Preacherman

Listening to Charles Barkley talk to Wolf Blitzer on CNN this Sunday morning was a powerful lesson in positioning and framing. Barkley said forthrightly that he is pro-choice, he supports gay —“it's none of my business”—marriage, and he moved to Alabama in 2007 and will be running for governor in 2014.

Barkley's a strong Obama supporter and sees him as both friend and role model for the black community. But whoever the nominee is this year, Barkley, who says he's an independent, will be votin' Democratic.

And he took on the Christian conservative meme that the rightwing and the co-opted lazy media have been pushing for years. "Fake Christians," says Barkley, who've annointed themselves the judges, hypocrites who totally ignore the imprecation to judge not and be forgiving.

Does it take a sports icon to gain traction in the media against the judgmentalists who've held sway over the conventional wisdom far too long?

UPDATE: HuffPo's got the video.