Senator Obama really is in an impossible situation. As I pointed out in this post below, the facts surrounding his choice of church for the last two decades really only leave two explanations to the intellectually honest observer:

1. Barack Obama actually believes the hateful and dangerous Black Liberation Theology that his pastor espouses.

2. He has been cynically and dishonestly attending Wright’s large Chicago church for two decades for political advantage.

Today the consummate soulless, political mercenary—Dick Morris—went “all in” on explanation number two. In a RealClearPolitics column Morris wrote:

Wright’s rantings are not reflective of Obama’s views on anything. Why did he stay in the church? Because he’s a black Chicago politician who comes from a mixed marriage and went to Columbia and Harvard. Suspected of not being black enough or sufficiently tied to the minority community, he needed the networking opportunities Wright afforded him in his church to get elected. If he had not risen to the top of Chicago black politics, we would never have heard of him. But obviously, he can’t say that.

Morris declares that Obama has the nomination sewn up and that if the Senator is the crafty, duplicitous, hyper-ambitious politician that one would have to be to be Mr. Explanation Number Two, he will survive this storm.

That is probably true. Obama the candidate will survive. But the mystique will not.

The pre-Wright Obama was the un-politician, the new and different kind of candidate who was above mere ambition. Beyond power seeking. Trans-ideological.

That myth is dying.  Every new Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright hate bomb exposed will strip off another layer of the messianic veneer, leaving nothing but another ambitious, ego-centric climber behind.

And the maddening thing for the Democrats who have hitched their hopes for White House power and glory to Obama’s rising star is that they can’t rush to his defense without looking like the hypocrites of the century.

Why? Because they have spent most of the last eight years throwing a walleyed indignant fit every time a Republican politician got within a hundred yards of a conservative preacher who was even remotely controversial. From those who criticized candidate George Bush for speaking at Bob Jones University back in 2000, to those who got the vapors two weeks ago when John McCain was endorsed by John Hagee.

Between those two examples lie thousands of instances of Dems and liberals wailing and gnashing their teeth about one Republican or another’s association with a “extremist” or “intolerant” minister.

They know they can’t defend Obama’s 20 year attendance at Trinity United Church of Christ without being clubbed about the head and shoulders with numerous reminders of past pronouncements like this one:

 The issue here has to do with the role of extremists in public life. Barack Obama never sought support from Louis Farrakhan, never appeared on stage with Farrakhan, never pronounced himself proud to be backed by Farrakhan, but was nonetheless asked on national television to specifically disavow the man. People don’t want to put a political coalition that includes Farrakhan in office. (Lefty Matt Yglesias, all worked up over Hagee’s endorsement of McCain.)

Bring it. And let the throttling commence. (How about you Andrew?)