Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

Dr. Walter Williams asks: could a Barack Obama presidency actually embarrass African-Americans?

UPDATE: More from Robert Sirico.

The Wall Street Journal on John McCain. Plus, David Brooks on Hillary Clinton.

Has Barack Obama become the Mel Gibson of American politics?

The director of Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ has yet to recuperate from the injuries his image suffered after he went into an anti-Semitic rant following his arrest on drunk-driving charges in July 2006. Gibson—who had already been accused of homophobia and anti-Semitism in the years prior to the arrest—was disowned by Hollywood and condemned by numerous anti-defamation groups. Although his December 2006 release, Apocalypto, performed well at the domestic box office, he has yet to regain the pop-cultural power that made him one of the film industry’s most beloved stars—and it’s unlikely that he ever will.

Obama’s fall from grace has been almost as swift as Gibson’s. At the beginning of the year, Obama was hailed as the odds-on favorite to become the next President of the United States, a once-in-a-lifetime candidate who transcended racial and political boundaries. Now, in the wake of the controversy over his longtime connection to Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama has lost his crossover appeal and is now regarded as just another left-wing Democrat.

It’s hard to believe Obama didn’t realize just how politically perilous his affiliation with Trinity United pastor Jeremiah Wright would be. Oprah Winfrey was once a member of the church, but left several years ago; apparently, she understood that if the media uncovered her relationship with Wright, the ensuing controversy would doom her media empire. Why didn’t Obama follow in Winfrey’s footsteps?

Some of Wright’s supporters have attempted to change the subject by pointing to televangelists John Hagee and Rod Parsley, both of whom have endorsed John McCain. It’s a desperate comparison, because no one in his or her right mind truly believes that McCain subscribes to the Hagee-Parsley view of the world.

McCain is, at bottom, a secular Republican—arguably the most secular Republican the party has nominated since Gerald Ford in 1976. Hasn’t anybody noticed that the folks who loathe McCain tend to be from the social-conservative wing of the Republican Party? They despise McCain in part because he’s a throwback to the pre-Reagan, pre-Moral Majority era of the party. It’s impossible to convince average Americans that McCain shares the fundamentalist views of these two clergymen.

Some on the left—who are pro-Obama but anti-Wright—have argued that Obama is a victim of “guilt by association.” So what? “Guilt by association”  is, for good or ill, a time-honored political tradition in this country.  Ford in fact lost the ’76 election to Jimmy Carter due to “guilt by association”; Ford wasn’t involved in any of Richard Nixon’s criminality, but because he was Nixon’s Vice President (and because he pardoned Nixon in September 1974), the electorate regarded Ford as Nixon’s doppelganger, and tossed him out accordingly.

“Guilt by association” has felled many a Democrat: Walter Mondale in 1984 (because of his link to Carter), Al Gore in 2000 (because of his link to Bill Clinton), John Kerry in 2004 (because of his link to Massachusetts, which became ground zero in the American culture war after the 2003 Supreme Judicial Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage). If Obama loses in November, he’ll merely become the newest member of the “guilt by association” list.

It’s amazing how quickly Obama’s image has been tarnished. In just two weeks, his public persona has changed from reasonable to radical, from moderate to militant, from decent to dogmatic. Michelle Obama’s remarks about not feeling pride in the country prior to Obama’s run did not shock the American conscience: they were considered mere misstatements, slips of the tongue by someone not used to extreme scrutiny of the American media/political complex.  Now, Mrs. Obama’s remarks have been dwarfed by Rev. Wright’s incendiary rhetoric—and Mr. Obama’s tepid condemnations thereof.

Why didn’t Obama use the Wright controversy as his own “Sister Souljah” moment? Obama could have galvanized the country by firmly rejecting Wright’s rhetoric, denouncing his remarks as an example of the extremism that poisons political debate in this country.  He could have echoed John F. Kennedy, who once famously declared that “Race has no place in American life or law.” Instead, he tripped over his lines in his Broadway debut.

Obama should have been a true maverick, rejecting Rev. Wright’s conspiracy theory and dismissing him as a mad individual who wants payback. Instead, he declared that he and Wright were soldiers—which means, of course, that a majority of Americans will not regard him as a patriot.

There’s something disturbing about the media celebrating the fact that 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq, because they think this will destroy John McCain’s chances of victory in November.

UPDATE: President Bush speaks on the war. More from the New York Times.

Horton Hears A Who? tops the charts for week two.

Horton Hears A Who? tops the charts for week two.

Jeff Jacoby on David Mamet’s move to the right.

Jonetta Rose Barras on Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s anti-white racism.

The Wall Street Journal interviews Clarence Thomas.

