Messenger Versus Message

The messenger killed the message. Leonard Pitts hits the nail on the head:

If you condemn bigotry when it is turned against people like you, but tolerate it when people like you turn it against someone else, you forfeit all claim to the moral high ground. You are a hypocrite acting only from narrow self interest.

For all that, though, the thing about [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright's lost weekend that stands out most for me is his demeanor in the two speeches he gave: smug, mugging for the cameras, signifying, jive talking, acting the fool.

Did he really say an attack on him was an attack on the black church entire? Did he really make those faces and throw that silly salute? Why didn't he just slap his hands together, yell ''Dy-no-mite!'' and be done with it? Wright came across like drunken Uncle Buddy at the Thanksgiving table, the one who doesn't know he's not funny and won't shut up.

Indeed. Here's to hoping that we've seen the last of Wright and his ideologically warped, narcissistic ranting.