Identity politics can be tricky. Just ask Barack Obama.
    Jeremiah Wright is not running for president. But because he was Obama's pastor for many years at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, the Rev. Dr. Wright and his outrageous statements have become identified with the candidate.
    The most charitable thing you can say about Obama is that he made a serious mistake by not denouncing sooner some of Wright's most extreme pronouncements. But it goes deeper than that. Obama either does not understand how offensive some of Wright's remarks are to most Americans, or he is willfully tone deaf. This, in turn, leads many Americans, rightly, to question the candidate's judgment, and his inability to meet head-on the first real crisis of his campaign.
    When Obama finally denounced Wright's ego-driven "rants" (Obama's word) this week, it was too little too late. That naturally led people to wonder what the candidate's own ideas really are and whether he secretly shares Wright's most extreme views.
    In an appearance at the National Press Club, Wright was asked, "In [a] sermon, you said the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. So I ask you: Do you honestly believe your statement and those words?"
    Wright dodged, but said, in part, " . . .based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government
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is capable of doing anything."
    When asked about his relationship to Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, and whether he agreed with his most racially divisive views, Wright defended him. "Louis said 20 years ago that Zionism, not Judaism, was a gutter religion," as if time and semantic hair-splitting make ugly anti-Semitic slurs go away.
    Obama has claimed that he was not aware of some of his pastor's most extremist sermonizing. That is hard to believe, given that the candidate has attended services at Trinity for the better part of two decades.
    That Obama was reluctant to break with his longtime pastor is understandable on a human level. What parishioner has not squirmed in the pew at some of the things his pastor, rabbi, priest, bishop or imam has said from the pulpit? Besides, identifying himself with a dynamic black church and its pastor was politically beneficial.
    But Barack Obama must understand, if he did not before, that being a candidate for president makes you different from other members of the parish. Allowing others to identify who you are, particularly in religious terms, can be a fateful political mistake, particularly if you are preaching a political message of racial reconciliation and your longtime pastor seems to be saying something quite different.