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.

Mark Brown has good clean fun in his Sun-Times column with Indiana-Illinois hostilities, which frankly come as news to me, with talk along the way of bringing “the presidential campaign” — he means the Democrat primary — to a “merciful conclusion.”

Fun is fun, and it’s Sunday morning in Chicago, but the odd Republican here and there, and even the not-odd, thinks this Obama-Clinton fracas is the nicest thing to happen since Grant took Richmond.  The Civil War reference is apt.  Those Dems, tripping on their own petards of identity politics — black vs. female in this case — are in big trouble, heading for Denver in August when s—t will hit the fan and splash all over everyone.

So go, Hill, who has deflated or at least lowered pressure in the Barack balloon, as he did to hers a while back.  And Dems, keep parcelling out elected delegates proportionally, state by state, keeping the race close.  McGovernology rules!

Tony Blair hopped a train with no money in his pocket, nor check, nor credit card, nor ticket.  That last omission near tripped him up.  His bodyguard offered to pony up the $49, but the “inspector” (we’d say conductor) said skip it. 

The whole thing led Political Diary’s John Fund to observe:

It’s one thing for the Queen to proceed through life without having to worry about carrying any of the coins or bills that bear her image. But now that he’s a private citizen, Mr. Blair should make at least an effort to pretend once again he’s a normal human being.

If he does, and succeeds, he will be the not-so-little train passenger that could.

Moreover, if I were the queen, I’d have those coins and bills ready with my picture on them.

“Meet Professor Obama,” says Chi Trib’s John McCormick.  He’s

the sometimes aloof campaigner who can come across as a bit smug and has been known to talk about such things as arugula, an upscale leafy green, in places like corn-fed Iowa.

You can feel you’re in his classroom.  He likes order in the classroom.

“Everybody have a seat,” he said . . . in Gary, Ind., as he finished a speech and prepared to take questions. “We’ve still got a little more work to do.”

He tells how to behave:

“Now, there are only a few rules. Rule No. 1: Raise your hand. Don’t shout out at me because there are going to be more questions than I have time,” he said.  . . . . 

He betrays “professorial tendencies,” which “could . . . be used against him in a general election, especially if the liberal elitist branding takes hold,” says McC. 

He was “clumsy” in San Fran when he talked of Pennsylvania job-deprived as clinging to guns or religion, he said, is irritated by accusations of inability to relate to working-class people, but things like “actuarially speaking” come out readily.

Chi Trib studied how he talks.  He’s understandable by high-school seniors or college frosh, Trib found, “two grade levels above Sen. Hillary Clinton,” who speaks to h.s. sophs or juniors.

He scolds, mocked young woman with cell phone in San Antonio: “She’s talking to her girlfriend. She’s all like, ‘Girl, I got a front-row seat.’”  Then a peremptory “Turn off your phone.”

To another in Terre Haute, about to ask him something with something in her mouth: “Take it out.“

He glared at early leavers from small meetings in Iowa. 

But he gets praise as teacher at U. of Chi law school by law prof Cass Sunstein:

“He was thought to be non-ideological, completely prepared, conversational, not full of himself, clear, respectful of all sides and completely on top of the material,”

And from former student Erika Walsh:

“He was one of the least hubristic professors I had.  . . . He’s not an elitist. He certainly has the credentials to be, but he’s interested in people and not condescending at all.”

Hubristic?

John Fund on Barack Obama and what he considers it a waste of time to discuss:

No one suggests that Mr. Obama has ever endorsed any of the actions of the Weathermen [Bill Ayers], which occurred when he was still a child. But to this day he won’t discuss how he came to know him, why he chose to associate with Mr. Ayers and what he thinks of his current opinions about the U.S. government. All that will continue to fuel questions about Mr. Obama’s associations — just as his continued relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has.

He’s a fellow Hyde Park liberal, is how he chose to associate with him.  But what O. thinks of A’s “current opinions,” which loom large in any commited-liberal mind and influences their decisions, is important. 

O. will never discuss this, and the rest of us will have to decide what we could expect from him as president.  This is standard requirements of a candidate, who is normally expected to do more than make general unexceptionable statements.

Later:  Reader Phil on the Ayers business:

To me this is a bogus issue.  What I’d rather see is someone’s asking BA …Did he ever wonder why a powerhouse political fundraising fixer named Tony Rezko wanted to be, and apparently became, his best friend?

Heavy tut-tutting going on among the mid-level, if not high, priests of media-dumb, per Romenesko’s daily Poynteronline, about ABC men’s questioning of Obama the other night:

Stephanopoulos “sounded somewhat taken aback” by criticism

New York Times
Jacques Steinberg says George Stephanopoulos “sounded somewhat taken aback” during a phone interview about the debate controversy. The ABC newsman said he would have approached one critical aspect of his job differently. “I could imagine moving up some of the questions. You can differ over that.” Many thought the early questions were irrelevant, but “we thought it made sense to deal with the core controversies.”

> Some praised ABC’s moderators, but the critics were far more vocal (WP)
. . . . . . .

>Clinton didn’t have a flag, but “she was spared this inane question” (TA)

> Public regard for the media’s role in democracy wasn’t enhanced (WP)

> Welcome to the “Springer Show,” presidential campaign edition (Bee)

This going after O. on his San Fran elitism, consorting with Ayers the unrepentant terrorist, and Rezko connections very much bothered the poo-bahs, who in effect poo-pooh voters’ concerns, in this case about things that tell us something important about the allegedly Something-Different candidate.