Mr. Williams,
Are you prepared to admit that you are not really concerned about Obama's competence but rather his politics. You simply want the first black president to be a conservative. That simply isn't going to happen. There are too few black conservatives such as yourself. Conservatives are also racist, particularly harboring feelings against blacks and Latinos, than liberals are. They aren't going to nominate a black man or woman for another 50 to 100 years (if then), despite the interest by some in Condolezza Rice. Don't you worry, Obama will do America proud and I think that people of all colors will be able to take joy in that.

It was leftest in the South who passed laws making it easy to arrest blacks and sell them off as contract workers? It was leftist that confined blacks to their side of the tracks? It was leftist, who barred integration? It was blacks blocks access to white schools? Did any major black churches peach that whites were marked?

The scares of hatred are still dividing our nation. Further dividing our nation into the evil liberal and the good conservatives may result in a culture war, like our civil war whose impacts will carry on for centuries.

Obama doesn't have courage?
Let's see...remember the Iraq war? The one we're still fighting?
Remember how, early on, it was popular? Hard to believe, now...
How many stood up against the decision to go to war? An unpopular move. A wise move. A courageous move.
While Clinton was voting for it, Obama stood up against it.
It's time we have, not just a courageous president, but a wise one too.

Obama wasn't even a US Senator until January 2005, almost 2 years after the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He supposedly had the courage to oppose the war when nobody cared who he was. Some courage!

Williams is right. Obama doesn't have the experience and expertise. JFK spent almost 8 years in the US Senate (as well as 6 years in the US House of Representatives) before being elected president. Obama should do the same. Just because Obama is farm team material today doesn't mean he won't be an All-Star candidate in a decade.

I care what Obama thinks. I don't give one fig about what his minister thinks. And BTW, a lot of what Wright says about our foreign policy chickens coming home to roost is true.

Thank God there are more We the People liberals than there are "It's all about me" conservatives.
We the People are on the move and it is a beautiful thing to behold!

America is coming together again. With or without the foot-dragging from the conservatives.

More ramblings from the Anonymous contributor who daily slams conservatives on these comment pages.

Interesting that Mr. Anonymous continually claims that America is coming together again. I must be missing all of the signs, especially as I see the hatred and bigotry in the rantings of this liberal Preacher. Besides, Democrats can't even decide who to send to the General Election. They are still fighting over two candidates. It doesn't sound like Democrats are coming together, let alone the rest of the country!

If you care what Obama thinks, then you ought to care about what his minister thinks. Nobody attends a church for 20 years if they don't agree with what is being preached there. He not only attended the church regularly, but asked the minister to be his spiritual advisor for his campaign. We either have to believe that Obama employed his minister just for the appearance of being a religious person, without really knowing what the Rev. Wright espouses (that would be kind of dumb) or he respects and reveres this man and his opinions so much that he wanted him at his side throughout the campaign. I believe it's the latter, which at the very least means that a man who preaches hate and resentmant toward white people has had great influence on a presidential candidate. It could also mean that Obama has feelings and opinions about white America that he has wisely not shown in his speeches. He may be more inspiring and appealing to white voters than a ranting Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, but that doesn't necessarily mean his opinion of white America is any different.

Curious, I actually read some of Wright's sermons. I agree with everything he says. He's pointing out that "white Christian America" is a crowd of whited sepulchres and hypocrites who would rather make war on their neighbors than love them. Reminds me of Someone Else who did the same about 2,000 years ago....

"Oh Please" -- You seriously agree that AIDS was invented by the U.S. government to perpetrate a genocide of black people?

You seriously believe that the government provides illegal drugs to black communities, specifically so it can lock up as many black men as it can?

Good grief. Watch out for black helicopters....

It's nice to see Mr. Williams up to his old strawman arguments again. How does it follow that if Obama turns out to be not such a good President (not likely BTW, he'll be great!) then people will stereotype black people by saying "Those blacks just aren't cut out to be President"?

Williams actually argues against this point himself by saying that the "civil rights struggle in America is over and it's won." If that's the case, then why would a failed black President create any stereotype at all? Williams, I know you like questions. Would you like to explain this apparent contradiction?

Williams is actually perpetuating the racial divide in our country while Obama is trying to move us along the path to truly getting past our racist history. Our country is ready for President Obama. Are conservatives?

I get the biggest kick out of people like MEB who after being force-fed the word "liberal" (aka democrat) and always in a negative manner, in our political climate, freaking out when something is thrown back at the Rush O'Hannitys with a negative point of view regarding conservatives.
Neocons can surely dish it - out but most definitely CANNOT take it.

If, after 14 months of campaigning, the worst that can be said about Obama is that we're not wild about some things said in some of his minister's sermons over a 20 year period, that's really pretty good, isn't it? If Obama himself was anti-white or anxious to appoint an all-black Cabinet, we would have already known it. He'd have a spoken or written record that Fox News would play constantly in order to get out the message.
Lacking such evidence, isn't Obama entitled to the benefit of the doubt, especially if there's no gang of Wright-inspired young toughs cruising Chicago's streets?

The US Government DID invent AIDS and started the plague in black people. In the mid1970s, the National Institutes of Health administered to men in the Central African Republic killed viruses from chimpanzees infected with Simian Immunosuppression Virus (SIV). The Royal Society concluded that the AIDS plague started from this "punctuating event." They were experimenting with poor Africans the same way Mengele experimented with Jews. Rev. Wright was merely reporting this fact to his congregation.

