Jeremiah was a bullfrog. Was a good friend of mine. Never understood a single word he said. But I helped him a-drink his wine. These nonsense lyrics could easily work to caption any photo of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, with his now teetotaling friend Barack Obama.

The whole mess brought on by Jeremiah's big mouth and healthy ego was mostly nonsense as well, but of a sort that may bleed the hope candidate out through the heel. In the post-analysis, will Indiana and North Carolina dissipate this distracting narrative, or reinforce it?

The very light-skinned Wright pulling his blacker-than-thou mantle close about his shoulders as he offers his parodies just highlights hypocrisies yet to be dealt with inside rapidly diversifying black America. He's obviously right about many things when it comes to the abysmal history and pathetic current state of race relations in this country.

Three years ago, I found myself co hosting a little noted public affairs show focused on black politics in Miami. A fair number of things expressed by Wright were also said on-air by guests or callers on the show at various times. His views are mostly within the mainstream of black culture in America and we need to acknowledge that and deal with it.

I recall one time in particular when we had some local bigwigs from the Nation of Islam on to promote the Millions More march on Washington D.C. in 2005. One of the gentlemen went on at some length about how the U.S. government had created the AIDS virus and spread it in Haiti. It's nuts, yes, but there's something important at the root of the paranoia and alienation that can't be easily brushed off.

However, Wright's reaction to Obama's initially timid brush-off was a classic combination of the crabs in the bucket mentality and the sometimes messed up mentor/mentee relationship that I've frequently observed in black politics.

In the black community, to get anywhere in the power structure, you have to kiss a lot of rings and asses to be judged ready (ie, loyal, grateful, indoctrinated) by the elders who tightly grasp the reigns.

If you presume to skip the line, fail to pay adequate homage, or in some other way are judged to have betrayed the patriarch or matriarch of the family circle, there is a price to pay. Some are able to transcend and escape the gravity of this destiny. Others thrive within it.

But many weary of this unforgiving curriculum. They tend to move on to other pursuits, thus leaving the field of black politics to a relative handful of aging leaders and their trusted lieutenants. For these folks, with some notable exceptions, the past is present and future.

What got them where they are works for them -- circle the wagons, unity, and most importantly, serving as gatekeeper between us and them. To a guy like Wright, Obama's race speech and his entire premise of turning the gate into a bridge, is not only offensive in its repudiation of a certain understanding of the world -- it is also something of a mortal threat to the power base of current black leadership.

So here's the thing. I think Wright, besides enjoying the shit out of ramping up his bruised-ego demogoguery for the present 15 minutes, is punishing Obama for betrayal. Obama, that half-breed upstart, is a young man who has not paid sufficient dues. His politics of assimilation are an affront to the kind of isolationist mentality that have dominated the politics of Wright's era, and in my opinion, disabled the forward momentum of a generation of young leaders.

Obama will have to show whether he is ready for the mantle of the message he has thrust at us. Can he transcend? Or will he be just another crustacean the other crabs dragged back into the bucket?