One reason for Obama’s slipping markedly in polls in the wake of the Rev. Wright business, says Michael Barone,
is that Obama now has taken two diametrically opposed stands on the minister whose church he attended for 20 years, who married him and his wife and baptized their children, whose sermon inspired the title of his 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope.” On March 18, his response was: No, I cannot renounce my pastor. On April 29, his response was: Yes, I can.
Another and more important reason is that Obama’s long association with [Wright] . . . tends to undermine the central theme of Obama’s candidacy. Obama has presented himself since his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech as a leader who can unite America across political and racial divides.
The National Press Club appearance is what did it. O. seems to be hurt by the Rev. Wright affiliation, mostly because of how he handled it.
Update: From Reader D.:
Not just by “how” he handled it — but that it took him 20 years to handle it. Wright’s was an Afro-centric church from the beginning. So Obama needed to find his African roots. Great. At a certain point he bought the radical stance of Wright or he would have exercised judgement and left. Or does bitter little Michelle pull his strings?I don’t think the Obama Family can be impartial in the White House. I think they have a cause and an agenda and they may smile and speak softly, but it is only a Trojan Horse. Rev. Wright has endowed them with an “attitude.”
I truly feel the Reverend Wright sounds like an Old Testament Prophet. He preaches a liberation theology and does not deserve the vilification given him by the sound bites taken out of context.
Blithe Spirit 
It is evident that Obama thought much of some of Rev. Wright’s sermons. No one has picked up yet on the brief comments made by Michael Sneed, Sun-Times columnist, a week or so go. She indicated that she had heard that Obama was so impressed by Wright’s sermons that he took some of them up to show around at Yale Law School
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