Although this presidential race, at least among Democrats, has been about race and gender all along, Barack Obama today finally addressed it head on.

Obama made his remarks largely to contain the damage done to his campaign over the past week by his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose sermons often were filled with anti-American and anti-white rhetoric. Obama, a member of Wright’s church,Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, for some two decades, has claimed he was unaware of Wright’s comments. Though in his speech today, he seems to say that, in fact, he was aware of some of Wright’s remarks, but he didn’t say which ones.

Rejects words, not the man

Obama rejected much of what Wright has said–that God ought to damn America; that the U.S. invented the AIDS virus to oppress African-Americans; that the 9/11 terrorists attacks were retribution for U.S. police in the Middle East–but would not distance himself from the man.

“I can no more disown him that I can disown the black community,” Obama said in a speech at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Obama said Wright’s remarks “were not only wrong, but divisive.”

But, he went on to say that people have only been exposed to snippets of what Wright has preached over the years and if they took the full measure of the man, they might think differently of him.

Maybe, but..

While it would be very difficult to walk away from a man who was a mentor, who married you and who baptized your children, sometimes, presidents must do very difficult things.

For Obama to be President of the United States, he needs to not only disown Wright’s message, but Wright himself.

Otherwise, there will always be suspicion that Obama, in fact, embraces much of what Wright has preached and is just looking for a politically expedient way out of his current mess.