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Edited on Fri Mar-14-08 06:29 PM by Kurt_and_Hunter
If you want to take this as an anti-Obama post, feel free, but I wish you wouldn't. It is about politics in America and an analysis of how a particular issue plays to many voters, not about the quality of a particular man. That caveat is unlikely to sway those who desire combat, but this is written about a political dynamic. (Hearkening back to when the "P" sin GDP stood for politics, not primaries.)
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Your religion is a marker of your community (aka your people) and your values. People go to church to be in a community of shared values, and to have those values reinforced in communion with like-minded people..
To another person, your church is shorthand for who you are inside, at the deepest level. (A good example is how John McCain converted from a vanilla Protestant sect to Southern Baptist before this election to mark himself as a conservative, and even as a subtle racist.)
In Barack Obama’s case, this is greatly magnified.
Since Obama is new on the scene (in relative terms) and “different” from the traditional American Presidential candidate in so many ways, he’s an unknown. In his case symbolic markers of values and identity are even more important than usual.
For most people, religion involves some non-spiritual matters of family and social tradition. Most Catholics have Catholic parents. Most Muslims have Muslim parents. Specifics of religious dogma are often secondary to a sense of community and membership in a tradition that is greater than any individual.
It is fair to ask Mitt Romney why he remained a Mormon, despite the racial policies of his church, but there is no mystery as to how Mitt Romney became a Mormon. He was born into it.
Adult conversions are less reliable symbols of "who your people are" but, being free and active choices, are even more powerful markers of personal values and identity. (Observe the credit G. W. Bush got for his bathetic late-life born-again experience.)
Barack Obama was raised in an atheist household. He describes how sought out a church primarily for practical professional and political reasons, and accepted Jesus after the fact.
So we are talking about someone who shopped for a church as a fully formed adult.
Jerimaiah Wright is not merely a travelling cleric who came to Barack Obama’s traditional church. He is the embodiment of the church Barack chose. Barack affirmatively CHOSE Jeremiah Wright. The man is, in Obama’s own words, his spiritual mentor, his confidant, his “moral compass.” Pastor Wright’s moral sense is cited as formative to Barack’s political philosophies. He coined “The Audacity of Hope.” That sermon is included in Barack’s book of the same title that was published to provide a picture of his policy prescriptions for America and his vision for a new politics.
The most compelling, though unstated, promise of Barack Obama’s candidacy is the hope of post-racial politics. (“Post-partisan” is a marker for all that is poisonous in political scene.) “Hey, white people. I will make you feel good about yourself, not bad. I am more Tiger Woods than Al Sharpton… I will not harangue you over slavery. You won’t have to walk on egg-shells when I am President.”
To the average white voter watching Obama speak it is, or was, inconceivable that Barack Obama has ever even been exposed to the angry, racially divisive and uncomfortably separatist stuff that drives suburban Harry and Henrietta Homeowner up the wall… let alone that that mind-set represents something meaningful about his core values.
And now, for reasons that are in no way obvious to me, American voters are expected to KNOW that a black-rage grievance mindset (which is justifiable as a viewpoint, but clearly disqualifying for the presidency, in practical terms) is alien to Senator Obama, despite evidence that he has chosen and stayed within a specific spiritual community that embraces, to some degree, that mind-set.
I am not saying that Senator Obama is into what is generally considered “nut-left racial grievance” thinking, but it is not obviously false. I, like 99.9% of the electorate, know nothing of Barack Obama except as a campaigner, Senator and author. That is to say, as a performer. As someone presenting an image, like all politicians do. I don’t know Hillary either, or Bill, or Kerry or Gore or anyone else for whom I’ve ever voted for national office.
It would be extraordinary if a candidate aired his least popular views on the campaign trail, or if his speeches were fully representative of his essence. (Particularly since other people write most of what politicians say.)
My guess is that Obama would be uncomfortable with some of Wright's pronouncements. I have a good opinion of Obama's character. But I admit it's an educated guess. The point is that it is unreasonable to expect people to automatically assume, or even accept, that gulf between religious practice and inner conviction. (It's easy for me because I'm an atheist, and inclined to trivialize religion.)
If Hillary had been attending a community or religious group for twenty years led by a speaker who occasionally launched into white supremacist rants that would be taken to mean something. And questioning what it meant would not be guilt by association because the association is chosen and maintained, not incidental. (If Hillary’s cousin attended such a group, that would be guilt by association.)
Yet, in the face of evidence that exists to be weighed, just like any evidence, we are called upon to assume a vast gulf between a man and his long-standing and chosen faith and his personal moral guide and inspiration. (Obama says that he has never, in twenty years of attendance, heard Pastor Wright say anything divisive. That may be true, but it doesn’t pass the politically important giggle test.)
Certain values preached in Senator Obama’s church (not the UCC, but that specific congregation) are repugnant to the majority of Americans. The majority of Americans is usually wrong about all kinds of things, but in political analysis we must take note of the majority.
And, returning to the beginning of the argument, to voters who do not know you personally, your religion and religious practice is a marker of your values.
Senator Obama asks to be seen in terms of his faith. He uses his faith unusually freely in many contexts as a marker of his values… to say, “I am one of you.” No national politician, probably since William Jennings Bryant, has ever been so churchy in his words and his style.
(I cut him some slack on that because people say he’s a Muslim, so he has reason to proclaim his Christianity.)
Yet, in this case, we are now asked to assume that the church says nothing about the man, and that it is a slander to even speculate that a man’s spiritual guide, chosen as an adult and followed for decades, might be a valid marker of his values.
That is unprecedented in modern politics.
And that is why it is absurd to wish this all away as a smear. It may be false, but it is not unreasonable. (Saying he is a Muslim is, on the other hand, unreasonable.)
The “smear” is to associate the man with his religion and chosen spiritual mentor as somehow perhaps suggestive of his values. That kind of association is not a smear, it is the heart of American politics! To the ordinary American voter who takes religion at all seriously, a person’s religious practice says something essential about him… something more profound than what is represented by supporters, fund-raisers, campaign staff or endorsers.
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