Obama needs a Checkers speech

Daniel Larison has inadvertently provided the way out of the Jeremiah Wright crisis for Obama. Here's Larison's take on the Wright deal. Excerpt:

Also, there is such a thing as loyalty, and one of the best things that can be said about Obama is that he seems to understand that loyalty entails keeping faith with friends and colleagues after it has become politically dangerous to do so. A lot of people give his church grief for preaching against an aspirational “middle-classness,” and I understand the objections to this view, but at its core this view entails a call to solidarity with your community and a willingness to remain loyal to that community even though better opportunities may beckon beyond the horizon.

Obama really shouldn’t have to answer for what Wright says, but I also think that his loyalty to Wright should not be an occasion for bashing the man. There are plenty of things in his record, or the lack thereof, that provide reasons to find fault with Obama. ... Obviously, I don’t share Wright’s views, and Obama claims not to share all of them, but I have to ask seriously what kind of man Obama would be if he disowned his spiritual father for the sake of the approval of others (who may not give their approval even if he did what is being demanded). No one that I would want to entrust with any office of importance, that’s for sure.

...No doubt Obama would be better off politically, and it would help his career, if he dropped Wright like a stone, but he would be a far more respectable and decent man if he refused to throw his mentor under the bus to appease the media, his critics and even his admirers. I still wouldn’t vote for him, but I could have some respect for him as someone with a degree of integrity.

There's a lot in what Daniel says. His comment shows why the stakes are so very high for Obama in this matter. Obama is going to have to give a speech in which he describes unambiguously and in detail where he differs from Jeremiah Wright. And he's going to have to explain why he stuck with the church for 20 years even though from the pulpit Wright was preaching things that strike many, probably most, Americans as lefty, racialist paranoia. Without disassociating himself more cleanly and forcefully from Wright, Obama's own image will suffer. One reason he's doing so well among independents is his image as a racial healer, as someone who transcends the racial divide. The looming presence of Wright in his background not only undermines that, but also exacerbates the concerns many have that they don't really know who Barack Obama is.

But if he cuts Wright off, that raises questions about Obama's character too, as Larison explains. What kind of man honors another man as his spiritual father for 20 years, but throws him overboard for the sake of career advancement -- when it might really cost him something?

What Obama needs to do is give a 2008 version of Nixon's Checkers speech. As you may recall, Nixon's bid for the vice presidency was in jeopardy because of allegations that he had taken money improperly from contributors. He started the speech with a lengthy discussion of the issue, explaining in detail why it wasn't what his critics said it was. Then he talked in detail about how he and his wife Pat had struggled financially, but had kept their honor throughout. Here, towards the end, is the most powerful part of the speech, and the reason it saved his candidacy -- and the reason we remember it today:

Well, that's about it. That's what we have and that's what we owe. It isn't very much but Pat and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we've got is honestly ours. I should say this—that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat. And I always tell her that she'd look good in anything.

One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don't they'll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something-a gift-after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was.

It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it.

That's fantastic rhetoric, and it brought home with great emotional resonance this message: "Look, people, my opponents are making a big to-do over not much. I've had a lot of struggles in my life, but I've kept my honor. You who expect me to violate the ordinary human bonds of love and affection out of loyalty to a perfectionist sense of ethics can go to hell."

What's the lesson for Obama? After discussing at length and in detail his differences with Wright, he should give a direct and emotionally resonant account of how he was lost, and found a father figure in Wright. He should explain what was good about Wright and his mentorship, and why he, Obama, found Wright to be a sound guide and a good man even though he, Obama, disagreed with his worldview. And he should end by saying,

"There are those who say that I should turn my back on my pastor, that I can't hope to win the presidency if I don't do so. But I won't do it. I don't care what they say, Jeremiah Wright was there for Barack Obama when he was lost. Jeremiah Wright led Barack Obama to Christ, gave me a church home, and gave me a sense of loyalty to my community. If I turned my back on Jeremiah Wright now, for the sake of the presidency, I wouldn't deserve the presidency. I would be less of a man. I just want to say right now that I do not agree with my pastor on all things, but he has been the father to me that I never had, and regardless of what they say about him, I'm going to keep him."

I think that kind of speech would go a long way toward ending this crisis. Even people who recognize that Jeremiah Wright is a nut can respect Obama for being faithful to him. If not a Checkers speech, I don't know what, then.