...some of the best national polling numbers so far for Obama. The highlight, according to Rasmussen, is that this is "the first time Obama has ever reached 50% in fifteen months of daily polling on the race." Nice!

and he should be the poster child for the separation of church and state, along with Evangelist and McCain loyalist John Hagee, who, in past comments has referenced the Catholic Church as "The Great Whore" and a "fasle cult system."  And those are his good quotes!

I wonder if God knows he has suck freaks "spreading his word."  LOL!

Good for Obama for speaking so quickly and forcefully.

I don't for a moment challenge Obama's words on this.  I don't believe he subscribes to those comments.  However, why would you continue to be a member of a congregation when your minister takes positions like these and others that have been reported?  That is troubling to me.

Also was wondering what everyone's take on Orlando Patterson's op ed piece suggesting that the 3 A.M ad was racist.

There's a new pastor at the church.  Also, it's not such an easy matter for a lot of people to leave their church...

He addresses your exact question, and does it well. What I also found especially significant in his statement was

Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor.

This is a very good point about the separation of Church and State, and it puts the Republican patriarchs to shame.

M. J. Rosenberg's post today at tpmcafe is very good on this point.  After describing the occasional anti-Palestinian sermons delivered at his synagogue with which he disagrees vehemently, and the fact that fellow congregants are big time neocons with whom he disagrees vehemently, he says the following:

"I am a member of this congregation and will remain one. Why? As I said, I like the rabbi despite disagreeing strongly with many of his views. More important, this is the congregation that my kids grew up in. This is where their Bar Mitzvahs took place. The people there (not the war criminals though) are kind of like family. It's home. Probably how Obama feels about his church."

over Chap Petersen's church, and his comments about how he'd been in that church since he was a child, etc.

I cringed when Jeannemarie's campaign raised the anti-gay aspects of Chap's church.  It was bad enough that she was to his left on guns.  Thank goodness there were so many more reasons for me to feel proud to support Chap.  I find it hard to believe that anyone who says that she or he is disinclined to vote for Obama because of the controversial statements of his former pastor was ever going to vote for Obama anyway.

I'm not a big Andrew Sullivan fan, but he excerpts a part of one of Obama's books in praise of Obama's religious views and his views of his church before he was a politician when he was a community organizer in a very needy part of Chicago.  What's interesting to me is that despite all the attention being paid now to Pastor Wright's inflammatory sermons, early on, Obama saw his church as possibly too passive in offering mere solace in the face of real problems crying out for action.  The excerpt and Sullivan's own comments follow:

Obama
If part of me continued to feel that this Sunday communion sometimes simplified our condition, that it could sometimes disguise or suppress the very real conflicts among us and would fulfill its promise only through action, I also felt for the first time how that spirit carried within it, nascent, incomplete, the possibility of moving beyond our narrow dreams.

Sullivan
I don't know how you can read Obama's writing or listen to any of his speeches and believe that Wright's ugliest messages are what Obama believes or has ever believed. He wrote these words long before he was running for president. They struck me powerfully as I read them; because they helped me understand how hard hope can be for the very poor or those from broken families or gripped with addiction. I don't see how the impulse to listen to, bond with, and help those people is an ugly impulse, however ugly the anger that can come from those places sometimes is.

I'm pretty sure he's pro-choice.  Or a bit closer to home, Chap Petersen, who disagrees with many of the positions of his congregation.  Or Morris Udall, who frequently defined the Mormon Church, often very publicly.

It's hard to leave a church, even if you personally disagree with some of the positions it takes.  As an agnostic I don't pretend to entirely understand it, but the fact that there are so many examples is evident proof that belonging to a religion is not necessarily proof of supporting everything it propounds.

Why did it take a presidential campaign for obama to come out against him?

I must say I agree with you.  I'm very disappointed with Barack Obama today.

is absolute nonsense.    Wright will have no position in an Obama administration.  It's also ironic given Wright's status as a former Marine that he is being criticized on this issue.  If anyone earns the right to criticize the country -- it's people like Rev. Wright who have put their life on the line FOR the country.

I could care a lot less about what some chickenhawk writing for Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal thinks (this is where this most recent story originated).  Obviously there is a clear and concerted strategy to impugn Obama's patriotism through association.  The people who are leveling the attacks have no standing to raise questions about anyone's commitment to country.  Not after they dumped $5 trillion worth of new debt on the next several generations; not after they have squeezed ordinary Americans through higher living costs  -- created in part by inept foreign policy; and not after the past 7 years of giving handouts to the ultra rich while screwing over working and middle class families.

"A silver lining of the controversy, of course, is that when the story is pushed, the effect is to remind people that Obama is a Christian; the smear merchants can't have it both ways -- he can't be a Christian and a Muslim."

Definitely an awesome line.  I was in Richmond visiting my Mom (who has voted Republican most of her life but is SUPPORTING HILLARY) a couple weeks ago and she mentioned something about Obama being Muslim and I had to correct her.  Until then I didn't realize how many people still don't know the truth.

He condemned the words of his minister faster than McCain did and did not hide.

Senator Obama knows that Rev. Wright's sermons will be rebroadcast repeatedly throughout the remainder of this campaign. When they are, I hope the Obama campaign doesn't take the standard, time-honored, political approach -- "here's my statement, I've addressed it, it's old news, now let's ignore it and move on to other things."  I hope, instead, that Obama can see the "silver lining" that provides a "golden opportunity" to help transform our political discourse and help heal our political divisions.  

For far too long, we've let our politicians define "patriotism" and "love of country" in a cheap, mindless, non-critical, wear-a-plastic-flag-pin, stick-a-we're-number-one-finger-in-the-eyes-of-the-rest-of-the-world sort of way.  Most of us realize that true "patriotism" requires both that we affirm our stated "American" ideals and that we act in accordance with them.  And, when we don't, a true "love of country" requires that we criticize ourselves in the strongest possible terms.  Here, Obama has an opportunity to strongly disagree with Rev. Wright and, at the same time, highlight the fact that criticizing "America," even in the strongest possible terms, is not the equivalent of "hating America."    

In addition, Obama has an opportunity to recognize and acknowledge all those who, like Rev. Wright, feel the pain, anger, and sense of betrayal that can arise from our nation's failure to behave in accordance with our highest ideals.  If we are to truly heal this nation, or even just reclaim a small portion of the respect we once had in the world community, we simply can't afford to continually shun, silence, and ignore our "angry" critics.  We have to find a way to disagree with statements made by the Rev. Wrights of this world while, at the same time, respecting their criticism and inviting them to participate with us in the pursuit of a more perfect nation and a more humane world.  

This may be politically impossible but, if there is anyone who just might pull if off, it's Obama.  Every time he's asked about Rev. Wright, from now until the end of the campaign, I hope to hear him say, "I'm glad you asked about that because Rev. Wright, and my experience with him, can help us all understand the urgent need we have to move beyond politics as usual and here's why...."