“Over the past two months, Obama has in slow stages backed away from his 20-year association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, first criticizing some of his statements but clinging to their friendship, then strongly condemning those words and finally severing his ties to Wright’s former church,” David Broder wrote today in the Washington Post. “The net result has been to smudge one of the main clues voters had been given to Obama’s fundamental values and beliefs, and to create a new aura of mystery about this man.”

Gee, Broder almost sounds like a former Black Panther. One might almost forget that Obama backed away from Wright after Broder and the rest of the media mob went berserk over his association with the man.

“In his achingly slow steps toward repudiating the repugnant words of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama has run the risk of serious political damage by leaving vague what it was that attracted him to this outspoken critic of American society,” Broder wrote just over a month ago.

And here’s Broder on “Meet the Press back in March: “I don’t know Reverend Wright except for these clips, and that’s not a basis for judging his whole approach or personality, but his tone seems so far removed from the tone that Obama has tried to strike, not just in this campaign but throughout his political career, that it raises a question in my mind: What was it about Reverend Wright that attracted Obama when he had, as a newcomer to Chicago, choice of any of the number of churches or pastors to go to?”

And all of this raises questions about who?