For 20 years, Barack has attended Wright's church, listened to his weekly sermons, entertained him in his home. Yet, says Barack, he never heard any racist rants at church, nor was he aware that Wright held so poisoned a view of his country.

Sorry, that is not credible. Wright is a famous preacher in black America, and Barack's denial he was aware of his views marks him down either as a dissembler or a man so obtuse he ought not be a security guard at Wal-Mart, let alone president of the United States.

It is easy now to understand why Michelle Obama, before Barack began to win, had never once been proud of her country. Who could be proud of the America that lives in the malignant imagination of the Rev. Wright?

Barack has now moved to separate himself from Wright's rants and removed him from the campaign roster. And he will likely be forced, with anguish, to turn his back on, repudiate, and reject his beloved friend and teacher.

But it is too late for that. For Wright has, for millions of Americans, filled in the blanks about Barack. Wright tells us the kind of company Barack keeps, the kind of men he holds close, the kind of attitudes and beliefs he finds acceptable, if not congenial.

That Wright is a revered preacher in black America also tells us that, far from coming together, we Americans are further apart than we were in the 1950s, when Negroes could be described as Christian, conservative and patriotic. Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad did not speak for black America then. Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young and Dr. Martin Luther King did. But Jeremiah Wright makes Stokely Carmichael and Rap Brown sound like the Mills Brothers.

Truly, the Democratic Party is now headed for a train wreck. Though Barack seems likely to win more pledged delegates than Hillary, the super-delegates will have to decide whether they want to offer America a nominee whose pastor and mentor embodies the anti-white racism and anti-Americanism that has ever brought the patriotic blood of Middle America to a boil. Wright is not the sort of fellow you want to bring with you into "Deer Hunter" Country.