Thursday, May 01, 2008
Let Me Modify the Question
So let me ask you a hypothetical, what if Minster Farrakhan was his spiritual mentor? Would this disqualify Obama as a presidential candidate?
18 Comments:
By 
Andrew Hofer, at
Thu May 01, 01:56:00 PM:
If the candidate said Farrakhan was his spiritual mentor, I wouldn't vote for it.
By Escort81, at
Thu May 01, 02:16:00 PM:
If Obama's public pronouncements and approach to government reflected NOI philosophy, I would think Obama's primary results would have been roughly equal to Kucinich-level numbers (notwithstanding the difference in the physical appearance and personal appeal of the Senator over the Congressman). I infer that is what you mean by disqualification.
If what you are implying is that Obama believes what Wright believes, despite his clear statements otherwise (that is, you think he is lying), my perception is that most Americans, including conservatives, are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that. What doesn't go away is the judgment issue of associating himself with Wright, or any of the substantive policy issues.
By 
, at
Thu May 01, 02:16:00 PM:
No. He is disqualified on the basis of political ignorance and naivete, as in "WHAT didn't Obama know and WHEN didn't he know it........?
By , at
Thu May 01, 03:11:00 PM:
Yes, he would be disqualified. A religion that preaches a different path to enlightenment is one thing, a "religion" that preaches hatred based on skin color, is umm just like the KKK. I won't tolerate either. Left or Right, they go around the circle until they stand shoulder to shoulder, as far away from me as I can get.
By GreenmanTim, at
Thu May 01, 03:25:00 PM:
Nixon's mother was a Quaker and his father converted from Methodism. A Core tenet of the Society of Friends is pacifism. Did that disqualify him from being commander in chief?
By , at
Thu May 01, 03:25:00 PM:
Yes, it would disqualify him. The reason that Wright hasn't (yet) had the same effect can be expressed mathematically in the following inequality regarding size in the public mind:
Farrakhan > Obama > Wright
Farrakhan is known by the public to be an antisemite, and has been known to be one for quite some time, before anyone had heard of Obama. He is a larger figure than Obama in the eyes of the public. So, Obama would never have gotten a hearing in the first place.
Wright, on the other hand, has only become known in the context of this campaign and his relation to Obama.
For the moment, Obama remains alive politically because we (the general public, not necessarily you or I) are still trying to decide how big a part of Obama Wright is.
If it were Farrakhan, we would be saying that Obama is part of Farrakhan, not vice versa, and the discussion would be over instantly.
By Cardinalpark, at
Thu May 01, 03:36:00 PM:
GMT - I must jump in on your question rgarding pacifism. Pacifism , while something with which I disagree as a matter of philosophy, is an entirely respectable philsophy to embrace, in my view. Antisemitism is not. Nor, frankly, is anti-Americanism in the broad sense -- that which, forinstance, would observe that 9/11 reflected the "chickens coming home to roost." I don't think a pacifist would embrace either of Wright's or Farrakhan's positions in that regard.
So Nixon's relationship to either Quaker-ism or Method-ism would not have disqualified him to me. Moreoever, I don't view the comparison as valid or fair to the pacifist philosophy.
By , at
Thu May 01, 04:20:00 PM:
Nixon's life, including serving in the military during WWII and his subsequent political career prior to becoming president, should disabuse anyone of the notion he was a pacifist. Therefore having parents that were pacifist Quakers should not be disqualifying.
By Cardinalpark, at
Thu May 01, 04:46:00 PM:
E81 -
I am not imputing anything about either Farrakhan or Wright to Obama. Your commentary suggests I am making an implication about what Obama believes in fact. Truth be told, none of us knows what he believes because he hasn't done much, only said few things, and said them very nicely I might add. I don't know. And you don't know either.
i merely asked if Obama's spiritual mentor was Farrakhan, what implication would that have for an Obama candidacy?
By , at
Thu May 01, 04:58:00 PM:
To minimize the import of a 20 year spiritual adviser is to overlook an established test.
The multiple doofuses on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Leahy, Biden, Kennedy, etc., see the relationships and memberships of nominees to the federal bench, going back to college days, as being very important. How could they be less important for candidates for the Presidency?
Wright, at least, is a nominal Christian, and so is Obama. Farrakahn usn't and it would be hard for Obama to argue that he wasn't a Muslim with Louie as his spiritual adviser.
Evaluating the effect of the formers of one's personality and belief system is always importaant and especially so, if they are otherwise masked. We need to know a WHOLE lot more about what influenced Mrs. Obama. From her hatred of America, it seems like she was paying close attention to Wright's poison over 20 years.
I have to admit that I've always enjoyed listening to Farrakahn. I've never heard one of his anti-white, anti-semitic speeches. His CSPAN stuff, I suppose, was cleaned up. He does have a nice delivery as is easy to listen to even though he may be speaking garbage. I feel the same way about Mario Cuomo.
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu May 01, 06:35:00 PM:
The same is true of Khalid Mashal, the head of Hamas. Good speaker, intelligent, and charismatic. Just demonstrates that the gods have seen fit to bestow such gifts on bastards as well.
By Escort81, at
Thu May 01, 07:01:00 PM:
CP - Thanks for the clarification. My bad, I was trying to read between the lines, and there were no lines in between your succinct question. I think I answered in my first graph that Obama would be effectively disqualified by the Democratic Party electorate in the primaries by pulling Kucinich-like numbers. But hey, as long as you're a natural born citizen over the age of 35 and can collect enough legitimate signatures on a petition to get on a ballot, have at it.
