Slowly but surely, the fact that Sen. Obama refuses to denounce, renounce, object, or even mildly rebuke his longtime “spiritual advisor” and church pastor is starting to be recognized by the American public.

Wright is a man who is your garden variety radical racist, an angry, vicious little man who blamed America for 9/11 (“God d__m America…for killing innocent people” he once famously said), and compared Obama’s upbringing to Jesus at the hands of the Romans (who were “Italian and that means European and that means WHITE” he thundered from the pulpit last year). This is a man who literally stood in his church and exclaimed, “Hillary has never been called a n__ger!”

Some sermon.

And yet, Sen. Obama simply will not, perhaps cannot, offer anything more than a mild type of “agree-to-disagree” style of reaction to this Chicago crackpot.

The reasons given for Obama’s refusal to denounce Jeremiah Wright range from specious to laughable. I heard one radio host today suggest that if Obama were to do so, he’d be “in trouble” for not doing so in the past.

Another said, “For perspective, I certainly do not agree with everything my pastors have said on Sunday.”

What a ridiculous reaction. That’s a bit like saying the local pedophile does a good job of creating balloon animals. This isn’t about agreeing or disagreeing with parts of someone’s hateful racism. A pedophile doesn’t have any positive attributes; a bigot shouldn’t be forgiven because some of his body of work is okay.

So Hillary, your opponent’s Achilles heel, his reluctance to do the right thing and completely reject Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his pastor and advisor, has just made it pretty easy for you. He has thrown you a giant, fat, slow pitch right down the middle of the plate.

Are you gonna take a swing?