I figured it was only a matter of time before someone figured out a way to make Obama's race an issue without getting obviously racist about it. We've seen a few badly muffled attempts, like last week's doozy with Geraldine Ferraro. But the flap over Rev. Jeremiah Wright seems to have scored. I don't really know what this is all about, and I don't much care -- otherwise I'd be talking about Rev. John Hagee, if you know what I mean -- but the bottom line complaint seems to be that Obama consorts with black people, and this gives him a strange and dangerous view of America, no matter how polite or respectable he appears in public. Here's a couple of links, which is about as far as I've investigated the matter:

• Paul Woodward: Rising to the Wright Challenge
• Eric Kleefeld: Obama's Church: Pillorying Wright an Assault Upon African-American Culture

Looking through the comments in the latter piece I gather that it was the "God damn America" like that did it. I always thought it was Pat Robertson who said that.

Meanwhile, here's Richard Crowson's Wichita Eagle editorial cartoon today -- a What's the Matter With Kansas? classic:

Since we're on candidates, might as well give the others some notice. Media Bistro as an interview with Matt Taibbi, where they ask him "who or what disgusts you the most this primary season?" His answer:

That's a tough question. I think Hillary disgusts me more than anyone else. Obviously, I wasn't a big fan of Rudy Giuliani and I'm still not a fan of John McCain, for a lot of reasons. The way he talks about the war is unbelievably irresponsible and kind of scary, but Hillary is the one who really, really gets to me. I was at an event that she did in Youngstown, Ohio the other night, and she comes in there ranting and raving and presenting herself as this great ally of the working man, and she's talking about how NAFTA has to be fixed and free trade agreements have had such a terrible effect on communities like yours, but she supported every free trade agreement that ever crossed her desk.

Three months ago, she voted to expand NAFTA to Peru, and she's got one of the biggest union busters in the country, Mark Penn, working as her chief campaign strategist. She's sat on the board of directors of Wal-Mart for years while they crushed unions, one after the other, and without skipping a beat, she presents herself as a modern day Samuel Gompers. All politicians do that -- I get that -- but there is something about the way Hillary Clinton presents herself as a critic of the war even after she voted for it. People forget before the war that she was one of the first people to talk about how Saddam Hussein was harboring Al Qaeda. I guess it's normal political behavior, but there is something about the way she does it that really, really gets me.

There was a letter in the Eagle today from someone who said she was so disgusted with Clinton that if Obama wasn't nominated she'd sit this election out. I'm still not inclined to go that far, but ask me again after Denver.

One thing that heightened my nervousness is reading an account of the 1976 and 1980 presidential elections that put a lot of emphasis on how divisive primary challenges weakened Ford and Carter, with both going on to defeat. The Democrats are becoming at least that divided this year -- "disgust" is a pretty strong word. You can tell yourself that November is still a long ways away, and that McCain will prove to be a powerful unifying force. But the next few weeks without any actual primaries to help clarify things look to be discomfiting.