WEDNESDAY,  MARCH 19, 2008

THE SOBER SECOND LOOK

It's an American characteristic.  Americans are wonderful at giving things, and people, a sober second look.  It's what got Harry Truman elected in 1948.  It's what got voters to reject the image of the "movie actor" Ronald Reagan in 1980, size him up, and send him to victory.  It's what allowed Americans, after giving the dismissed General Douglas MacArthur a rousing welcome home from Korea, to reconsider what he was saying, and reject his views.

Now we're giving Barack Obama a sober second look.  It isn't as pretty as the first time, is it?  Mr. Obama is a man of rare political skill and eloquence.  But, clearly, he is also a man with a thin record and a history of odd associations.  In his important speech yesterday he tried to explain his association with his long-time pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., whose venomous, anti-American sermons have come to light.

I was able to monitor press and broadcast comments.  I thought the most incisive view on TV was given by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who reported that he was moved and impressed with the speech when he read it, then got increasingly angry as he reviewed it.  I felt the same way.  The fact is, what may be acceptable in some black church, or indeed some odd white churches, may not be acceptable to the broad mass of the American people.  As a sitting United States senator, a phrase that came up over and over on TV, Obama should have been more sensitive to his public obligations, and distanced himself from Rev. Wright's church.  He did not.

The public will decide if the Wright issue has been settled.  But a new tape surfaced last night, played on Fox, with Wright discussing Israel and its supporters in a raw manner.  There are other recordings.  This may not go away.

Obama is in a critical place.  If one more bombshell bursts over his campaign, if he's convincingly linked to one more unacceptable person, he may well lose the support of enough people to cost him the presidency, if not the nomination.  There needs only to be a shift of five or six percent of the total voting public to make him unelectable.  That will now be a Republican goal.

We will keep watch.

March 19, 2008.  Permalink

A THOUGHTFUL REACTION

Michael Gerson, now a columnist, was President Bush's chief speech writer.  He is a partisan, but a thoughtful one.  His reaction to Mr. Obama's speech is well-considered and reasoned:

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama has run a campaign based on a simple premise: that words of unity and hope matter to America. Now he has been forced by his charismatic, angry pastor to argue that words of hatred and division don't really matter as much as we thought.

Obama's Philadelphia speech made this argument as well as it could be made. He condemned the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's views in strong language -- and embraced Wright as a wayward member of the family. He made Wright and his congregation a symbol of both the nobility and "shocking ignorance" of the African-American experience -- and presented himself as a leader who transcends that conflicted legacy. The speech recognized the historical reasons for black anger -- and argued that the best response to those grievances is the adoption of Obama's own social and economic agenda.

It was one of the finest political performances under pressure since John F. Kennedy at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960. It also fell short in significant ways.

The problem with Obama's argument is that Wright is not a symbol of the strengths and weaknesses of the African-American community. He is a political extremist, holding views that are shocking to many Americans who wonder how any presidential candidate could be so closely associated with an adviser who refers to the "U.S. of KKK-A" and urges God to "damn" our country.

Obama's excellent and important speech on race in America did little to address his strange tolerance for the anti-Americanism of his spiritual mentor.

And...

But haven't George Bush and other Republican politicians accepted the support of Jerry Falwell, who spouted hate of his own? Yes, but they didn't financially support his ministry and sit directly under his teaching for decades.

The better analogy is this: What if a Republican presidential candidate spent years in the pew of a theonomist church -- a fanatical fragment of Protestantism that teaches the modern political validity of ancient Hebrew law? What if the church's pastor attacked the American government as illegitimate and accepted the stoning of homosexuals and recalcitrant children as appropriate legal penalties (which some theonomists interpret as biblical requirements)? Surely we would conclude, at the very least, that the Republican candidate attending this church lacked judgment, and that his donations were subsidizing hatred. And we would be right.

Finally...

King drew a different lesson from the oppression he experienced: "I've seen too much hate to want to hate myself; hate is too great a burden to bear. I've seen it on the faces of too many sheriffs of the South. ... Hate distorts the personality. ... The man who hates can't think straight; the man who hates can't reason right; the man who hates can't see right; the man who hates can't walk right."

Barack Obama is not a man who hates -- but he chose to walk with a man who does.

And that, of course, is the key to the issue.

There were, obviously, very positive reactions.  Chris Matthews, in his arousal, compared Obama to Lincoln.  Matthews recently said that, when he heard Obama speak, a tingle went up his leg.  I am concerned about Mr. Matthews.  I fear that he'll soon imagine that Obama's speeches are chiseled in stone and carried down from a mountain.  I fear that Mr. Matthews may offer to help with the carrying.  He must go to a spa and relax.

