Can I begin with a few words of praise for Donna Leinwand?

If you don’t know who she is, she’s a reporter for USA Today and, more importantly for these purposes, vice president of the National Press Club. And this week it was her calm, unflappable questioning of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright that helped stir up a storm in the Democratic presidential campaign.

It was Leinwand’s job to welcome Wright to the press club and pass on questions from members. From the beginning, Wright, standing next to Leinwand at the podium, treated her with a mix of sarcasm and contempt, as if she were unworthy to question him.

What did Wright mean when he said, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost” as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Leinwand asked.

“Have you heard the whole sermon?” Wright shot back. “Have you heard the whole sermon?”

“I heard most of it,” Leinwand said.

“No, no, the whole sermon, yes or no?” Wright said. “No, you haven’t heard the whole sermon? That nullifies that question.”

Later, Wright seemed visibly piqued when Leinwand asked whether he owes the American people an apology for his famous “God damn America” diatribe.

“Britain has apologized to Africans, but this country’s leaders have refused to apologize,” Wright said. “So until that apology comes, I’m not going to keep stepping on your foot and asking you, ‘Does this hurt? Do you forgive me for stepping on your foot?’ if I’m still stepping on your foot,” Wright said.

“Understand that?” he added mockingly. “Capisce?”

Through it all, Leinwand not only did not respond in kind, she kept asking questions in a flat, affectless tone that downplayed her own presence and allowed Wright to reveal himself.

So thank you, Ms. Leinwand. You did not let Rev. Wright rattle you, and we learned a lot because of it.

As for Wright, the question is: What now?

There are a lot of people, myself included, who are skeptical about Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) claims that he never heard some of the Rev. Wright’s more incendiary remarks — his so-called “fiery” sermons.

But beyond that, we also wonder how much of Wright’s sheer crackpottery Obama sat through at Trinity United Church of Christ.

This week, at the press club and also in a speech before the NAACP in Detroit, we heard Wright espouse all sorts of, shall we say, offbeat racial theories. It seems hard to believe Obama never heard that sort of stuff.

So we wonder why, if Obama so fundamentally disagreed with many of Wright’s views, he continued to attend the church year after year, and also continued to give generously (more than $400 a week in some recent years).

It could be that Obama simply exercised bad judgment by staying close to Wright. Or it could be that Obama isn’t being straight with us when he says he rejects Wright’s worldview.

Wright himself suggested the latter when he told PBS’s Bill Moyers that Obama “says what he has to say as a politician.”

If that’s true, then the question has nothing to do with judgment. It’s one of honesty. And if Obama is not telling us the truth, it could destroy his candidacy.

Whatever the answer, this issue is nowhere near being resolved.

At the very least, Obama should answer more questions about his relationship with Wright. As we learned Monday at the press club, the more you ask, the more you learn.

York is a White House correspondent for  National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week.  
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