Obama Supporters: Let’s Move the Goalposts!

I guess if I were an Obama supporter, I would find that formulation agreeable. After all, even as someone who opposes Obama, I don’t think he’s a closeted fire-breather who was delighted when America’s chickens came home to roost on 9/11. But viewing this issue only as a question of how well Wright’s sermons represent Obama’s views is a rather extreme analysis. Another more moderate inquiry might be why Obama was so tolerant of Wright’s views. Wright said things in his sermons that would get him kicked out of a lot of dinner parties. Many people would refuse to be around a man who characteristically uttered such hateful bile for any length of time. Obama went in the other direction. Why? Was it because Obama cynically tried to use a relationship with a church and its popular pastor to forward his own ambitions and thus decided to overlook Wright’s rhetoric? Or perhaps it was because Obama really is a new kind of post-cynical politician with a gift for seeing only the best in people and who will overlook even their most odious traits. That habit should come in handy when he deals with Mahmoud Ahmadenijad and the two strike up a close relationship because the Mahdi is a good cook and dazzling conversationalist. Here’s the simple fact: Obama tolerated a lot more of Wright’s rhetoric than the typical person would. That raises questions that can’t be answered by merely moving the goalposts as Andrew attempts to do. Since Obama has based so much of his campaign on tacitly saying, “I’m just like you and share your hopes, dreams and concerns,” outlier behavior like this does damage. In another post today, Sullivan laments Obama’s “poor judgment” over his Rezko affiliation. Since Obama’s purportedly brilliant judgment is the bedrock rationale for the Obama campaign, that’s a serious concession on Andrew’s part, perhaps more serious than he realized when it leapt off his modem. Obama by his own account was very close with Rezko. By Obama’s own account, he was extremely close to Wright. How many examples of Barack Obama showing highly dubious judgment will have to hit the headlines before his supporters begin to practice a “politics of doubt” and take a second look at assumptions that they long took for granted? One final, personal note: At an earlier time in this campaign, I found Barack Obama an enormously appealing individual, even though I didn’t like his policy positions. I said as much in print and on the radio. My faith in him as a person has been rattled as some of the frankly strange details of his personal life have spilled out. I would imagine many on the left feel the same way.