Obama as Faust

I blog about the Rev. Wright and Obama a lot because I'm fascinated by the psychodynamics of their relationship, and how the uncut Sixties radicalism of the older man informs the perspective of the younger man. I'm interested in the power of themes from the Sixties still coursing through our politics in 2008. I'm caught up in the potency of the therapeutic aspects of Obama's campaign. And besides, the Democratic race is still live; the GOP race has been settled, and there will be plenty of time to chew on McCain's leg. That said, I'm more concerned about the implications for US national security of McCain's foreign policy tendencies than I am about Obama's radical friends.

Even so, Obama's Pollyanna cheerleaders should note that nearly half of yesterday's primary voters in both states said that l'affaire Jeremiah was significant to their vote. It's all about having sown doubts in their mind about who Obama really is. And for this, Obama has nobody to blame but himself.

It's thought-provoking to read, via Steve Sailer's blog, this passage from Obama's 1995 autobiography "Dreams from My Father," about why he chose to affiliate with Wright and his church:

By widening its doors to allow all who would enter, a church like Trinity assured its members that their fates remained inseparably bound, that an intelligible “us” still remained.

It was a powerful program, this cultural community, one more pliant than simple nationalism, more sustaining than my own brand of organizing. Still, I couldn’t help wondering whether it would be enough to keep more people from leaving the city or young men out of jail. Would the Christian fellowship between a black school administrator, say, and a black school parent change the way the schools were run? Would the interest in maintaining such unity allow Reverend Wright to take a forceful stand on the latest proposals to reform public housing? And if men like Reverend Wright failed to take a stand, if churches like Trinity refused to engage with real power and risk genuine conflict, then what chance would there be of holding the larger community intact?

[snip -- flash forward to Obama sitting in Wright's church, hearing the "Audacity of Hope" sermon]

And in that single note-hope!-I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories-of survival, and freedom, and hope-became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shamed about, memories more accessible than those of ancient Egypt, memories that all people might study and cherish-and with which we could start to rebuild. And if a part of me continued to feel that this Sunday communion sometimes simplified our condition, that it could sometimes disguise or suppress the very real conflicts among us and would fulfill its promise only through action, I also felt for the first time how that spirit carried within it, nascent, incomplete, the possibility of moving beyond our narrow dreams.

In other words, he sees the church as a vehicle for his social goals. But here's the clincher, also from that book:

In a sense, then, Rafiq was right when he insisted that, deep down, all blacks were potential Nationalists. The anger was there, bottled up and often turned inward. And . . . I wondered whether, for now at least, Rafiq wasn’t also right in preferring that that anger be redirected; whether a black politics that suppressed rage towards white generally, or one that failed to elevate race loyally above all else, was a politics inadequate to the task.

It was a painful thought to consider, as painful now as it has been years ago. it contradicted the morality my mother had taught me, a morality of subtle distinctions- between individuals of goodwill and those who wished me ill, between active malice and ignorance of indifference. I has a personal stake in that moral framework; I’d discovered that I couldn’t escape it if I tried. And yet perhaps it was a framework that blacks in this country could no longer afford; perhaps it weakened black resolve, encouraged confusion within the ranks. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, of the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.

Emphasis mine.

There you have it: Obama admits that his mother taught him to judge people as individuals, but the possibility that the end of racial uplift could be achieved through an immoral means meant it was worth violating his own conscience, and worth alienating whites of goodwill. That was the compromise that might yet prove fatal to his campaign. It was the doomed bargain Obama made when he joined forces with Wright. As he's now learning, the consequences of that contract aren't so little.

"By any means necessary" is a dangerous principle, as is its brother "Extremism in the defense of [fill in the blank] is no vice." (Sen. Barry Goldwater, in his 1964 speech accepting the GOP nomination for president: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.") After seven years of a president who believed that we should defend the United States and the president's prerogatives by any means necessary (including torture), and that extremism in the defense of America from Islamic terrorists is no vice, I'm very wary of putting my trust in a politician who believes that desirable ends can justify immoral means.