Pulpit Bullies
By JAMES TARANTO
March 19, 2008
When Barack Obama yesterday condemned the most invidious remarks of his "spiritual mentor," Jeremiah Wright, National Review's Byron York was there. The auditorium at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center, York reports, "was filled mostly with guests invited by the Obama campaign." Unsurprisingly, they "thought he delivered a great speech." Disturbingly, several whom York interviewed didn't understand all the fuss about Wright:
"It was amazing," Gregory Davis, a financial adviser and Obama supporter from Philadelphia, told me. "I think he addressed the issue, and if that does not address the issue, I don't know what else can be said about it. That was just awesome oratory."
I asked Davis what his personal reaction was when he saw video clips of sermons in which Rev. Wright said, "God damn America," called the United States the "U.S. of KKK A," and said that 9/11 was "America's chickens . . . coming home to roost." "As a member of a traditional Baptist, black church, I wasn't surprised," Davis told me. "I wasn't offended by anything the pastor said. A lot of things he said were absolutely correct. . . . The way he said it may not have been the most appropriate way to say it, but as far as a typical black inner-city church, that's how it's said."
Vernon Price, a ward leader in Philadelphia's 22nd Precinct, told me Obama's speech was "very courageous." When I asked his reaction to Rev. Wright, Price said, "A lot of things that he said were true, whether people want to accept it, or believe it, or not. People believe in their hearts that a lot of what he said was true."
Newsweek's Lisa Miller reports on WashingtonPost.com that black religious leaders take a similar tack:
Last Friday, in an effort to gauge just how "out there" Wright's sermons are in the context of the African-American church tradition, Newsweek phoned at least two dozen of the country's most prominent and thoughtful African-American scholars and pastors, representing a wide range of denominations and points of view. Not one person would say that Wright had crossed any kind of significant line.
"An effort on the part of Christians--both clergy and laypersons--to critique the United States in light of what they understand as biblically based moral and ethical guidelines isn't new," explains Anthony Pinn, a professor of religious studies at Rice University. "There is a dominant style in black churches and Rev. Wright's preaching is a prime example of this. . . . Some of what Rev. Wright says is controversial, but that doesn't make him unique."
The Rev. James Forbes, the recently retired longtime pastor of Riverside Church on Manhattan's Upper West Side explained that, broadly speaking, there has been a historical division in the world of black churches. One group thinks you should work hard, keep quiet and get ahead; the other thinks that you need to agitate and provoke to make progress. Forbes puts himself in the first camp but supports Wright's efforts. "Some of us wish we had the nerve that Jeremiah had," he said. "We praise God that he's saying it, so the rest of us don't have to." Does Wright ever cross a line? "I think if a person is a prophet and he's not seen as ever crossing a line, then he has not told the truth as it ought to be told."
And the Rev. John H. Thomas, general minister and president of Wright's denomination, the United Church of Christ, issued a statement yesterday excusing Wright on the ground that it was wrong to remove Saddam Hussein from power:
Many of us would prefer to avoid the stark and startling language Pastor Wright used in these clips. But what was his real crime? He is condemned for using a mild "obscenity" in reference to the United States. This week we mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, a war conceived in deception and prosecuted in foolish arrogance. Nearly four thousand cherished Americans have been killed, countless more wounded, and tens of thousands of Iraqis slaughtered. Where is the real obscenity here? True patriotism requires a degree of self-criticism, even self-judgment that may not always be easy or genteel. Pastor Wright's judgment may be starker and more sweeping than many of us are prepared to accept. But is the soul of our nation served any better by the polite prayers and gentle admonitions that have gone without a real hearing for these five years while the dying and destruction continues?
Whatever one's opinion of the Iraq war, this is a complete non sequitur. Wright is not responsible for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, and in any case there is no reason to think he has exercised any influence on it by virtue of striking an obnoxious tone. He is responsible for the spiritual sustenance of his congregation. Does he serve that responsibility well when he uses his pulpit to stir up parishioners' hatred and anger?
As for "the soul of our nation," we have heard a lot of late about America's need for racial reconciliation. Thanks to the Obama-Wright episode, we also have learned that racial antagonism and anti-Americanism are much more common than we would have guessed among predominantly black congregations in America.
Is this not an obstacle to reconciliation? In 21st-century America, does any greater obstacle remain?
