Madison, Wisconsin
Michelle Obama made headlines last week with comments she offered at two rallies in Wisconsin. She said, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”
Coming from a potential first lady, this remark created a stir. The next day, Barack Obama came to his wife’s defense, sort of. “What she meant was, this is the first time that she’s been proud of the politics of America,” he said, “because she’s pretty cynical about the political process, and with good reason, and she’s not alone.” Two days later, Mrs. Obama clarified her remark, (again, sort of) saying, “What I was clearly talking about was that I’m proud of how Americans are engaging in the political process.”
On the one hand, the tack the candidate took was a surprising one. After all, the cost of really tidying up his wife’s small mess would have been quite low: Just say that she’d misspoken and didn’t mean what she’d seemed to be saying. In other words, basically apologize and retract. That would have foreclosed further discussion of Mrs. Obama’s comment.
Instead, Obama’s reaction was in keeping with the way he has dealt with his campaign’s few problems thus far: minimizing difficulties rather than laying them to rest.
The first problem to present itself was Jeremiah A. Wright, the pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where Obama has been a member for over 20 years. Wright preaches “black liberation theology,” talks about “this racist United States of America,” and in one recorded sermon observed that “racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.” As Wright and his church’s “Black Value System” began attracting press and blogger attention shortly before Obama announced his candidacy, Obama quietly took Wright off the program for his February announcement and said, “We don’t agree on everything. . . . I’ve never had a thorough conversation with him about all aspects of politics.”
Then in a July presidential debate, Obama was asked if he would meet individually, and without precondition, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea. Without hesitation, he responded that he would. It was a spectacular gaffe, and Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, immediately tried to clarify and condition the comment, suggesting that the candidate wouldn’t really meet one-on-one with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il. But Obama’s response was to dig in and reiterate his commitment to unconditional personal meetings with the world’s worst despots. He repeated that commitment with respect to Raúl Castro in Thursday’s Democratic debate.
In a story last October, a reporter recounted noticing that Obama had stopped wearing a pin of the American flag on his lapel. When questioned about it, the candidate could have shrugged it off. Instead, he turned his dropping of the pin into a statement, saying, “You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.”
Obama is certainly an attractive candidate and a charming and thoughtful man. And taken individually, each of these incidents is small. Obama has dealt with each by tamping down controversy, offering minimal explanation, and sticking to his guns. This may continue to work for him, or it may present problems for him down the road.
For one thing, it hints at a certain arrogance. One of the standard lines in Obama’s stump speech is that he knows he won’t be a perfect president and that he will count on people to hold him accountable. Yet on the rare occasions when Obama is held to account for misjudgments or mistakes, he simply tucks his chin down and brazens ahead. Slips are unavoidable on the long campaign trail. But Obama seems all too willing to turn them into matters of personal privilege rather than reversing himself, distancing himself, or fixing a mistake.
The other danger stems from Obama’s unwillingness to put issues to bed. By allowing them to linger, he gives hostages to fortune. By letting his wife’s line about America, for instance, hover without total disavowal, he’s exposing himself to criticism down the road. This pattern of not facing up to and resolving problems as they arise could lead to future troubles for the Obama campaign.
Jonathan V. Last is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
