I don’t think the Obamas arranged for this (although they might end up repudiating Wright but that could backfire too as Obama said he can no more turn his back on Wright than on the “black community”):
Clinton supporter invited Wright
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Clinton_supporter_invited_Wright.html
Obama’s campaign has disavowed Wright’s media tour, and a correspondent notes an interesting detail:
Wright was invited to the National Press Club by a journalist and minister who supports Clinton.
The Tribune reports that Wright was invited by Barbara Reynolds, a former USA Today editorial board member who has written on personal blog of her support for Clinton.
I don’t mean to suggest some kind of plot. Her agenda here seems to have been the same as Wright’s: To protect the minister’s reputation from, among others, Obama.
“[I]t is a sad testimony that to protect his credentials as a unifier above the fray the Senator is fueling the media characterization that Rev. Dr. Wright is some retiring old uncle in the church basement instead of respecting Wright for the towering astute father of progressive social and global causes that he is,” Reynolds wrote in March.
Reynolds’ is well placed to defend Wright. Her bio says she teaches “prophetic ministry and the media” at Howard University’s divinity school.
I don’t think Obama has anything to lose by repudiating Wright. There is no way that relationship will ever be the same. Obama has to be beyond the “Give Whitey Hell” traditional black leadership.