Barack Obama gave a very impressive speech this morning. Credit where credit due, and I think he does deserve credit for a significant amount of courage in speaking on these issues of race in the midst of a campaign rather than doing something less challenging and more politically expedient. He takes a long view of things and is explicit about how he sees himself straddling different races and ethnicities, and in a sense different Americas, by virtue of his own family background. Really, he was winning me over pretty well until he reverted near the end to his usual economic populism and anti-Iraq-war talking points. A good question is whether there are sound bites from this speech that can to any significant extent counteract the power of those sound bites of Rev. Wright. Bottom line: it is hard to see how a man can get elected to the presidency of the United States when someone he has described as his spiritual mentor, and someone to whom he has given such broad credit, can be seen and heard at the push of a button saying, “God damn America.” Tie this to other suspicions about Obama’s patriotism — justified or not — and it becomes, ah, counterintuitive to think that he could win in a general election. The Democratic contest is another question. It continues to be remarkable to observe Hillary Clinton’s campaign not going after Obama on the Wright issue. I guess at this point the fear of a backlash from Democratic primary voters takes precedence. If the media appear to be letting the issue go, perhaps the Clinton campaign will consider pushing it, but in the current circumstances Hillary has little to gain and potentially a lot to lose.

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