Various people became quite alarmed when New York said the following at the end of a long article on Barack Obama's campaign and race: "In October, Obama's former pastor, [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright, will publish a new book and hit the road to promote it, an occasion that might well place the topic of Obama's blackness (along with his patriotism and his candor about what he heard in the pews in all those years at Trinity Church) squarely at the center of the national debate." Oh, EXCELLENT.

Wright, the pastor whose controversial sermons got the Democratic presidential candidate in hot water during primary season, mentioned the book in a spring address to the NAACP, and that it was coming out by the end of the year. But few guessed that Wright was planning a release date that maximizes risk to his former congregant.

Wright's usual publisher, Judson Press, doesn't seem to have the book on its roster. Anyone know which publishing house is financing the political poison capsule? In the meantime, maybe try and decipher what the book is going to be about, from its mention in Wright's NAACP speech:

40 years ago, Dr. Anthony (inaudible) quoted in '68 the Kerner report stated that they were two different Americas. And for 40 years one of those Americas has acted as if they were the only America. But all of that now is in the past. I believe a change is coming. Because many of us are going to change how we see others who are different...



So let me give you the outline of the rest of this message. You can either fill in the blanks for yourselves or you could wait for my book that will be out later this year...



Number one, many of us are committed to changing how we see ourselves. Number two, not inferior or superior to, just different from others. Embracing our own histories. Embracing our own cultures...



Many of us are committed to changing how we see others who are different... Many of us are committed to changing, number three, the way we treat each other. The way black men treat black women. The way black parents treat black children. The way black youth treat black elders and the way black elders treat black youth...



The way we treat the latest immigrants because everybody in here who's not an Indian do be an immigrant. Some of you all came on a decks of ship and some of us came on the bows and hauls of the ship, but we all are immigrants. The way we treat non Christians and folks who don't believe what we believe, we're committed to changing the way we treat each other. The way Sunis treat Shiites, the way Orthodox Jews treat reformed Jews. The way church folk treat other church folk. The way speakers of English treat speakers of Arabic — Maasalam al hal.



Please run and tell my stuck on stupid friends that Arabic is a language, it's not a religion. Barack Hussein Obama. Barack Hussein Obama. Barack Hussein Obama. They are Arabic-speaking Christians, Arabic-speaking Jews and Arabic speaking atheists. Arabic is a language, it's not a religion. Stop trying to scare folks by giving them an Arabic name as if it's some sort of a disease.



Same people thought that the Irish had a disease. When the Irish came here. Did you hear my me O'Malley? O'Reilly? They thought you were - well they might have been might, the way we treat each other, many of us are committed to changing the way we treat each other...

Well, he hasn't lost his incendiary touch!