That's Entertainment?
Writing in the New York Sun, the Manhattan Institute's John McWhorter raises an interesting analogy:
I have written that it is part of the essence of the modern black American identity to be a victor in private but a victim in public. There is a sense that while initiative is important, blacks still have to display more of it than whites, and that this isn't fair.
Someone who feels this way can have done well and even be comfortable around white people. However, that sense that black America still labors under a general injustice can express itself in taking a certain pleasure in listening to someone like Jeremiah Wright.
They hear a stirring articulation of rebellion, listenable according to a sense that fealty to one's race entails at least a gestural nod to sticking a finger in whitey's eye now and then. The tone, the music of the statements is more vivid than the content. Sermons like this are Sunday morning's version of gangsta rap. . . .
If this is just political hardball, I get it. But I sense more to it. America prides itself on being ready for a black president lately. Well, in hearing Reverend Wright's agitprop as performance rather than hate speech, Barack Obama is black indeed--in a way other than the uninteresting one of melanin.
"Performance rather than hate speech"--in other words, Wright is just a showman, whose words we shouldn't take seriously. But did anyone say the same thing about the anti-American comments of Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell in the aftermath of 9/11? If those remarks had been racially inflammatory as well, would they not have drawn even more outrage than they did?
For that matter, consider what happened when someone who really is a mere showman said something racially offensive. This is an ABC News report from April 11, 2007:
In an interview with ABC News Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., called for the firing of talk radio host Don Imus. Obama said he would never again appear on Imus' show, which is broadcast on CBS Radio and MSNBC television. . . .
Last week, Imus referred to the Rutgers University women's basketball team, most of whom are African-American, as "nappy-headed hos." He has since apologized for his remarks, and CBS and MSNBC suspended his show for two weeks.
"He didn't just cross the line," Obama said. "He fed into some of the worst stereotypes that my two young daughters are having to deal with today in America. The notions that as young African-American women--who I hope will be athletes--that that somehow makes them less beautiful or less important. It was a degrading comment. It's one that I'm not interested in supporting."
We agree with the position Obama took vis-à-vis Imus back then. But how does one square this with his decision to send his daughters to a church whose pastor preaches an ugly and bigoted theology?
Further, is there no common standard here? For decades, major institutions--schools, the law, the media--have driven home the message that when it comes to racial bigotry, words matter: that one should strive to overcome one's own prejudices, and at the very least keep them to oneself.
Yet here we have someone in a position of responsibility in the black community--no less than the spiritual mentor to a would-be president--who not only has failed to live up to this aspiration but has made a career of promoting racial resentment. In response we hear a litany of excuses about understandable anger, a tradition of rebellion and so forth. The kindest thing that can be said about this is that it is a form of soft bigotry.
Now It Matters
A great appeal of Barack Obama's candidacy was, as this column put it in January, that "Obama is black, and it doesn't matter." Bill and Hillary Clinton understood this, which is why they tried to liken him to Jesse Jackson early in the primary season. That effort backfired badly. But now Jeremiah Wright has achieved what the Clintons could not: defining Obama in terms of his race.
"After largely shying away from discussions of race during his 15-month campaign, Sen. Obama turned the spotlight on his identity as a biracial African-American candidate and embraced the idea that he is the vehicle for a dialogue about race," The Wall Street Journal reports. "Race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now," Obama said. But as Mickey Kaus notes, "Actually, a lot of voters supported Obama because they'd kind of like to ignore race, you know?"
To be precise, this was a large part of Obama's appeal to white voters. Does he retain that appeal after his speech? We are skeptical:
A similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. . . .
So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. . . .
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle-class squeeze--a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.
And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns--this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
As Kaus notes, Obama's "explanations of white anger seem distant and condescending." The same is often true when white liberals proclaim their "understanding" of black anger--except that black anger is invested with a certain nobility for its having originated in genuine oppression. And Obama's agenda is not exactly bold:
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination--and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past--are real and must be addressed.
Not just with words, but with deeds--by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations.
It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
What he seems to be offering "working- and middle-class white Americans" is to label them "resentful" rather than "misguided or even racist," in exchange for which they are expected to support an expansion of left-liberal social programs. Will this bargain appeal to voters any more than it has in the previous 10 elections?
