Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the “God-damn America” man, is “a generally well-intentioned guy who sometimes says some crazy stuff by white people’s standards,” says Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown.

He’s not “this bad, scary guy” that “some people would have you believe,” and neither is his parishioner Obama.  We know this because we’ve been watching him for nearly a year and a half and “definitely have learned some things we didn’t know about him when we started.” 

By now we have “a sense of the man” as “a guy who generally tries to play it safe, who looks for the middle ground” in no way “covering up something sinister,” says Brown, adding an ironic “Please.” 

Brown wants it all to stop.  (His colleague Mary Mitchell cries out, “Leave Jeremiah Wright alone!)  We know all there is to know about Obama, he says.  We know he’s not bad and scary because we have seen him campaigning:

These political candidates can only manipulate their own image to a point. Even with a tightly controlled candidate like Obama, the veneer gets peeled back sooner or later. You see them more or less for who they are.

Right.  And that’s the process going on right now.  But Brown has bailed out.  He’s not paying attention.  As for those who are still paying attention, fascinated by the peeling process, they basically welcome the chance to act on their prejudices. 

Brown:

I take it as a positive that [Obama] didn’t try to sweep away this part of his life [Wright, etc.] in preparation for the campaign.

Obama probably didn’t fully appreciate, though, that there was always a segment of America that was looking for an excuse to justify being against him.

Ah.  The unwashed.  Obama’s unreasonable critics.