Arguably the strangest aspect of the controversy surrounding the remarks of Barack Obama’s spiritual mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is the notion that Wright’s negative perception of the United States is justifiable because of his experiences with racial bias.

From a nonpartisan standpoint, it’s surely “justifiable” that a man who grew up during a time of widespread anti-black discrimination would have a dim view of modern-day race relations, or at the very least see the racial problems that remain before seeing the progress that has undeniably been made.

However, from a political standpoint, “justifiable” anger is a one-way street. When someone on the right is angry about social injustice, they’re considered wingnuts and extremists. When someone on the left is upset about social wrongs, it’s “justifiable.”

Last fall, progressive commentators were up in arms over the content of Clarence Thomas’ autobiography, My Grandfather’s Son: mainstream media book reviews denounced the book as an angry rant attacking the Senators and liberal activists who fought to keep him off the Supreme Court in 1991. Yet one must ask: considering the shameless lies and brutal character assassination he was subjected to between July and October of that year, isn’t some of Thomas’ anger “justifiable”?

For years, supporters of Bill Clinton trashed conservative talk host Rush Limbaugh for never giving Clinton the benefit of the doubt in his actions, and for automatically assuming that anything Clinton did was deleterious. Limbaugh was attacked throughout the mid- to late-1990s as an anger-filled Clinton-hating right-winger. Of course, we forget that in 1993, Clinton suggested that Limbaugh took the side of then-Attorney General Janet Reno in a dispute with Rep. John Conyers solely because Conyers was black—and suggested that Limbaugh’s words inspired the Oklahoma City bombing two years later. Considering Clinton’s rhetorical assaults on Limbaugh, isn’t some of the talk titan’s anger “justifiable”?

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson caught all sorts of heat in the fall of 2001 for declaring that American secularism provoked the September 11 attacks: their words were loudly denounced as anger-filled diatribes. Yet, from a theological (not a political) perspective, was their anger not “justifiable”? Just as Rev. Wright spoke from the perspective of a man who watched as members of his race were mistreated for years, Falwell and Robertson spoke from the perspective of two men who watched as prayer was forced out of the public schools, abortion was declared constitutional, and the legal arguments of the ACLU were embraced by lower federal courts. Their anger was every bit as “justifiable” as Wright’s—yet the same folks who are defending Wright regarded those men of God as Satanic.

The Wright/Obama controversy is all about whose ox is being gored. If Wright had been John McCain’s spiritual advisor for two decades, you wouldn’t hear anybody in the press defending his remarks as “justifiable”. He’d be regarded as a right-wing crackpot, and “justifiably” so.

No one can deny that Wright spoke from a perspective of a man who had witnessed injustice. Yet conservatives who speak from a similar perspective are either told to shut up or dismissed as cranks. The conservative critics of Wright and Obama are certainly indulging in a little payback—but honestly, can you blame them?

The Obama/Wright controversy is sad from a cultural perspective, but hilarious from a political perspective. Yes, I share the concern many have about Obama’s decision to expose his children to Wright’s invective for years, and I also can’t help wondering how much of Wright’s spirit is in Obama’s mind.

Yet this controversy is also a moment of high comedy. Here’s Obama, the supposed New Lincoln who will emancipate us from our racial bondage, having to grovel before America and give a speech that a man of his stature and achievements should have never had to deliver. Obama has become a desperate man, a figure in need of reclaiming the quasi-holy status he had only a month or so ago. Good luck, pal.

It’s difficult to have sympathy for Obama. He stayed with Wright long after he knew about the severe political liability of his connection to the man. Even if he fails to achieve the Democrat nomination—or wins the nomination, but fails to succeed George W. Bush as President—he’s still set for life. Obama will never be defeated in Illinois; he could easily replace Ted Kennedy as the most powerful US Senator of the post-WWII era. He could write future books in crayon, and they’d still top the New York Times bestseller list. The left will always consider him politically righteous; he’ll never be forsaken, and his kids will never have to beg for bread.

Even if he loses, Obama has already won. His supporters won’t be happy if he fails to become President, but they’ll get over it. They’ll be angry if his candidacy collapses, but that anger won’t be justifiable.

Oscar-winning actor Paul Scofield passes away at 86.

Caspar Weinberger Jr. on the 25th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s SDI speech.

UPDATE: The speech.

Actor/director/civil rights activist Ivan Dixon passes away at 76.

Byron York on Barack Obama’s pathetic race speech. I believe Obama’s campaign has terminal cancer–and no amount of political chemotherapy can save him.

UPDATE: More from Jeff Jacoby, Michael Graham, Ericka Andersen, Jonah Goldberg, Clarence Page, Kenneth Blackwell, Thomas Sowell and the Wall Street Journal.

Acclaimed novelist Arthur C. Clarke passes away at 90.