March 19, 2008.  Permalink

THE GRAY LADY WHISPERS

Contrast Michael Gerson's thoughtfulness to this, from today's editorial in The New York Times, whose editorial board apparently fell at the feet of Mr. Obama, murmuring prayers:

He made the powerful point that while these feelings are not always voiced publicly, they are used in politics. “Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan coalition,” he said.

Against this backdrop, he said, he could not repudiate his pastor. “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community,” he said. “I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother.” That woman whom he loves deeply, he said, “once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street” and more than once “uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”

There have been times when we wondered what Mr. Obama meant when he talked about rising above traditional divides. This was not such a moment.

We can’t know how effective Mr. Obama’s words will be with those who will not draw the distinctions between faith and politics that he drew, or who will reject his frank talk about race. What is evident, though, is that he not only cleared the air over a particular controversy — he raised the discussion to a higher plane.

Read the last paragraph again.  When people speak of liberal elitism, that's what they're talking about:  "We can't know how effective Mr. Obama's words will be with those who will not draw the distinctions between faith and politics that he drew, or who will reject his frank talk about race."  In other words, dear ones, there are those of us who understand these things, and those of you who don't. 

Well, excuse me.

And perhaps The Times might wait until the public reacts before announcing that Mr. Obama has cleared the air.  There's also air in Indiana, in Missouri, in Georgia, in Maine, in Minnesota, in Nevada.  It's really no different from the air in New York City, but my fellow New Yorkers are sometimes stunned to find that out. 

March 19, 2008.  Permalink

MOVING THE POLLS

The general-election tracking polls provide encouragement for Senator McCain, who is now on a tour of foreign countries, looking very presidential.  The Real Clear Politics average today shows McCain leading Obama by four tenths of a point, at a time when the Democrats expected to be well ahead. 

In a race against Senator Clinton, McCain is only fractionally behind. 

Against both candidates, the Rasmussen poll shows McCain six points ahead.

Something to note here is that the Obama claim that he would be the stronger candidate against McCain has been wiped out. 

March 19, 2008.  Permalink

OLYMPIC BOYCOTT?

There is other news.  We've mentioned Tibet in recent days, and noted that the disturbances there could impact this year's summer Olympics, to be held in China, which controls Tibet.  Now there are calls for at least a symbolic Olympic boycott:

PARIS (AP) - Moves to punish China over its handling of violence in Tibet gained momentum Tuesday, with a novel suggestion for a mini-boycott of the Beijing Olympics by VIPs at the opening ceremony.

Such a protest by world leaders would be a huge slap in the face for China's Communist leadership.

France's outspoken foreign minister, former humanitarian campaigner Bernard Kouchner, said the idea "is interesting."

Kouchner said he wants to discuss it with other foreign ministers from the 27-nation European Union next week. His comments opened a crack in what until now had been solid opposition to a full boycott, a stance that Kouchner said remains the official government position.

The idea of skipping the Aug. 8 opening ceremony "is less negative than a general boycott," Kouchner said. "We are considering it."

Watch for this to build.  The protesters in Tibet get news from the outside.  They know that the Olympics provide a platform to get world attention.  The International Olympic Committee will, no doubt, show its usual indifference to human rights, but there are more powerful forces at work.

We can only hope that the Bush administration, in its final months, yields to the better angels of its nature, and joins a boycott of the opening ceremonies.  It would, in some small measure, make up for Bush 41's groveling to China only months after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, when Washington acted as if, hey, it never even happened. 

March 19, 2008.  Permalink

ANY OPINION, AMERICAN FEMINISTS?

Finally, a travel advisory:  The Mideast's first women-only hotel has opened in Saudi Arabia:

The Middle East's first women-only hotel was officially opened in the capital of the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, secretary general of the Supreme Commission for Tourism, attended the inauguration of the Luthan Hotel and Spa in Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia, which applies a rigorous doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism, strictly enforces the separation of the sexes in public, and the 25-room hotel said it can offer its female-only guests 150 types of spa treatments as well as fine dining and conference facilities.

Princess Madawi Bint Mohammad Bin Abdullah, who chairs the board of partners that set up the hotel, said the project was an important step forward for women in the kingdom.

"One of the aims of the Luthan ... is to support the achievements of women in general and particularly those in Saudi Arabia," the statement quoted her as saying at a news conference during the hotel's official opening.

Women in Saudi Arabia face a host of constraints. They are banned from driving, forced to cover from head to toe in public, prohibited from mixing with men other than relatives and prevented from travelling without written permission from their male guardian.

At least we called it "separate but equal."  Well, there are spas and some good food.  Who needs that freedom stuff?

And I'll be back later.

March 19, 2008.  Permalink