Obama seems to think that by making a public appearance or two and taking a little bit of abuse, all of the criticisms that he has been hit with in recent weeks will just wither away. Then, he can go back to being the darling politico who wants to inspire the American people to achieve new levels of success.
IT AIN’T GONNA happen.
Anybody who thinks the issues just go away is being politically naïve. Just because he let the two major metro Chicago newspapers beat up on him a bit and also publicly spoke out against his pastor isn’t going to cause any of the criticisms to go away.
In fact, it may very well raise the intensity level of those charges, since the people who were seriously inclined to believe them are going to want to use those charges regardless of what Obama has to say on the subject.
It is the reality of political rhetoric that it is heated. It is intense. It is shrill.
Seeing how Barack Obama deals with continuing criticisms will show us just how close he is to the idealized image offered up by this campaign poster.
MORE OFTEN THAN not, it is usually a little bit of fact wrapped in a blanket of innuendo with a whole lot of other irrelevant facts added on to the point that the “major scandal” is created.
Now if it sounds like I’m saying most campaign charges are ridiculous and should not be taken seriously, you are correct. I have always been of the opinion (from having covered various political campaigns across Illinois) that what matters about campaign charges is not so much the substance of the accusations (often, there is none), but the way in which the candidate responds to being slandered by his political opposition.
Is he the kind of person who gets touchy and takes everything personally? Does he respond by coming up with his own scandalous charges against his opponent?
Does the candidate try to go into detailed, overly researched explanations that somehow, in his own mind, justify his conduct? Is he the type who tries to ignore the charges, somehow thinking they don’t matter if he refuses to respond?
OR DOES THIS candidate live in a fantasy world by which problems go away if they are ignored?
That’s how we figure out how a person would react if he really does get that telephone call at 3 a.m., telling him his presence is needed to cope with a world crisis.
So what should we take into account when studying the conduct of Barack Obama in recent days?
Obama clearly lived in a “fantasy world” for quite a while with regard to the accusations that he had not been forthright about his ties to politically connected Democratic fundraiser Antoin Rezko. The explanation he offered up for months wasn’t inaccurate, but it did not offer the mind- numbing detail that political geeks wanted to know about just how close the two men were.
CONSIDERING THAT BARACK theoretically still owes Tony Rezko favors and Rezko could possibly be asking a “President Obama” for a pardon – if found guilty in U.S. District Court in Chicago on political corruption charges, something of an explanation is necessary.
But to the people who get excited about such excess detail, no amount of explanation is sufficient. They are more interested in having a charge that can make the candidate squirm. They will want to interpret Obama’s every refusal to elaborate further than he already has as evidence that he’s covering up something.
That also is likely the case with regard to Obama’s Tuesday speech in Philadelphia where he said he knew how fiery the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s rhetoric on racial issues could be, disagreed with some of it, but also said that Wright was close enough to him that he could never fully denounce him, no more than he could his grandfather if that man had said something offensive to some.
What matters is not the substance of what he said last week Friday and on Tuesday. It is how he continues to handle himself whenever he gets asked about these issues over and over and over again, until the week of the Democratic National Convention.
NOW I REALIZE that some people find it distasteful that political people believe in putting out wild accusations against their opponents. Some find it to be the ultimate evidence that electoral politics itself is morally bankrupt, if not craven.
But I have heard the political people justify their actions by saying they provide a needed service for the American people, and I can’t help but agree. These political operatives believe it would be morally offensive to withhold such accusations about their opponents – even if they can’t prove the charges.
These people want every single accusation thrown out there for public analysis – on the theory that the American people should decide for themselves whether or not any particular issue is truly significant (or utterly trivial).
We should be allowed to decide for ourselves whether Obama’s closeness to a political operative who now faces the possibility of prison time if found guilty of corruption is so big a character flaw that it should be held against Obama’s presidential dreams.
WE OUGHT TO be allowed to decide for ourselves whether we believe Obama is correct in remaining supportive of Jeremiah Wright the man, even if he thinks Wright acted like “a crazy uncle” and shot his mouth off a bit too much.
Ultimately, it is Obama’s reaction the rest of this primary season going into this year’s Democratic convention in Denver that will determine whether he deserves to be the party’s presidential nominee.
During her presidential campaign, Hillary R. Clinton has said she is the better bet because Obama is “inexperienced” and “hasn’t been vetted” in the public eye to the extent that she is.
WELL, THAT IS what all of this campaign activity amounts to – he’s being “vetted” by the American people. We’re kicking the tires of the Obama campaign and looking under the hood to see if the car’s innards look as nice as the “outer shell” talk of representing change in our way of government.
If it turns out that Team Obama collapses from the pressure that it will face in the following weeks, then perhaps Hillary had a point about Barack not being ready for the post.
But there’s also a good chance that Obama will be able to persuade a majority of people of the soundness of his positions. After all, the Rezko tie is really not all that significant, and Wright’s comments on race relations are not racist, just brutally honest.
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