The chickens sure have come home to roost, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Only they haven't come home to roost on the United States of America, they've come to roost on the campaign of Barack Obama.

I smelled this in the air a month-and-a-half ago. The Republicans were just too enthusiastic about Barack Obama. When Sean Hannity has nice things to say about a Democratic candidate, you know something is wrong. There was a suckerpunch coming. What did they have up their sleeves?

For months the right-wing crackpots had been e-mailing each other like crazy that Barack's middle name was Hussein (my name's Art, but do I have a lot in common with Art Garfunkel?) and he was a Muslim. Those with the wits to use Snopes.com (which are few on the right) saw he was in fact a member of a Christian church called Trinity United Church of Christ.

Reading the church's page, though, some things jumped out at me, like, "We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian...We are an African people, and remain 'true to our native land.'" If Barack Obama was the Great Uniter, why was he going to a church that was so self-consciously black and "true to the native land?" Didn't sound like a melting pot or a place where Obama's own white mother might feel welcomed. There had to be more to this, and the Republicans were just waiting `til the general election to spring it.

However, maybe Hillary grew tired of farting around and beat McCain to the punch. She put the bug in Brian Ross' ear to order a set of Rev. Wright's tapes from the church Web site so he could put them on ABC News. Now white America's fears have been confirmed: Barack Obama is closer to Lewis Farrakhan than Bill Cosby. Whether he agreed with his pastor or not, he sat in his church for 20 years listening to this. He claims he wasn't present for these particular statements but Ross said that ABC ordered 12 of these tapes and every one of them contained some sort of rant like the ones that have become so infamous over the past week.

Poor Barack. Seriously. I think his wife, Michelle, bares a large part of the responsibility. I've got to agree with Republicans who say something about the look in her eye. I think a Omarosa is lurking underneath Michelle Obama's Jacqueline Kennedy hairdo.

Here's what happened: Barack Obama is half-white, and therefore like many mixed-race people he felt insecure about which culture he fit into, if any. Deciding to be black, he had insecurities about if he would be "black enough" for the black friends he wanted, so he did what mixed-race people sometimes do, he overcompensated. I have a friend like this. His skin is as light as mine, but he made a point of growing out a afro in his early 20's, and though he grew up riding in BMW's and Merecdes, he let everyone know he had spent at least a little time in the projects, and thought Farrakhan was misunderstood. This was all to prove to himself, I think, that he was as black as Chuck D.

So having this insecurity right into his 20's Barack found Michelle, who hates whitey (maybe), and she lead him to this church that was reportedly very popular on the Southside of Chicago. Considering he was starting a grassroots political career, being a member of one of the most popular churches around seemed like a good idea. The only problem was he didn't cut ties with the Southside rhetoric in time to keep it from staining his Main Street political career.

Now enter Bishop James David Manning of Harlem, New York (above), another black preacher giving Barack grief. This guy has a cottage industry going of producing anti-Barack Obama YouTube videos. They're circulating the Internet like wildfire, and the Rev. Wright controversy is probably only causing more Google cross-pollination. Funny after reading Manning's site I think his heart may be in the right place, despite his wacko tactics.

If one more black preacher gets in the fray Obama may turn atheist.

The chickens have indeed come home to roost. Let's just hope whoever gets elected can clean this shit up.