Wright and Horton

This year Jeremiah Wright will be playing the role of Willie Horton. He's the angry black man that voters are supposed to be afraid of. Seriously. History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce.

But all he has to do is put a metaphorical afro on Obama. Older, white, workingclass, Catholic voters--or some of em--will remember Obama's a black man and freak, or at least look enough like they're freaking to authorize the party's thumbsucking on "electability."

I agree with those who say that Clinton is a victim of sexism as much as or more than Obama is a victim of racism. By the same measure, gender "divisiveness" is an "electability" issue as much as racial "divisiveness." Why has there been no discussion of gender and electability? I mean, there's plenty of it in the blogosphere's id: google "Clinton" and "c**t," for instance. In the commentariat, though, the entire issue is missing. I'm happy about that. I don't think it belongs on stage. The reason why it's missing, I'm betting, is that no campaign is putting it out there. Political reporters hate to drive the agenda.

Will Rev Wright go away? If I were, say, Fox News, I'd give him his own show. But then people would probably stop paying attention to him.