Monkey on Obama's Back - Rev. Jerremiah Wright

So Barak Obama has been with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1988.

Yet he chose to distance himself from him only recently because of scrutiny from the press and no doubt his main rival, Hillary Clinton. He must have known about Rev Wright's incendiary philosophy and comments during the 20 years of attending his sermons and other events.

For 20 years he has absorbed the words and ideas of this pastor and has not rebuked any of the incendiary ideas publicly. He had ample opportunities to do this during his public service life and never chose to do so, until recently.

Obama has repeatedly stated that Rev Wright is one of his sources of inspiration and ideas and is a close adviser. You don't distance yourself from that kind of relationship easily because the foundation of Obama's ideas are based in part on the Rev's.

One can only conclude that this is yet another reason to be skeptical of Obama's rhetoric. Keep chanting 'Yes we can' and make yourself feel better now.

Here is some additional information from the LA Times:

'“There was no doubt that there was controversy surrounding him,” Axelrod said Sunday. “And we didn’t want to expose him … [or] make him the target and a distraction on a day when Sen. Obama was going to announce his candidacy.”

So if the savvy Obama campaign knew Wright was a problem a year ago, why did the Illinois senator, a parish member for two decades, wait until last week to disassociate and denounce the minister's inflammatory statements?

The topic is clearly uncomfortable for Obama and his aides, personally and politically. Axelrod's comments came only after prodding from a reporter and after he had initially suggested that Wright’s absence that day was due merely to the fact that the temperature was in the single digits.

And even as Obama has condemned some of Wright’s rhetoric and distanced himself from his longtime spiritual advisor, doing so has not been easy. Wright remained on an African American religious advisory committee for the campaign until Friday.

“Rev. Wright married him, introduced him, as he said, to the church, brought him into the church, into Christianity, baptized his children,” Axelrod said. “So this is a painful thing for him because he condemns the things Rev. Wright said, but he also knows him as a person.'