IT IS fair to make presidential candidates squirm about dubious associations in debates. But the way ABC News moderators stretched Barack Obama on the rack for his ties to Rev. Jeremiah Wright was curious. For nearly three decades, such moderators of debates and their journalist panels have failed to probe similar ties of other candidates.
That is the opening paragraph of a column today by Derrick Jackson of the Boston Globe entitled Tough questions or just plain bias? It is one of two things I have read that have cover somewhat similar ground, that of how Obama is being treated far differently than have other candidates, Democratic or Republican, as to their previous associations. The other is Mark Kleiman's Motes-and-beams dep't. Both are useful, and I will quote from each as I explore further the idea of guilt by association.
Jackson focuses on Republicans turning to Bob Jones, but begins where Reagan initiated his campaign, in Philadelphia MS. After reminding readers of that, something which raised eyebrows and caused some editorial commentary at the time, he goes on to offer us the following:
Reagan's first term was marked by a failed bid to grant tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University, the Bible school which, among several un-American lapses, banned black students until the 1970s and interracial dating until 2000.
Reagan was not asked about Bob Jones in the 1984 debates. Nor was Reagan asked about his coddling of apartheid South Africa. In the 1996 debates, Bob Dole was not asked about his visit to Bob Jones University.
The junior George Bush did face debate questions about Bob Jones in the 2000 Republican primaries after speaking at the school. Bush said he was against the ban on interracial dating, but rationalized, "I followed a long tradition of both Republican and Democratic candidates that went to lay out their vision. Ronald Reagan went to Bob Jones, my dad went to Bob Jones, Bob Dole . . . I talked about bringing people together so America can achieve its greatness."
Then-rival John McCain, today the presumptive Republican nominee, declared in 2000, "We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, not Bob Jones."
Jackson notes McCain's saying in 2000 that he was not invited to Bob Jones but would not have gone had he been. Somehow the first Bush was not asked in any general election debate about his association with that racist institution, a place to which Romney went to gladly receive the endorsement of Bob Jone III.
Perhaps I need have offered none of this, because Jackson puts it so bluntly. He is clearly sorrowful that Obama has seen fit to disassociate himself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright (so am I). But in one brief paragraph, BEFORE he reviews the history I have quoted or referred to above (and I did not mention all Jackson covers), he provides the frame that shows how unbalanced all this has been, culminating in the atrocities of Wednesday evening's debate:
Obama was arguably asked more about Wright in one night than what has been asked for the last 28 years in presidential debates of all white candidates about their dubious associations with racist elements of religion and society.
I suspect that Jackson's reaction is not uncommon among educated African-Americans.
Oh and before I leave Jackson, there is also one other remark, just before this paragraph, which is itself a gem, albeit not directly on the topic of this diary:
By the way, just how did the wife of "America's First Black President" lose almost the entire African-American vote during the primaries?
Those who regularly read my diaries are probably not surprised by my quoting Jackson. I often do, as I find him cogent on a number of issues, and wish his work were more widely read. With Mark Kleiman the relationship is personal. I remind people that Mark and I overlapped in my last stint at Haverford, that when he was a visiting professor at U of Maryland College Park in the fall semester of 2006 I used to regularly join him and others for dim sum Sunday brunch over which we talked politics, and that he was kind enough to come to speak to my AP government students. While he and I do not always agree even on issues that matter to us both, I find him a cogent commentator on many things, as he is in the post to which I have provided the link. The title is of course a reference to the King James version of the beginning of Chapter 7 (versus 1-5) of the Gospel of Matthew:
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Consider your own faults rather than criticizing others. Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Mark is already looking ahead to the general election (as I think most of us wish that we could). He begins his piece by noting
I hope all the wingnuts who plan to beat up on Barack Obama because he served on the board of a community foundation with someone who did something horribly disgusting in 1970 and said he wasn't sorry for it in 2001 are absolutely certain that they have no similar contact with anyone involved in supporting or facilitating:
and then lists three things which should have been rejected:
- The terrorist campaign to maintain racial domination in the South. (That would include virtually the entire political and law enforcement leadership of the whole region.) . . .
- The terrorist campaign directed by anti-Castro organizations in South Florida against other Cuban-Americans and against independent media, including the successful effort to make it impossible to distribute the Miami Herald in Cuban Miami through the use of systematic violence, including firebombing, against newsdealers who failed to comply with the boycott called by the Cuban-American National Foundation. . . .
- The largely successful terrorist campaign to shut down clinics that offered abortion services. . . .
Then after telling us that he has no brief for Ayers, Mark concludes that
the notion that the Weather Underground and the Black Panther Party somehow introduced violence into a previously non-violent polity doesn't pass the giggle test. The American Right has infinitely more blood on its hands in this regard than does the American Left.
I want to approach this topic differently. I am afraid that I am going to disagree with my friend Mark somewhat, because I do NOT want to get into a tit for tat about the associations of those whose candidacies I oppose. I will attempt to explain why. I do agree with both Jackson and Kleiman that there has been clear inconsistency in how Obama has been treated on his associations as compared with the associations of anyone else, not merely Hillary Clinton and John McCain this cycle, but most of the associations of any White candidate for the presidency in any previous cycle. That imbalance and unfairness is justifiably something that should be addressed.
Addressed yes, but not obsessively, lest we fall prey to the kind of tit for tat politics about which Obama has so complained, and which most Americans regret, not merely because of the tone it sets but because it results in depriving media oxygen for the issues about which most Americans care.
