Tonight, Anderson Cooper interviewed Sen. Obama regarding the Rev. Wright remarks.

I will try and post either a video or a transcript at some point.

However, my initial thoughts were - that was probably the right way to respond. Sen. Obama said, in sum, that Rev. Wright is his friend, you don’t walk away from your friends because they say things you don’t agree with, the things Rev. Wright said are not things that Senator Obama agrees with at all, and that his campaign wants to focus on healing some of the things from Rev. Wright’s anger and frustration over race issues stems.

In short - I thought he said all of the right things… but I’ll try to provide more of an analysis when I can provide the video. It was, in my view, a pretty good effort at crisis communication, and as a political observer, and former advisor (not to Obama), I thought he did rather well.

We’ll have to see if people accept Sen. Obama’s views and explanations…

Again, I disagree strongly with Senator Obama politically - but I accept his responses tonight as being how he feels about the statements that Rev. Wright made. We’ll have to see what happens next… but I think it will be difficult to continue to throw grist into the mill on this issue. As Congressman Gingrich said on the Sean Hannity Show awhile back, Republicans won’t be able to beat Barrack Obama because of some silly trick or gimmick about his name, his friends, or his church. I think if Senator Obama winds up being the nominee - discussions about the issues between him and Senator McCain will be the deciding factors. Not whether or not Senator Obama’s middle name is Islamic, or whether his friends are bombastic and caustic. Tax policy. Economic Policy. National Security Issues. These will be the battle grounds come November.