Interesting to see the Barack Obama/Rev. Jeremiah Wright saga play out with this development:

In a letter to the Huffington Post Web site Friday afternoon — and in a later interview on MSNBC — Obama went further than he has previously gone to distance himself from Wright’s comments, while urging voters to judge him “on the basis of who I am and what I believe in.”

“All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn,” Obama wrote. “They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country.”

Obama said in the MSNBC interview that he did not “repudiate the man.”

Contrast how Obama is handling this incident with something equally destructive that occurred to a presidential campaign 20 years ago.

Here’s the September 9, 1988 New York Times:

The campaign of Vice President Bush dismissed a member of a panel formed to enlist support among ethnically diverse groupings late today amid allegations by Jewish and Nazi-hunting organizations that he was one of three panelists with anti-Semitic involvements or links to fascist groups.

Mark Goodin, a campaign spokesman, said the panel member, Jerome A. Brentar, was dismissed after it was learned that he had been active in efforts to defend John Demjanjuk, who is appealing a sentence of death imposed in April by an Israeli court. It found that he had committed atrocities as a guard at the Treblinka camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Mr. Goodin said Mr. Brentar’s ‘’association with John Demjanjuk put him at odds with Vice President Bush.'’ As for the two other members in question, he added, ‘’We have absolutely no substantiation at this point of any of these charges.'’…
The panel in question, Mr. Bush’s Coalition of American Nationalities, is a volunteer group intended to build support for the campaign among ethnic groups….
‘’There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that these three individuals have expressed sympathies with Nazism, with fascism,'’ said Michael S. Miller, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council.

In addition to Mr. Brentar, a Croatian-American who has also been active in groups that deny the existence of the Holocaust, Mr. Miller and Mr. Cooper supported Jewish Week’s descriptions of the other two men, Florian Galdau and Philip Guarino….

Mr. Goodin said the campaign organization was ‘’shocked by the allegations,'’ but that it should not have been expected to ascertain every detail about prospective panel members in the screening process.

…
Early today, before Mr. Brentar was dismissed, James A. Baker 3d, the Bush campaign chairman, said at a news conference that ‘’there is absolutely no room for anti-Semitism or bigotry of any sort in our campaign.'’

I remember that story vividly.  I worked in the Bush ‘88 campaign, doing outreach to the Jewish community. I can tell you first-hand how damaging the whole incident was, specifically to our efforts among Jews.  And for good reason.  But the Bush ‘88 campaign handled it right by dismissing him — and Baker’s statement against anti-Semitism and bigotry in the campaign was forceful.

Much more so than something like “Obama said in the MSNBC interview that he did not ‘repudiate the man.’”

Pity.  Sometimes repudiation is the right thing to do.  Obama’s pronounced eloquence could really be put to good use.