausible or implausible, true or false, right or wrong, but he didn't think it lunatic-fringe rubbish. And in this he was far from alone. Millions of black Americans routinely listen to this kind of thing from professors, activists, even spiritual leaders, and while some may disagree, far too few find it nutty. Indeed, one measure of the depth of the two American solitudes is that Rev. Wright seems to have had no idea what impact his National Press Club performance would have on his own credibility.

It is against this backdrop that one must judge Barack Obama's conduct now and in the future. Of course his sudden emergency deep-sixing of Rev. Wright was both long overdue and transparently political. But remember: He is a politician. So remember also Henry Kissinger's memorable assessment of his colleague Melvin Laird, Richard Nixon's defence secretary, as "a devious man but, when cornered, a patriot."

Right now Sen. Obama is looking like a devious man but, when cornered, a healer. I'll take it.

[First published in the Ottawa Citizen]

Start practising the phrase “President Barack Obama.” It’s not so bad. Except as in “President Barack Obama denied today that his naive and spineless foreign policy has encouraged terrorism.” It’s annoying when pundits intone that it’s come down to Obama v McCain as they easily could have predicted. But I did predict it, on CFRA radio in December. Possibly I hedged my bets, but I said both parties would take their least unattractive option, and both have. Republicans don’t nominate pro-abortion candidates, which only left the Mormon, the creationist, the asleep guy and the obnoxious hyperactive maverick whom they chose. Meanwhile the Democrats are rationally opting for inexperienced over horrible.

Trust me, folks. It’s over. The collapse of Hillary Rodham Clinton has surprised many people including her. But if revenge is a dish best served cold, I’m having ice cream here. Democrats who applauded Bill Clinton’s filthy tactics against Republicans were repulsed when he turned them on his own party in South Carolina, and she’s lost nine straight primaries since. Yum yum.

I certainly worry that Senator Clinton is way further left than she admits, on foreign and domestic policy. But my primary concern is character. Whatever the Clintons were caught doing, however sordid, they always dismissed with “We’ve moved on” or words to that effect. It won’t do. The human mind, like the life of a nation, organizes itself around stories or sinks into chaos. The fundamental truth of our mortal existence, bounded by time, is that it hinges on choices and consequences. Persistently to excuse villainy, even as you pocket the benefits, just because “that was then” is to deny any possibility of moral coherence. That Ms. Clinton should belatedly sit down to a banquet of devastating consequences is delicious irony.

For some of my friends the taste is spoiled by fears that Barack Obama is a far-left babe in the foreign policy woods. He may be. Almost no Democratic presidential candidate since Harry Truman has been fit to serve as commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful free nation. But it is intellectual partisanship to declare any Democrat ipso facto unworthy of office (or any Republican, I remind colleagues on both sides of the border). Besides, many conservatives are too concerned with how the Republicans might win in November and not enough about why we want them to.

I do not consider George W. Bush a total disaster. Journalists and academics tend to describe any incumbent Republican as among the worst presidents ever, from Reagan to Coolidge and beyond. Even Lincoln got some horrible press in his day. Later, commentators tend to give them some credit if only to draw invidious comparisons with their successors, and I suspect this president’s foreign policy will be praised in retrospect, like Truman’s, for its resolve and clarity on basic issues. But not his domestic policy. In early 2000 I asked then-candidate George Bush if there was any area from which government should simply withdraw. In response, I wrote in an April 21, 2000 Citizen column, “he stared at me as though he’d never heard such an idea before, pressed his hand to his temple in perplexity and eventually stammered that he’d have to get back to me. (He didn’t.)” Still hasn’t. And as there’s no reason to suppose John McCain would be better domestically, surely we could live with Barack Obama as an alternative.

Especially since he seems to be an honest, decent man. Oh, and he’s um uh you know ... black. And while I don’t care what colour you are, race can have political consequences and does here. If Barack Obama’s skin tone helped undermine Hillary Clinton’s gender-based appeal to Democrats, well, those who live by identity politics cannot complain if they perish by it. But a black U.S. president would draw positive attention abroad to the marvellous openness of American society. Even more important, his political success with all sorts of voters, as a candidate who is black rather than a “black candidate,” not only symbolizes but actively contributes to healing America’s ancient racial wounds. You could do a lot worse in a Democrat. So why not send the GOP to the minors for a bit?

The answer may hinge on whether you’d elect a president who can’t comb his own hair. John McCain can’t, because he was so brutally tortured by communists as a POW in Vietnam. When Barack Obama debates such a man on national security, a couple of careless cheap shots or conspicuously daffy policy statements would lose him an election that is, at this point, his to lose.

So say after me “President Barack Obama.” And while you’re at it, practice “Carteresque.”

[First published in the Ottawa Citizen]