After seeing Rev. Wright speak out over the last few days, I wondered exactly the same thing that Joe writes about - why did this man place himself over the broader interests of uniting our country, reducing racial tensions and perhaps, electing our Nation's first black President? Every time Rev. Wright speaks, he inflames white America with his absurd ideas of genocide via AIDS and equating Hiroshima with terrorism.

Of course, Obama had to denounce Rev. Wright a few weeks after he said he "could no more denounce him than he could denounce the black community." I thought Obama should have denounced him in Philadelphia instead of giving that tortured speech on race relations in which he equated his white grandmother's racial attitudes (she was sometimes afraid of black men) with Rev. Wright's "God Damn America" rants.