Ever seen those T-shirts that read, "I'm With Stupid"? These also depict a drawn arrow that points to the person beside you.

Well, it's like that.

Sen. Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright own stupid shirts. At various times, their arrows have pointed at each other.

Obama hid his T-shirt beneath a suit when he spoke in Pennsylvania about race while also explaining his support for his former pastor.

Obama expected folks to understand that Wright was just a grumpy old brother p.o.'d about slavery, Jim Crow and other legalized injustice and that's why the Chicago minister exploited the 9/11 attacks and waved a bloody shirt about white privilege.

Obama asked us to consider whether we could cast the first stone against this imperfect Christian. He could no more disown Wright than his loving Kansan grandmother, a white woman, whose occasional bigoted remarks stunned him in his youth.

The familial reference was a subtle reminder that Obama is biracial, the son of a black Kenyan father and white American mother. Odd that it didn't come up that Obama's black identity is a remnant of slavery's one-drop rule.

Even a man from humble beginnings with a Harvard pedigree can attract stupid people and enable them to make more stupid choices.

After losing Pennsylvania to Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama refused to take off his stupid shirt. Dumb move. This time, the arrow pointed at voters.

Stupid is as stupid does, as we say in banjo country.

Rather than be defined by Obama and media bias, Wright launched an amazing solo tour of immense hubris and incalculable stupidity. To the National Press Club and the NAACP, Wright claimed he speaks truth to power whereas Obama speaks truth to politics. He had no regrets. He made no apologies.

To the Obama camp, things just went from dumb to dumber. I guess you could say Wright betrayed Obama with a kiss.

Obama then felt obliged to do the same. Perhaps a moment too late, but none too soon.

Meanwhile, the Grand Old Partisans were busily trying to scare the bejesus out of white and Latino voters by calling Wright the new savior of black liberation theology. This time, their tar baby wasn't bin Laden, but Louis Farrakhan.

By the way, what theology is expressed when respected white fundamentalists on TV and in megachurches preach that AIDS is divine retribution and there was a reason that Hurricane Katrina looked like a fetus on the weather map when it struck the Gulf Coast?

The Religious Right gets amnesty, while the Religious Left gets thrown to the lions. Double R's don't even think twice before slurring Jews, except if Joe Lieberman is around.

John McCain wears his stupid shirt with pride and, apparently, with some prejudice. He didn't bat an eye when Texas preacher pal John Hagee insulted me and other Roman Catholics by calling our church "the great whore of Babylon." Even after Hagee claimed Katrina was God's way of punishing the queers, McCain said, "I don't have to agree with everyone who endorsed my candidacy." Not only does the Arizona senator have a stupid shirt, it's tied, dyed and sanctified!

You can be a white Republican and wear your stupid T-shirt untucked for weeks before someone tells you it stinks and you're an idiot. There are just some things nonwhites and Democrats can't get away with.

The more Wright opened his mouth the more stupid gushed like projectile vomit. It got so that the arrow wasn't just pointed at Obama, but glowed in the dark.

Finally, Obama saw the light. He ripped off his stupid shirt faster than you could say, "Heckuva job, Brownie."

Hillary borrowed from an African proverb to remind us, "It takes a village to raise a child." Obama reminds us of that old Kansan proverb, "It takes an idiot to sacrifice the village for a holy man who thinks only of himself."

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman (rlokeman@creators.com) is a contributing editor to The Kansas City Star. To find out more about Rhonda Chriss Lokeman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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