Accountability Journalism
"Barack Obama confronted the nation's racial divide head-on Tuesday, tackling both black grievance and white resentment in a bold effort to quiet a campaign uproar over race and his former pastor's incendiary statements," the Associated Press reports.
Wow, he's single-handedly confronting the nation's racial divide head-on! With bold efforts no less! And yes, this is a news story; the AP doesn't do editorials.
Then again, maybe the AP is just making up for this astonishingly anti-Obama piece the other day by Ron Fournier, avatar of "accountability journalism":
There's a line smart politicians don't cross--somewhere between "I'm qualified to be president" and "I'm born to be president." Wherever it lies, Barack Obama better watch his step.
He's bordering on arrogance.
The dictionary defines the word as an "offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride." Obama may not be offensive or overbearing, but he can be a bit too cocky for his own good. . . .
But both Obama and his wife, Michelle, ooze a sense of entitlement.
One-eighth of a cheer to Fournier for not being a Democratic partisan. But really, guys, what's wrong with just reporting the facts and leaving the opinions to us pundits?
On the Sunni Side of the Street
John McCain has been taking some flak for a supposed "misstep" on Iraq, as the New York Times reports from Jerusalem:
Senator John McCain's trip overseas was supposed to highlight his foreign policy acumen, and his supporters hoped that it would showcase him in a series of statesmanlike meetings with world leaders throughout the Middle East and Europe while the Democratic candidates continued to squabble back home.
But all did not go according to plan on Tuesday in Amman, Jordan, when Mr. McCain, fresh from a visit to Iraq, misidentified some of the main players in the Iraq war.
Mr. McCain said several times in his visit to Jordan--in a news conference and in a radio interview--that he was concerned that Iran was training Al Qaeda in Iraq. The United States believes that Iran, a Shiite country, has been training and financing Shiite extremists in Iraq, but not Al Qaeda, which is a Sunni insurgent group.
But McCain is not the first to suggest that Iran is backing Sunni as well as Shiite terrorists in Iraq. As we noted in January 2007, American intelligence had unearthed documents in Iraq suggesting cooperation between Iran's Quds ("Jerusalem") force and people affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq, among other Sunni groups, confirming the suspicion of Iraqi liberal Mithal al-Alusi that Iran was playing both sides in Iraq. And according to a July 2007 New York Sun article:
One of two known Al Qaeda leadership councils meets regularly in eastern Iran, where the American intelligence community believes dozens of senior Al Qaeda leaders have reconstituted a good part of the terror conglomerate's senior leadership structure.
That is a consensus judgment from a final working draft of a new National Intelligence Estimate, titled "The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland," on the organization that attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Like any intelligence, this may be a mistake, disinformation or otherwise false or not the whole truth. But the notion that because Iran is a "Shiite country" it would never cooperate with Sunni extremists is simpleminded nonsense. Iraq is majority-Shiite too, and the two countries fought a brutal war for eight years in the 1980s. Political alliances do not always follow the lines of sectarian or other natural affinities.
They Should Wear Bags Over Their Heads
"Congress Faces Depressing Economy"--headline, Politico, March 18
Propecia Really Works!
"Hair Restored as ICC Elite Umpire"--headline, BBC Web site, March 18
Breaking News From 1755
"Ben Franklin Aids Two Bethlehem Firms"--headline, Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.), March 18
News You Can Use
• "Time to Put That Gorilla on a Diet"--headline, Associated Press, March 17
• "Easter Warning: Crucifixion Is Bad for You"--headline, Daily Telegraph (London), March 19
Bottom Story of the Day
"Saudi Breeders Search for New 'Miss Camel' "--headline, Daily Telegraph (London), March 18
Our Friends the Saudis
"The Arab and Muslim nations of the world have been working diligently to get the United Nations to craft an agreement whereby it would be a 'crime' to disrespect or insult a religion"--that is to say, Islam--reports blogger Stuart Creque. The Media Line reports that free speech has found friends in an unlikely place:
The Saudi Arabian Parliament Monday rejected a recommendation to adopt an international agreement that forbids insulting of religions, prophets and clerics, the Saudi daily Al-Watan reported.
Seventy-seven members of parliament rejected the recommendation, claiming that if they adopted the agreement, they would have had to recognize the legitimacy of idolatrous religions, such as Buddhism.
These guys aren't exactly Voltaire, but sometimes you take your allies where you find them.
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