Reaction to Barack Obama's Wright controversy

I like Barack Obama a lot. In many ways, I agree with his supporters that we need someone like him and what he stands for to be President. With the appeal of his ideas on racial and cultural progress, Obama is also charismatic and rhetorically gifted. However, as the exposure of a Presidential campaign catches up to him, the phrase "too good to be true" seems to apply to Obama more and more. It's not that he's been revealed to be crooked for a politician, he's just not as special as he first seemed. Professor Nacos wrote about him here. I responded (note: I copy-edited out the spelling mistakes):

Professor,

I am receptive to Obama's ideas on the "race issue". They resonate strongly with me as a member of a - if anything - lower regarded ethnic group. (Even in your post, Professor, you refer to a "black-white divide" as yet one more pundit who marginalizes my, I suppose, yellow group in our nation's race conversation.) The problem, what disturbs me in this episode, is that Obama uses these important ideas crassly to defend himself. His record in the Wright controversy has been an alarming display of a lack of integrity for a candidate whose wide appeal is based largely on the appearance of extraordinary principles and decency - now, as revealed, not so much:

On April 11 2007, Obama said, "I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus, but I would also say that there's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group".

While saying this about Don Imus, and long before he made this statement, Obama was closely tied with Reverend Wright. Rev Wright isn't just some low-level maverick campaign staffer or even outspoken and influential political ally. Rev Wright has been interwined with Obama in multiple close ways, closer to Obama than the vilified Karl Rove ever was/is to George W Bush.

In reacting to the controversy, Obama has misdirected and spun, obfuscated, even lied. Perhaps, these are normal reactions for a politician under threat in the political arena, but that's what's so disappointing. Obama isn't supposed to be just another politican; he's supposed to be a transcendent force for our country, whether his time to be President was now or, with more seasoning, later. Then again, if Obama really was as special as we believed, he wouldn't have been involved in this controversy with Rev Wright in the first place.

How could Obama have campaigned on such a high-minded platform, all the while hypocritically continuing his close relationship with Rev Wright? I haven't decided yet if Obama's arrogance grew from a belief that he was immune to judgements of hypocrisy, above it perhaps, or if he believed his charisma and rhetorical brilliance could extricate him from the (inevitable) exposure of hypocrisy.

What Obama once symbolized and the ideas he (still) expresses so well are important, which only makes my disappointment greater that he would cheapen them by using them for base cynical political expedience.

As it turns out, Obama is just another politician; worse, he's a disillusioning politician. It's time we re-examine our fellow Columbian, this charismatic would-be President. Who is he and who is he not, really?

Eric