I think you are absolutely right on this one Blockdog. Starting with Falwell and the Moral Majority, certain groups of evangelicals have actively sought to influence politics. I think it has mostly been for the negative. The Moral Majority at least tried to keep its political arm separate from the church, and after all, churchfolk have just as much a right to participate in the political process as anyone else. I think over time, though, the lines have been blurred significantly. We've all heard explicit political statements from Pat Robertson and John Hagee. The question is, were they made from the (tax exempt) pulpit?

I'd like to see a lot less faith and a whole lot more reason in public life. That's not to explicitly exclude faith, but it is to have decisions made more on facts and less on Biblical interpretation. Recent events put Obama in a tight spot. If he completely rejects his church, he loses some faith points with religious centrists, and there are a lot of them out there. If he stays in the church, it appears that he tacitly approves of Rev. Wright's comments even while specifically denouncing them. With some of Wright's comments sounding like they came straight from Kent, people simply won't be comfortable with the association.

The good news for Obama is that there's a lot of time between now and a general election. He has a reasonable chance to get this through the news cycle and get beyond it. I think the Republicans would have preferred to put something like this out there in September or October so as to better influence a general election. That makes the Clinton campaign a more likely source for driving this as a news item.