The Obama-Wright flap continued

Sen. Obama’s comments on Jeremiah Wright today were excellent. They were exactly the words that needed to be said, and they seemed sincere. Let’s assume that they were. Why did he not say them before?

Evidently because he knew that doing so would spark a conflict with Mr. Wright which would “distract” the media and the public entirely from the campaign itself. Wright is so fervent about his obscene, pseudo-intellectual fanaticism, that to criticize his views almost certainly invites a response from Wright which the media will eat up. And that can only hurt Obama more, as the weeks go by and he is repeatedly asked about the latest inanity to fall from Mr. Wright’s mouth.

That’s unfortunate for Obama, perhaps—but who is to blame for it? Obama himself, who for decades has chosen to embrace Mr. Wright. He did so for one of two reasons: either (a) because he considers Mr. Wright’s views respectable—which if true is disturbing, but which Sen. Obama claims is not the case—or (b) because he was cynically attempting to obtain credentials from a constituency that does respect those views. While the former situation makes us question Sen. Obama’s judgment, the latter must make us question his leadership, for what self-respecting political leader of a free nation would sit in a room listening to a man say the things Wright says, without getting up and walking out?

In the 1970s, a handful of European governments observed a memorial of the Katyn Forest Massacre, carried out by Soviet soldiers and covered up by the USSR ever afterwards. But the United States sent a representative. When Taiwan was expelled from the United Nations, in violation of the U.N. Charter, Taiwan’s representatives walked out of the hall, and America’s representative stood up and went with them. Can we expect an Obama Administration to show that kind of moral leadership if Sen. Obama has for so long maintained close connections with a man with such clownish and disgusting opinions?

More importantly, how can secularists excuse either (a) or (b)? How can secular liberals, who believe that religious fanaticism is a threat to our ways of life, or that elected officials should not curry favor with scary religious fanatics, approve of Sen. Obama having either (a) accepted Wright’s views as respectable elements of political debate, or (b) having tried to appease those who do believe these things?