that Barack Obama attended the same church with the same minister for seventeen years and never heard anything similar to the exhortations that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is seen making in the videos that have deluged multitudes of news sources over the past day. I can’t be critical of other politicians like Ron Paul and Hillary Clinton and John McCain and simply overlook such a glaring blemish on what has otherwise been a nearly squeaky clean campaign.

Whether everything the reverend said in his sermons was completely wrong or mendacious is up to the individual viewing the sermon. The same could be said about the statements made by Geraldine Ferraro or the newsletters written by someone who used to be connected in some way with Ron Paul or the homophobic and anti-Islamic bombast of Reverend John Hagee. One man’s truth is another man’s mendacity.

However, the statements made by Reverend Wright can be particularly cancerous to the campaign of Senator Obama. So far, the race for the democratic nomination has been rife with fear-mongering, the majority (if not all) of which have been directed at Senator Obama — the 3 AM phone call commercial, the photographs circulated that show Senator Obama wearing African garb that, to the already skittish, pushes the anxiety of so many Americans in regards to terrorism and Muslims to the edge. And the email circulated months ago that depicted Obama as completely un-American in that he did not place his hand on his heart during the national anthem and that he was a part of an anti-American movement orchestrated by Islamic extremists. These videos that have surfaced of Reverend Wright have given those who wish to see Senator Obama go away plenty of ammunition. They have given those who are already skeptical of Obama, those who choose to believe that he is really an undercover extremist even more reason to avoid him by any means necessary.

Reverend Wright is no longer a part of the Obama campaign, but thanks to CNN, MSNbc, Fox and every other news station, magazine or blog, the memory of Reverend Wright and his fiery rhetoric could last and distract all the way into the upcoming, arduous campaign summer.

As exciting as all this election stuff has been, I’m ready for the never ending story of the race for the Democratic nomination to come to a close.