like sands through the hour glass...

Everyone knows we're in the middle of a big drama; that real life has been turned into some kind of soap opera with Obama, Hillary, and Jeremiah Wright as the stars.

And everyone's trying to figure out the plot.

Here's what we know so far:

It's no accident that Jeremiah Wright was given a few really big pulpits recently from which to remove all doubt from anyone's mind that he's a raving freak.

Having portrayed himself as such (although Peggy Noonan suggests he might be charming in person), he has given Obama the role of distancing himself from this "spiritual mentor" of almost his entire adult life. The result is clear: Obama is made of Teflon; but whether Wright did this intentionally or simply as a consequence of being a ranting buffoon is still up in the air.

Hillary and Obama agree that Wright should 'dissed. All of a sudden, instead of being a divider, Obama's starting to look like a hero for doing the hard thing, and standing up against such a dear, but pitiful friend. Oh, Obama, you're so brave!

Of course nobody with any sense believes this is anything more than a real, live soap opera, which is a pity, because real life is serious and few things are more important to responsible citizenship than our political processes. They are too grave to be turned into really bad drama. But here were are, just the same, in the midst of it.

The unknowns will become clearer, of course. But the knowns are pretty disturbing by themselves.

On the other hand, Occam's Razor suggests that..."it is what it is": Wright is some kind of self-aggrandizing self-promoter with a big chip on his shoulder so blinded by his own violent rhetoric that he thinks he's mainstream; Obama is a nincompoop; Hillary is...well, Imus calls her "Satan," but that's giving her far too much credit.

In any event, I am not sure which is more ridiculous: the story line as drama, or the story line as reality.