Barack's Conundrum

Barack Obama's March 18 address on race was eloquent and disturbing. Well-crafted and delivered with characteristic aplomb, Obama demonstrated elements of greatness, but he settled nothing. In fact, he may actually have exacerbated racial tensions. A frank, reasoned discussion of race is a laudable undertaking, but a presidential campaign is a poor forum.

Obama sought to stanch the political wounds he suffered when a series of videotapes made by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, surfaced. In those tapes, Wright made numerous incendiary statements, including cursing America, saying that the AIDs virus was manufactured by the U.S. government to infect blacks, and proclaiming that the September 11 attacks meant that "America's chickens have come home to roost." He also accused the United States of collaborating with Israel in committing terrorist acts upon Palestinians.

Obama has known Wright for 20 years.

There is much to admire and much to criticize about this speech.

Obama correctly strikes a tone of reconciliation and humility when he says, "We may have different stories but hold common hopes...In no other country on Earth is my story even possible."

Obama is also on the mark when he points to "the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America." Black people have historically suffered great injustices in America, and, in many instances, continue to be disadvantaged. This history has generated understandable resentment among many persons of color.

According to Obama, Wright is stuck in a time warp. In the years since Wright came of age, America has evolved for the better. Right again.

But Obama didn't go far enough. He failed to acknowledge that Wright's remarks constitute hate speech. For whatever reason, it is clear that Wright hates America, whites, and Jews. You cannot have a rational conversation about race, or much else, with people who are consumed by hate. And that is the fatal flaw in Barack Obama's candidacy. He is trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.

Classic liberalism, espoused by William James and his followers over a century ago, preached tolerance. According to James, the liberal will listen to a variety views, including those he disagrees with, but only up to a point. Irrational views don't get a place at the discussion table. And hate is, by definition, irrational.

And that's what makes Obama's labeling Wright "like family" so disturbing. This isn't some crazy uncle Obama rarely saw. He listened to Wright's sermons for 20 years. Wright performed his marriage and baptized his children. Obama sought Wright's counsel before deciding to run for president and even titled his bestselling book, The Audacity of Hope, after one of Wright's sermons.

In his speech, Obama describes Wright's sermons as full of "dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear." This characterization has been justifiably singled out by many folks as offensive. It is not the dancing, clapping, shouting, and screaming that are in themselves objectionable. It's the hate speech. And no amount of auditory training can change that. Particularly unsettling are the loud claps and roars of approval which followed the Rev. Wright's vicious diatribes.

In a previous article, I said that I admired Barack Obama. I still do. But he has been tarnished by this issue, and now his candidacy may very well implode. If it does, I hope it happens in the general election rather than in the primaries. If Obama, a flawed, but fundamentally decent human being, loses the Democratic nomination, his defeat will unleash Hillary Clinton, whom Dick Morris cogently describes as "a uniquely pernicious person."

However, Morris is incorrect when he recently stated that an American president "has to be ruthless." The American Heritage Dictionary defines "ruthless" as "having no compassion or pity." A president must be compassionate, but he or she also needs to be decisive and exercise good judgment. The last few days have demonstrated that Obama is lacking in the latter two areas.

Obama has plenty of compassion. Hillary is ruthless.

Most of the criticism of Obama relates to the company he keeps. By contrast, Hillary's character flaws have more to do with her unethical behavior: the strange disappearance of her subpoenaed documents; her refusal to release financial information; suspicious voting patterns in New Square, New York during her Senate campaign; and the appearance of mysterious millions from Asian donors in her presidential campaign. I may not like some of Obama's friends, but his conduct during this campaign has, as a general rule, been refreshingly forthright. And, unlike the mercurial Hillary, Obama's behavior over the past year has been exemplary.

Like John McCain, Obama has, in the past, admitted to errors in judgment. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is incapable of admitting that she was ever wrong. The ability of a president to occasionally admit error is a good thing. It shows flexibility. Hillary's rigidity is reminiscent of George W. Bush, who also has a problem with the w-word.

Now that Obama has been wounded, conservatives smell blood. Radio talk show host Sean Hannity reported today that the Rev. James Meeks, who preaches fiery sermons in Chicago's Salem Baptist Church, has also ministered to Obama. And Fox News has reported that an endorsement from the New Black Panther Party, an organization well-known for its separatist and anti-semitic views, was posted on a public forum area of Obama's campaign website. The endorsement, added by an unknown user, has been removed.

I suspect that similar "revelations" will continue to dog Obama for some time. Unless he finds a way to change the subject, they will destroy his campaign. It remains to be seen how deep Obama's association with Meeks is, but the timing of these reports suggests that they have been manufactured for political purposes. From now on, every associational wart that Obama has will be magnified a hundredfold under the microscope of public scrutiny--both fair and unfair.

It is not surprising that Obama would rub elbows with some unsavory characters. He spent 20 years as a community organizer in Chicago. Chicago is the home of Louis Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright, and probably more than a few other volatile preachers.

Chicago also produced the openly anti-semitic Congressman Gus Savage. According to a May 4, 1990 New York Times article, Savage was first elected to the House in 1980. Following a campaign victory a decade later, Savage unleashed a torrent of anti-white and anti-semitic invective against his opponent. Yet some of Savage's supporters, including New York Rep. Charles Rangle, Pennsylvannia Rep. William H. Gray, III, and then-DNC chairman Ron Brown, expressed shock at Savage's comments. Yet none were excoriated as Obama has been. But, then again, none of them were running for president.

As his judgment stemming from his personal associations came under fire, Obama decided to go on the offensive by putting race, a topic which he eschewed, at the center of his campaign. An interesting tack, but one that is doomed to fail. No matter what Obama says about his relationships with incendiary pastors, he will never placate his critics. Ever since she was introduced to slavery by Dutch settlers in 1619, America has grappled with the problem of race. This 400-year-old Rubik's cube won't be solved during the few months remaining in this presidential campaign.

It would be supremely ironic if Senator Obama became the first "race" president, holding town hall discussions around the country on this topic. It would take him at least eight years to scratch the surface. This is a job for a minister or goodwill ambassador, not an American president. Race is an important issue, but the next president will face more pressing challenges, including a two-front war, a tanking economy, and a health-care crisis. Even Merlin couldn't solve the problem of race in a single campaign. Obama certainly can't.