Obama as Prince Hal, Reverend Wright as Falstaff, and The Price of Leadership.

One of the great relationships in modern literature is that of Prince Hal and his great friend Falstaff. It's a great story and a great relationship because it is a relationship that has existed over and over throughout time immemorial. Obama is Prince Hall, and Reverend Wright is Falstaff.

Sound farfetched? It's really not, when you think about it, and I think conservatives and true independents saw Wright as a very VERY serious problem for Obama right from the start:

At the beginning of Henry IV, Part Two, it is clear that Hal has yet to realize that he must fully break from his wasted youth as well as the vestiges of the dissolute past. The callow Prince of Wales must undergo a series of trials so that he internalizes kingly values rather than merely assuming an inherited mantle. An essential and problematic element in this process is Hal coming to terms with his surrogate father, Sir John Falstaff. Falstaff plays an essential role in the arc of Hal's development, but ultimately becomes an obstacle that must be transcended. Falstaff provides the final hurdle, the decisive test, that Hal must overcome before he is ready and able to lead England back to greatness. (Henry IV, Part Two, By William Shakespeare Produced by The Shakespeare Theatre: Washington, D.C. 2003-2004 Season Directed by Bill Alexander Program Note: The Limits of Friendship).

In one of the most moving and poignant moments in any play, we see what Prince Hal, now King Henry V, must do:

FALSTAFF
My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

KING HENRY IV
I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on.

Here Falstaff (Played by Anthony Quayle) learns that old King Henry IV is dead, and Prince Hal (played by David Gwillim) is now -- King Henry V:

Obama had to do it. The longer he waited, the more damage waiting would do. Obama's a great guy -- loyal, honest, decent, but you have to know when to cut someone off, as cruel as that can be: when it comes to national leadership, for the nation, any nation, the stakes have always been extraordinarily high, and this shows that Obama can rise to the challenge: actions, like this, will always trump any speech. He's learning that.