It’s always the downside of any major discussion — someone ends up saying something that doesn’t make any sense. In light of Barack Obama’s speech last week on race in America, we’re apparently in the midst of a national conversation of sorts. I get the sense this is one conversation in which Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and Rush Limbaugh deserves to be interrupted.

Americans are slowly being lulled into the false reality that racial discrimination is no longer an issue in this country. They use the candidacy of Barack Obama as proof to this. To iterate that logic, how could Barack Obama ever be seriously considered a candiate for President if the racial barriers he speaks of have not already been eliminated?

Racism hasn't been overcome - it has simply been ignored. To paraphrase Obama, we have retreated into our "respective corners" - meanwhile, we pretend to be color blind and wrongly believe that 170 years of deliberate, racial inequity has no longer has any bearing on today's modern society.

Well, it does - and it is a burden our country will continue to bear until we, as a people, stop being afraid to talk about race, what makes each different, and what compels one to cast prejudice against another.

"Why," Americans will be able to have a true, honest conversation about race just as soon as one side doesn't brand virtually any disagreement with its ideas on the subject as "racist," and demand that the dissenter be shipped off to sensitivity training.

In other words, there will never be a genuine "conversation" about race as long as it can be used as a weapon.

Racism may not have been overcome completely, but the idea that it's just been "ignored" -- that no real progress at all has been made -- is just silly.

Is Obama White or Black? Will the Real Obam please stand up? To me, he's all talk no substance. All Hope nothing to hang your hat on. "I voted against the war and I will bring all back home (while leaving those who believe in US and democracy out to die horrible deaths)." OK, what/who is the Real Obama?

So what is "substance"? Obama has pages and pages of substance on his web site, which you obviously haven't looked at. Does McCain have substance? The guy who admits he knows nothing about economics, has bought "Greenspan's book but hasn't read it"? I'll go with the substantive president of Harvard Business Review (Obama)before I'll go with McCain (4th from the bottom at the Naval Academy)!

With blacks and Hispanics comprising more than 60 percent of the Army's ground forces in Iraq, the U.S. military is continuing its long, proud tradition of multiculturalism on the front lines of war. "Though racism and discrimination remain problems in society at large, in the military—especially in the lower ranks where you find the cannon fodder—a spirit of inclusiveness has prevailed for decades," a general said Monday. "When it comes to having your head blown off by enemy fire, America is truly colorblind."

To Mc: I'm willing to let a man speak for himself, and not be judged by those with whom he keeps company. I associate with a wide variety of people, but I agree with none of them across the board. So, I'm willing to let Obama speak for himself. Note please, I'm not on board with Obama; I just think guilt by association is stupid.

Lew -- Fair enough, though I think there's at least a subtle difference in merely "associating" with people who may entertain abhorrent views, and standing up to be counted with them. Regularly attending a church generally implies at least some solidarity and agreement with what's being taught over the pulpit. It isn't quite the same as playing golf with your loopy-but-charming "9/11 Truther" great uncle.

Those who refuse to admit this country has some overwhelming racial problems are living in the past when The Founding Fathers owned slaves.

>>Don't you worry, Obama will do America proud and I think that people of all colors will be able to take joy in that.<<

I would fully expect him to appoint the Reverend Wright as his spiritual confidant and perhaps appoint the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or Lewis Farrakhan to a cabinet position like Department of Health, Education or State.

>>I care what Obama thinks. I don't give one fig about what his minister thinks.<< - Lew Jeppson

They both think alike. As confirmed by the fact that B. Hussien Obama went to Wright's church for years and rarely if ever stood up to him on what he was saying.

Let us all rise above our color and embrace every color.

Greg, I'm giving a big bear hug to chartreuse right now.

There is no such thing as race anymore.

Races were created by segregation after Nimrod built the tower. The segregation was based on who learned what language and was accepted into a clan or tribe. They intermarried for many years and created races.

This is 2008, the tower fell over 4000 years ago. We've been meshing and intermixing the races ever since. I doubt there is any pure race alive today. And after 1978 when any worthy male could obtain the priesthood - that ended race.

I don't care what skin color or nationality get's to the White House. They had better stay out of our way and not cause trouble, or they'll be impeached and tried for treason.

Until the people of Utah are willing to face their severely racist past, they will always be viewed as a little people. A silly people.

A good starting point would be for their legislators to honor blacks on Martin Luther King Day like the rest of the United States.

>>A good starting point would be for their legislators to honor blacks on Martin Luther King Day like the rest of the United States.<<

Racial neutrality/equality would be to have no "race" honored... such as races like the Irish "race."

Thomas 12:57 p.m.,
Did you listen to or read Obama's speech? He said pretty much exactly what you did in denouncing the words of his pastor. Does that sound like "solidarity and agreement" to you?

How odd that wrz would pick the three black Americans that white guys would pick as people "we" don't like - Jackson, Sharpton and Farrakhan. News flash: we've had black Cabinet members since Reagan, black Supreme Court justices since Johnson, and have a black Secretary of State NOW. Don't think there aren't others who could do it. What we DON'T have is a black Republican in Congress. Not one.

>>How odd that wrz would pick the three black Americans that white guys would pick as people "we" don't like - Jackson, Sharpton and Farrakhan.<<

We? Who's we? Speak for yourself.