I would hope that a candidate for president could make the case that s/he is capable of associating with people whom s/he does not like on some even very important issues without having to assume responsibility for those issues or actions. After all, as a President s/he will have to deal with leaders and nations some of whose actions and words are even more noxious than anything attributed to an Ayers, a Wright, a Bob Jones, a Jerry Falwell, a Pat Robertson, a John Hagee . . . you can mentally add names to this list. We deal with such foreign leaders and nations because they are part of the reality of the world and we cannot pretend that they do not exist, nor will ignoring them necessarily result in changes to the behavior we find so obnoxious. Obama is correct when he says we need to engage them diplomatically, that to so is a sign of our strength, and is the most likely way we are likely to be able to encourage change in ways that are constructive.
How can we expect such leadership from a President who is unwilling or afraid to act similarly on a more personal level, or who fears interacting with those whose words are problematic or even hateful and despicable. How can we hope to change our society for the better when we reject persons as distinct from rejecting the words and actions we despise? Somehow I find that hard to justify giving the Christian idea of holding fast that which is good, or, to put it another way, hating the sin but loving the sinner. I am not a parent, but even as a teacher I have found that I am far better able to assist a student in modifying unacceptable behavior in a context wherein s/he knows that it is the behavior I criticize and not the person, that s/he is not putting him or herself beyond my good graces by any one word or action. And while I realize that on a human level there are things for each of us that are seemingly impossible to accept in another person for those of us who seek to make a POSITIVE difference we need to stretch ourselves so such absolute lines are ever further away from our core sense of ourselves and of what we value.
Perhaps I am asking too much. But even though in a conventional sense I do not concern myself with a personal belief in God, I understand the theological concept that if the words or actions of a human could place her beyond the redemptive power of God, permanently rejecting the love and mercy of God, that would make her at least the equal of God. Theologically that seems to contradict the very idea of God, or to reduce God to merely being another failed and limited human. For those who consider themselves believers this should represent a challenge, something that provokes some self-reflection.
There are certainly words or actions done by people for which we must draw lines. When someone refuses to change despite invitation or challenge, when someone persists in words or behavior that we believe is destructive or which we find personally unacceptable, then it may be necessary for us to draw some line, to withdraw from interchange with that person, or to announce that absent a change and an acceptance of responsibility for the damage being done we will disassociate ourselves, or refuse to offer political support. I acknowledge having had to so myself. When I announce or act upon such a renunciation or rejection, it must always be with the acknowledgment that should I see change and acceptance I would be willing to reopen association and dialog. After all, the Christian Bible attempts to illustrate the importance of this in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. And while I may not be a Christian I find wisdom in that tale.
I wish our politicians had the courage to address associations that are criticized by pointing out the good of the other person which one affirms by continued association, even as one may oneself be critical of certain words or deeds. And here I also note that it is often far easier to modify behavior when one is not being publicly challenged: each of us is likely to dig in our heels when we find ourselves under such pressure. But if there is an ongoing relationship it is possible to speak to one's brother privately without embarrassing him in front of others.
Because I am a teacher I use examples from the world I know, and perhaps some will view these as not related. But I think they are, because those who aspire to political leadership should remember that one form of leadership requires teaching people (including the listening an effective teacher always does) so that they can go further than where they find themselves before the encounter begins. There are words and actions that require immediate and public rebuke. Far more often one merely needs to pull the student aside in a fashion that does not subject her to public embarrassment: that provides some room to acknowledge one's failures and to begin to change, whereas the public shaming merely locks the person into a defensive mode.
One reason many are drawn to Obama is that he expresses for us a desire to go beyond the kind of divisive politics we have seen, and to help us bridge our gaps and common together in common purpose. With that I agree. I also do not expect that he will always live up to his own highest ideals on this, and I think he has somewhat failed in how he handled the situation with Jeremiah Wright. I felt he could have been more forceful about the good that Wright has done over a lifetime. But as I want us to be willing to affirm the good we encounter and not reject the person for the action - and as I hope and pray that given my own weaknesses, temper, and imperfections that others will be willing to apply the same standard to me - I am willing to be generous to Obama on this.
To judge a person by one statement, one action, OR ONE ASSOCIATION is equally wrong. I don't want a leader who is unwilling to engage with those with whom she disagrees. That is why it think the idea of guilt by association is so destructive of our political processes. Yes, I think we need to point out the imbalance, the unfairness of what has been applied to Obama versus a Bush, a McCain, a Romney, or either Clinton (and they have both had some experience albeit to a much lesser degree than what Obama has been encountering). I do not want us to search for associations with which we can tar our political opponents. I don't want more of our limited public discourse on politics and elections to be consumed by matters like these rather than focusing on the issues that really should concern us.
My parents knew Richard Nixon in the OPA. Neither could stand him. I viewed Nixon as anti-semitic, and thus was not surprised to find evidence of that in his personal expressions. But in 1973, when the very existence of Israel was in serious doubt he did not hesitate to step up and offer the US assistance necessary to its survival. While I may condemn him on Watergate, I must also acknowledge his leadership and courage on that issue.
Similarly, I may criticize someone for an association, but criticism should not be all consuming, it should not rise to demanding they throw the other person under a bus. I would hope political leaders would begin to reject the kinds of question like those on Wednesday that debase our political discourse. Describe people more completely than merely those words or actions we find distasteful or worse.
I don't believe in guilt by association. And I do not want a leader afraid to associate with person because of how it might impact his political future. Surely we need better than that if we are going to bring this country together, otherwise we will become so fearful of one another that we will be unable to take the bold and challenging exercises that may be essential for our very survival.
Peace