The Real Obama

It is amazing what a difference just a few short months can make.

It was just earlier this year that Barack Obama had people at rally after rally swooning over him. Up until as late as March or so, even many right-leaning pundits were reluctant to criticize him, and on those relatively few occasions when they ventured to do so, they were sure to temper their derogatory remarks with laudatory ones.

All of this changed dramatically and abruptly in March with the eruption of the Jeremiah Wright controversy.

It was at that moment that America first became familiar with Obama’s pastor of over twenty years, the man who he described as his “spiritual mentor,” the man who brought him to Christ. For the overwhelming majority of Americans, Wright left anything but a favorable first impression. The media continually replayed footage of some of Wright’s sermons in which he made numerous incendiary assertions that many believed were both “anti-American” and “racist.” He referred to “the US of KKK A,” and took unequivocal exception to the notion that God had bestowed His blessing on America: “No, no, no, not God Bless America, God Damn America!” The revelation that Wright had long worked closely with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and had gone so far as to grant the black supremacist a Lifetime Achievement Award reinforced his image as an extremist antagonist of the United States.

Wright was the first questionable associate of Obama’s to come to light -- but he certainly wasn’t the last. For the purposes of this column, I will mention only the most recent, Father Michael Pfleger. Pfleger is a long-time ally of Obama’s who just last week attracted national media attention when, as a guest preacher at Obama’s church, he attributed to Hillary Clinton the belief that her race entitled her to the presidency. Pfleger, too, is close with Farrakhan, and he referred to Wright as one of the best biblical scholars in the nation.

There is much else that we can draw upon to bring into focus “the real Obama”: his autobiography, a work in which he exhibits what can only be described as a hyper-defensiveness toward whites generally and his white family and friends in particular; his (admittedly subtle) characterization of white working-class voters as racists whose “bitterness” drives them to “cling” to their guns and their religion; his speech on race in Philadelphia, in which Obama covertly attempted to shift responsibility for Wright from himself to “white America” by situating his spiritual mentor’s sermons within the context of generations of “white racism”; Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement of Obama; Obama’s refusal to wear American flag lapels, and to place his hand over his chest while saying the pledge of allegiance; Michelle Obama’s confession of never having been proud of her country until her husband began winning primaries; and so on.

But we need not know any of these other facts in order to know who Obama is. His relationships with Wright and Pfleger suffice to tell us all that we need to know.

Wright and Pfleger subscribe to “black liberation theology,” a world orientation that reduces all human phenomena to a perpetual struggle on the part of blacks (and, for that matter, all non-whites) to free themselves from the centuries-old yoke of “white oppression” or “white supremacy.” Black liberation theology is a Manichean ideology in that it admits of no shades of gray: there are only Heroes -- perpetual black victims -- and Villains -- perpetual white oppressors. The proponents of black liberation theology hold that the fundamental institutions of Western civilization generally and the United States in particular are irredeemably “racist.” Thus, “black liberation” will be achieved only when these institutions are destroyed, only when the West as we have always known it ceases to be.

It is utterly irrelevant whether he was physically present in the pew when Wright gave the controversial sermons of which everyone is now aware. Obama is correct: Americans were indeed treated to but “snippets” of Wright’s decades-long tenure at Trinity, but the offensive remarks of which everyone is now painfully aware are “snippets” of a worldview of which they are the logical expression, a worldview that Obama essentially shares. It is either his endorsement of the “black liberation theology” of the Wrights and Pflgers of the world that accounts for Obama’s twenty-plus years active membership at Trinity, or a political opportunism, the crassness of which is rivaled only by its inexhaustible persistence. Political opportunism there most certainly was, but there is also much to suggest that Obama -- and certainly his wife -- are fundamentally of like mind with his pastor.

We need no longer search for “the real Obama.” He is here for all who have eyes to see. Sadly, it has all along been our own willful blindness that has concealed him from us.