Um, excuse me, Senator Obama, your halo is slipping...

Of course I find myself incredibly busy when the news starts getting interesting. I apologize for the staleness of this analysis, but I think it still warrants being said.

The big story recently -- other than Hillary's Bosnia 'misspeaking' -- has been Barack Obama's inflammatory pastor. Obama's response to this has been unusually, shall we say, spinning. Originally, Barack Obama said that his minister was his spiritual adviser -- some much so that he named his best-selling book, "The Audacity of Hope" after one of Rev. Wright's sermons. When it was suggested that his church might rub some voters the wrong way, Obama said that he didn't believe his church was all that controversial. When it surfaced that his pastor had said -- among other things -- that AIDS was created by the U.S. government to oppress minorities, that "America's chickens came home to roost" on 9/11, that God should "damn America, etc., Obama claimed that he had never heard such things from his pastor and that those clips had been taken out of context. When it became widely known that Obama had been a member of the church for some 20 years, that Rev. Wright had performed Obama's wedding ceremony and baptized his two daughters, Obama said that Rev. Wright was like 'a crazy uncle who says things I disagree with.' When calls still persisted for Obama to distance himself from Wright, Obama's last refuge was moral relativism. During his recent speech on racial issues, he said "I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed." He even went so far as to compare his own grandmother to his racist reverend, equivocating her privately expressed fear of strange black men with his pastor's public, illicit hatred.

Precious few media outlets seem eager to call Sen. Obama on his evasiveness, perhaps even lies. Obama has gone from calling Rev. Wright his spiritual adviser, to saying that he hadn't heard him say anything controversial, to saying that he was a crazy uncle with whom he disagreed occasionally, to saying that he had, in fact, heard him say controversial things that he condemned. Sen. Obama's positions have been inconsistent to say the least. According to the New York Times, Obama knew as early as April of 2007 that Jeremiah Wright could become a political liability to his campaign. Why would this be, if he didn't think his church was "controversial?"

As for the claim that the more controversial clips are merely taken out of context -- what context? What context is there to "God damn America" that would make most people say "Oh, ok, that seems reasonable." What context is there to "AIDS is a man-made virus designed by the U.S. government to oppress minorities" that doesn't make that statement completely devoid of logic and reason?

As for the "crazy uncle" justification -- guess what, Sen. Obama? You can't pick your uncles, but you can pick your pastors. So to say that "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother" is absolute bunk. To paraphrase your campaign slogan -- yes, you can. You have every ability to disown anyone you choose, particularly if they say verifiably insane things.

The fact that Obama was then willing to compare the woman who lovingly raised him to a man that spews racist bile, I think, raises serious questions about Obama's concept of decency. Also, to think that "many of us" have had religious leaders with which we strongly disagreed is a total cop-out. Many people likely have had disagreements with their respective leaders, but I don't imagine many would continue attending a church that was so opposed to their sensibilities.

Granted, this whole argument is essentially pointless because it can easily be assumed that Obama's handling of this has been wholly political. I just hope his supporters that see him as some sort of Messiah can recognize this. That's right, Obamaniacs -- your dear leader is a run-of-the-mill politician from the southside of Chicago. Yes, he gives a good speech. But he is apparently also willing to sell out his own grandmother for votes.

One of Obama's main attractions was that he was a post-racial candidate. Associating himself with such hate-mongering race-baiters robs him of that distinction. If the media was half as diligent about exposing this point as they've been with pointing out Hillary Clinton's Bosnia lies, they might have a sliver of integrity left. And really, since when is it news that a Clinton told a lie?

State of the Race: My conservative heart is all atwitter

At the start of this election season -- which was what, four years ago? -- the conventional wisdom was that Hillary Clinton would coast to the Democrat nomination while the Republicans cannibalized themselves, split the party, and left themselves weakened for the general election. As has often been the case this time around, conventional wisdom has been mind-meltingly wrong.

The Republican nomination has been, for all intents and purposes, settled since February 5th. It was made official this week, but there was no serious challenge to John McCain once Mitt Romney withdrew.

Conversely, the Democrat race is still undecided and -- despite Barack Obama's lead, hype and momentum -- it still isn't likely that he'll win the nod outright. As it stands now, he'll have to pick up some 77 percent of remaining delegates. This task is substantially less daunting than Hillary needing to pick up 96 percent of remaining delegates, but neither of the tasks are the least bit likely to happen. This means that the Democrat race is going to go on at least until the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, and likely longer than that. That's at least another seven weeks of the Democrats' circular firing squad.

The closeness in the delegate count makes the delegates of Florida and Michigan all the more important. DNC Chairman Howard Dean has said that he doesn't want the DNC to have to pay for re-votes in the states because that's millions of dollars the DNC could be using to wage the general campaign. Florida governor Charlie Crist has said, however, that the DNC should have to pay for any re-vote -- after all, it wouldn't be fair for non-Democrats to have to pay for a Democrat election.

All of these developments should have Republicans giddy with anticipation. The conventional wisdom at the start of this campaign -- which, again, has proven totally worthless -- was that Democrats were going to waltz right into the White House. But, as they often do, the Democrats have completely whiffed the hanging slider, opened the door into their collective nose, fumbled in the red zone, bogied the 17th, etc.

Hillary Clinton, in my opinion, has made a huge strategic mistake in trying to characterize Obama as inexperienced with national security. Her "3 am phone call" ad that asked "Who would you rather answer the White House phone at 3:00 in the morning?" could bring her a tactical victory in getting voters to question Obama's experience, but that argument is a strategic failure against John McCain. Hillary might be more experienced than Obama in foreign policy, but John McCain dances circles around both of them. As I see it, Hillary still loses the nomination but this ad has the potential to serve as the pinprick through the heart of the Obama campaign.

Add to that the fact that the media has taken offense to the charge that they're blatantly shilling for Obama -- and have thus started asking tougher questions -- and the shine quickly comes off the Obama apple. If anything shady comes out of Obama's past, he's done. His entire candidacy is predicated on the idea that he's above politics, that he's different, that he's HOPE and CHANGE all rolled into one. Without that, he's got nothing. I mean, people certainly aren't packing into arenas to hear him talk about policy.

I warned before about underestimating the Clinton machine. I still stand by that. Although it appears virtually impossible for her to win the nomination at this point, I'm still not counting her out. She's not above fighting dirty, and her "kitchen sink" strategy against Obama certainly worked in Texas and Ohio. The trouble with that, however, is that Obama will likely respond in-kind -- leaving them both bruised and bloodied for the general election. Meanwhile, John McCain gets to start hammering both Obama AND Hillary. Provided he doesn't say anything incredibly stupid, he should go into the general election at a distinct advantage.

As I said, I still think Obama wins the nomination, but Hillary may have inflicted -- or may yet inflict -- a mortal wound to the Obama campaign.