For those who wanted to see Wright’s interview on Moyers show, here are four clips that comprise the whole:

SlateV has this three minute video of Jeremiah Wright fulminating while 799 voters (African-Americans, Democrats, Independents, and Republicans) register their opinions as he talks.

http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/271557392

As you can see, without even listening to Wright, white people don’t like what he has to say. Me, I actually agree with quite a bit of it, like the accusations about the evil of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and about state terrorism. (But people as far to the left as I am don’t decide elections.) On the other hand, I’ll concede that Wright is … out there. The idea that our government invented the HIV virus to infect people of color is just loony.

One viewing of that video and many Democrats will worry that an Obama presidency will be about race rather than the economy or the war in Iraq. I don’t prefer Clinton over Obama or the other way around. But I do say that a video like this is so inflammatory that Obama cannot defeat McCain.

The Republicans are such accomplished screamers that they will move into hyper-howl mode and stay there until November.

So what if McCain doesn’t know the difference between Sunnis and Shias, as Howard Dean’s latest missive points out: “At least five times as a candidate John McCain has stated that Iran (a Shiite nation) is supporting Al-Qaeda (a Sunni group) in Iraq. This is not some minor mistake, but a significant gaffe. He clearly does not understand the sensitive political dynamics in that region of the world.”

So what if McCain wants people facing foreclosure to get a second job? So what if McCain favors privatizing Social Security? So what if McCain was one of the Keating Five? That’s ancient history.

So what if, so what if, so what if? We won’t scream with the same frenzy as Republicans do. When Jerry Falwell proclaimed that God sent 9/11 as punishment for American’s sinful ways, when Pat Robertson cozied up to Charles Taylor, the Liberian dictator/murderer, we didn’t take the Republicans to the mattress about the rightwing nuttiness that infests their party. We didn’t get the media plugged in and harping on it.

Republicans’re better shriekers and better haters.

The press loves McCain, and the press loves any confrontation that the Rs stir up. The drama of watching Obama try to defend himself from Wright’s rantings, oh the mainstream media is going to feast off that plate for months.

And this issue, this video, oh geez. It’s tailor-made for the GOP. It plays to every fear Americans have about race. The Willie Horton/Dukakis smear will seem like a lighted Bic next to Mt. Aetna.

I’m not trying to sandbag Obama. I’m not a fan of his, but I’m not a fan of Hillary’s either. But I’ll tell you who I’m really not a fan of: any Republican and McCain in particular. And I worry that Obama has the nomination sewn up–but not the election.