On air: Is Obama’s skin colour harming his presidential campaign?

It’s taken almost seven weeks, but Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has finally distanced himself from his former pastor after a couple of recent speeches. Rev Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor for 20 years, the man who married him and his wife and baptised his children, claimed back in March that the United States had brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own “terrorism” and the government had invented AIDS to kill black people.

Originally Senator Obama denounced his comments as “incendiary” and “completely inexcusable”, yesterday his tone changed, “They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced. And that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally today.” Here are a couple of blogs with their own views.

Talking points for 30 April

Good morning, first up I’ll ask you if now is the time to put our debate about race being good or bad for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign on the radio. The Illinois senator has finally had to put some personal distance between him and his former pastor after a couple of recent speeches – Obama said he was outraged and saddened by Rev Jeremiah Wright’s comments.