By Michael Gerson
WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama has run a campaign based on a simple
premise: that words of unity and hope matter to America. Now he has
been forced by his charismatic, angry pastor to argue that words of
hatred and division don't really matter as much as we thought.
Obama's Philadelphia speech made this argument as well as it could be
made. He condemned the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's views in strong
language -- and embraced Wright as a wayward member of the family. He
made Wright and his congregation a symbol of both the nobility
and "shocking ignorance" of the African-American experience -- and
presented himself as a leader who transcends that conflicted legacy.
The speech recognized the historical reasons for black anger -- and
argued that the best response to those grievances is the adoption of
Obama's own social and economic agenda.
It was one of the finest political performances under pressure since
John F. Kennedy at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in
1960. It also fell short in significant ways.
The problem with Obama's argument is that Wright is not a symbol of
the strengths and weaknesses of the African-American community. He is
a political extremist, holding views that are shocking to many
Americans who wonder how any presidential candidate could be so
closely associated with an adviser who refers to the "U.S. of KKK-A"
and urges God to "damn" our country.
Obama's excellent and important speech on race in America did little
to address his strange tolerance for the anti-Americanism of his
spiritual mentor.
Take an issue that Obama did not specifically confront in
Philadelphia. In a 2003 sermon, Wright claimed, "The government lied
about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people
of color."
This accusation does not make Wright, as Obama would have it,
an "occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign
policy." It makes Wright a dangerous man. He has casually accused
America of one of the most monstrous crimes in history, perpetrated
by a conspiracy of medical Mengeles. If Wright believes his charge is
correct, he should urge the overthrow of the American government,
which he views as guilty of unspeakable evil. If I believed Wright
were correct, I would join him in that cause.
But Wright's accusation is batty, reflecting a sputtering, incoherent
hatred for America. And his pastoral teaching may put lives at risk,
because the HIV virus spreads more readily in an atmosphere of
denial, quack science and conspiracy theories.
The Philadelphia speech implied that these toxic views are somehow
parallel to the stereotyping of black men by Obama's grandmother,
which Obama said made him "cringe" -- both are the foibles of family.
But while Grandma may have had some issues to work through, Wright is
accusing the American government of trying to kill every member of a
race. There is a difference.
But haven't George Bush and other Republican politicians accepted the
support of Jerry Falwell, who spouted hate of his own? Yes, but they
didn't financially support his ministry and sit directly under his
teaching for decades.
The better analogy is this: What if a Republican presidential
candidate spent years in the pew of a theonomist church -- a
fanatical fragment of Protestantism that teaches the modern political
validity of ancient Hebrew law? What if the church's pastor attacked
the American government as illegitimate and accepted the stoning of
homosexuals and recalcitrant children as appropriate legal penalties
(which some theonomists interpret as biblical requirements)? Surely
we would conclude, at the very least, that the Republican candidate
attending this church lacked judgment, and that his donations were
subsidizing hatred. And we would be right.
In Philadelphia, Obama attempted to explain Wright's anger as typical
of the civil rights generation, with its "memories of humiliation and
doubt and fear." But Wright's problem is exactly the opposite: He
ignored the message of Martin Luther King Jr. and introduced a new
generation to the politics of hatred.
King drew a different lesson from the oppression he
experienced: "I've seen too much hate to want to hate myself; hate is
too great a burden to bear. I've seen it on the faces of too many
sheriffs of the South. ... Hate distorts the personality. ... The man
who hates can't think straight; the man who hates can't reason right;
the man who hates can't see right; the man who hates can't walk
right."
Barack Obama is not a man who hates -- but he chose to walk with a
man who does.
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