Of course, I don't know what he believes (wouldn't it be cool, though, if we could have some kind of internet thingy that would allow us to peer into a candidate's soul?), but Obama is either an Academy Award winning actor, or he was a man in some pain on Monday during his presser. I inferred the source of that pain to be a public break with someone he had been close with for two decades, but maybe I read it incorrectly. In any case, it is not on point to your question. But I will blather on anyway.
We both probably know some lawyers who believe some wacky things. But would any of them (much less an editor of the HLR) honestly believe that the U.S. government created HIV to wipe out the black race? Or would that lawyer's first year law school professor yank them by the collar and make them repeat the section covering the Rules of Evidence? It would be amazing to me if Obama (at any point in time) believed that particular utterance of Wright's.
GT - As a graduate of one of the oldest Quaker day schools in the country, I am happy to report that approximately 50% of military service aged males of the Quaker faith served during WWII. My father (not a member of the Friends) attended a different Quaker day school, graduating in 1933, and volunteered for the Navy in 1940, as did many of his Quaker classmates.
I think that if Amy Carter ran for POTUS, being her father's daughter would disqualify her.
By GreenmanTim, at
Thu May 01, 10:25:00 PM:
Dear Friends - and I use the term deliberately - I graduated from one of the oldest Quaker colleges in the country and am well aware that there have been many fighting Quakers, including Nixon, and not just in WWII. That was actually my point, though I made it needlessly nettlesome. His being Quaker has no more bearing on his fitness to be President than Romney being Mormon or Kennedy Catholic.
By Escort81, at
Thu May 01, 11:15:00 PM:
Or is the point of your question one of substitution, that Wright=Farrkhan, and that therefore Obama associating closely with one or the other should be a disqualifier?
The NOI affiliation would not have provided Obama with the benefit of the doubt at the beginning of the process, because of all of the well-known baggage. TUCC was not understood by most people to be somewhat out of the mainstream of AA churches (BLT not being that common at AME or Baptist churches), allowing Obama to gain good momentum early on.
If he had joined a regular ol' church, he foregoes the entire pastor problem.
By randian, at
Fri May 02, 01:04:00 AM:
Considering Wright's apparent admiration of NOI and Farrakhan, and the miniscule difference between their respective visions of black supremacy, I'm not sure there's much distinction to be made here.
By Cardinalpark, at
Fri May 02, 08:50:00 AM:
Yes E81, you abd MW win the prize! Another commenter earlier made the similar observation.
There is no meaningful distinction between Wright and Farrakhan. The only difference is that Farrakhan is famous. His brand of charismatic, lunatic bigotry has been available for all to see for decades. Wright and his Trinity United Church were relatively obscure. Until now.
Wright defends Farrakhan's precise statements on white greed; accuses the US government of infecting people of color with AIDS; distinguises scripture which serves as the source of Jewish religion from its adherents, who are referred to variously as either gutter Jews or gutter Zionists (take your pick, they're both expressions of bigotry); and speaks further of black superiority.
There is no difference between Wright and Farrakhan -- in the same way as there is ultimately no relevant difference between totalitarian systems be they "rightwing" or leftwing" -- Farrakhan's devotion to Allah as compared to Wright's fealty to Jesus is a distinction without a difference.
Note a few more things:
1) In 1984, Farrakhan made a noted journey to Libya to visit with Moammar Qaddafi. It was in the aftermath of that visit, and in parallel with Jesse Jackson's run for the Presidency, that both Jackson and Farrakhan were highlighted as bigots, and no great friend of America.
Jeremiah Wright joined Farrakhan on the trip.
2) Wright's Trinity United Church publishes a magazine; its editors are Wrights daughters. The magazine notably awarded Farrakhan some sort of "Great Man" tribute.
My point continues to be that I don't know what Obama thinks about white people, Jews, American policy in somne of these far off places, and American government. He has not made powerful statements of policy on these matters, and he has no record of action to speak of.
What I do know is this. He attended for 20 years a church to which he was tightly bound -- this cannot be denied -- whose leader espoused poisonous and bigotted philosophy the virtual equal of Farrakhan's. This equivalence was not drawn early in the campaign, and therefore Obama assembled a delegate lead and electoral performance under imperfect information for all voters.
I would observe that Obama is also a charismatic and deceptive speaker, but he too has made missteps which are removing the uncertainty and revealing the influence of Trinity on him -- imagine that he referred to his grandmother as a "typical white person". Is that not bigotry writ large? Does that mean she's just afraid of black men? Or greedy?
Or how about those country folks clinging to guns and religion? Huh? What's that, eh? Smell some Trinity United there? What about clinging to paranoid conspiracy theories? Is that what urban minorities at Trinity United do?
So yes, I think substitution is in order. And I think Chris Chambers understood that completely when he was quoted in the Washington Post - "GAME OVER."
By , at
Fri May 02, 10:12:00 AM:
Yes E81, you abd MW win the prize! Another commenter earlier made the similar observation.
Awesome, I win!!! For the first time in my adult life, I'm proud of this country.
By Escort81, at
Fri May 02, 11:22:00 AM:
MW - Heh. Shouldn't we have some sort of one game playoff or something? Actually, you clocked in first, so run with it, be proud!
There must be some differences in doctrine and practices betweeen NOI and TUCC. I didn't see many bow ties at TUCC, for example. I happen to like bow ties, once in a while.
