After watching the video of Barack Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright damning America and blaming her for the attacks of 9/11, Polk Award winner Josh Marshall wrote

It’s racially charged and will certainly get a lot of play, though I’m not sure there’s much in it that doesn’t come out of the sermon tradition of African-American Christianity with a 60s twist. Last week, Obama, who has denounced various of Wright’s statements, told a Jewish audience, Wright “is like an old uncle who says things I don’t always agree with.” Watch it yourself and make your own judgments. For myself, when watching something like this, it is often difficult to distinguish between what I actually find offensive myself and what it is ingrained in me to believe others will find offensive.

Marshall is unsure if he’s offended by a popular American religious leader repeating “God damn America” to swelling applause. Fine. But I’m sure I’m offended that Marshall seeks to excuse that kind of garbage as merely “the sermon tradition of African-American Christianity with a 60s twist.” He’s not giving much credit to a pretty impressive tradition. And doesn’t he find it curious that a “60s twist” should come in 2008, as a black man stands on the verge of the Democratic presidential nomination?

(HT: Michael Weiss)