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Today I endorse Barack Obama for president of the United States. I believe him to be a person of integrity, intelligence, and genuine good will. I take him at his word that he wants to move the nation beyond its religious and racial divides and that he wants to return the United States to that company of nations committed to human rights. I do not know if his earlier life experience is sufficient for the challenges of the presidency that lie ahead. I doubt we know this about any of the men or women we might select. It likely depends upon the serendipity of the events that cannot be foreseen. I do have confidence that the senator will cast his net widely in search of men and women of diverse, open-minded views and of superior intellectual qualities to assist him in the wide range of responsibilities that he must superintend.
This endorsement may be of little note or consequence, except perhaps that it comes from an unlikely source: namely, a former constitutional legal counsel to two Republican presidents. The endorsement will likely supply no strategic advantage equivalent to that represented by the very helpful accolades the senator has received from many of high stature and accomplishment, including most recently, from Gov. Bill Richardson. Nevertheless, it is important to be said publicly in a public forum in order that it be understood. It is not arrived at without careful thought and some difficulty.
As a Republican, I strongly wish to preserve traditional marriage not as a suspicion or denigration of my homosexual friends but as recognition of the significance of the procreative family as a building block of society. As a Republican and as a Catholic, I believe life begins at conception, and it is important for every life to be given sustenance and encouragement. As a Republican, I strongly believe that the Supreme Court of the United States must be fully dedicated to the rule of law and to the employ of a consistent method of interpretation that keeps the court within its limited judicial role. As a Republican, I believe problems are best resolved closest to their source and that we should never arrogate to a higher level of government that which can be more effectively and efficiently resolved below. As a Republican and a constitutional lawyer, I believe religious freedom does not mean religious separation or mindless exclusion from the public square.
In various ways, Sen. Barack Obama and I may disagree on aspects of these important fundamentals, but I am convinced, based upon his public pronouncements and his personal writing, that on each of these questions he is not closed to understanding opposing points of view and, as best as it is humanly possible, he will respect and accommodate them.
No doubt some of my friends will see this as a matter of party or intellectual treachery. I regret that, and I respect their disagreement. But they will readily agree that as Republicans, we are first Americans. As Americans, we must voice our concerns for the well-being of our nation without partisanship when decisions that have been made endanger the body politic. Our president has involved our nation in a military engagement without sufficient justification or a clear objective. In so doing, he has incurred both tragic loss of life and extraordinary debt jeopardizing the economy and the well-being of the average American citizen. In pursuit of these fatally flawed purposes, the office of the presidency, which it was once my privilege to defend in public office formally, has been distorted beyond its constitutional assignment. Today, I do no more than raise the defense of that important office anew, but as private citizen.
Sept. 11 and the radical Islamic ideology that it represents is a continuing threat to our safety, and the next president must have the honesty to recognize that it, as author Paul Berman has written, "draws on totalitarian inspirations from 20th-century Europe and with its double roots, religious and modern, perversely intertwined. ... wields a lot more power, intellectually speaking, then naïve observers might suppose." Sen. Obama needs to address this extremist movement with the same clarity and honesty with which he has addressed the topic of race in America. Effective criticism of the incumbent for diverting us from this task is a good start, but it is incomplete without a forthright outline of a commitment to undertake, with international partners, the formation of a worldwide entity that will track, detain, prosecute, convict, punish, and thereby stem radical Islam's threat to civil order. I await Sen. Obama's more extended thinking upon this vital subject as he accepts the nomination of his party and engages Sen. McCain in the general campaign discussion to come.
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I thought Obama’s speech on race was possibly the best thing any politician has said about race in decades (note the qualification: any politician. )
Putting Rev. Wrights’ comments in the context of understandable, if misdirected, black anger over real racial problems was a rhetorical master stroke, made even better by the fact that it rings absolutely true. And it was gutsy: it’s plausible that much of Obama’s support comes from white voters who hope Obama represents a free pass on racial questions. But Obama didn’t offer a free pass—he offered a demanding challenge: we must address racial inequities and try to understand our fellow citizens even when they offend us. I thought this subtle but pointed rejection of a staple of politically correct thinking (if anyone ”offends” me then the conversation has to stop until they take care of my hurt feelings) was spot on—if we’re to get anywhere in dealing with race, we’d better get not be so quick to take offense.
And comparing black anger and white resentment helps make the important point that we’re now locked into a race dialogue that consist primarily of scandal and reaction (“you’re a racist”—“no, you’re just playing the race card.”) that’s based in large part on the politics of umbrage and outrage—a competition for who’s been more wronged. It’s really encouraging that Obama is thinking of a way to move beyond this depressing stalemate rather than simply exploit it for short term advantage (compare his and Clinton’s back and forth on race and gender after S Carolina or, Mitt Romney’s defensive reaction to questions about his religious convictions).
It wasn’t perfect: I would have liked more candor on the tough questions—given the legacy of Jim Crow racism about which Obama spoke, what should we do? It’s true that some racial problems are really just part of larger social and economic problems: for instance, the problem of the black “super ghetto” is in large part a consequence of the emptying out of industrial cities during the 60s and 70s as a result of profound economic changes, the decline of manufacturing, etc. So in that sense poor blacks in the South Side of Chicago have common cause with unemployed Ohio steel workers. But it's too easy to say this and stop: for instance, neighborhood and school segregation—probably the greatest unaddressed legacy of Jim Crow--may well require race conscious solutions such as affirmative action and busing. It’s understandable that Obama doesn’t want to wander into those mine fields, but her won’t be able to avoid them for long if he’s serious about confronting racial inequity.
But these cavils aside, it was a brave and profound speech and best of all it suggests how Obama will use his considerable rhetorical skills, not just to inspire political support, but to lead on contentious issues.
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