While the Rev. Jeremiah Wright continues to play out in sound bites on cable
TV and talk radio, it isn't Wright who might be president. It is Barack
Obama who wants that job. Rev. Wright is consistent in his preaching that
America bore some responsibility for the 9/11 attacks and in his
conspiratorial lunacy about "how the government lied about inventing the HIV
virus as a means of genocide against people of color," but Obama has been
inconsistent in what he has said about issues that will have a far greater
impact than the outrage produced by his former pastor.
I am all for a post-racial, nonpolarized society, but Obama has yet to
detail how that would work and on which issues he is willing to move toward
the center from positions any reasonable observer would have to describe as
far-left, even radical.
On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace tried to get Obama to say where he might
find common ground with Republicans when he asked him: "Can you name a
hot-button issue where you would be willing to buck the Democratic Party
line and say, 'You know what? Republicans have a better idea here.'" Obama
offered regulation and charter schools, not exactly hot-button issues.
Moving away from his vote against banning partial-birth abortion, as other
Democrats have done, would have been a good hot-button issue on which he
might have compromised, but abortion is the unholy grail of the left and no
Democrat can get the presidential nomination unless he (or she) buys the
entire abortion package.
Obama has the right attitude, as in, "My goal is to get us out of this
polarizing debate where we're always trying to score cheap political points
and actually get things done." That's admirable, so let's examine a few of
the things Obama says he would like to do.
On the war, Obama said on Fox, "I will listen to Gen. (David) Petraeus,
given the experience that he's accumulated over the last several years. It
would be stupid of me to ignore what he has to say." Admirable. But in
testimony last September before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of
which Obama is a member, Gen. Petraeus said, "I believe Iraq's problems will
require a long-term effort." The day after Petraeus' testimony, Obama called
for the U.S. to "Immediately begin to remove our combat troops from Iraq."
Which is it, immediate, or heeding Gen. Petraeus and his long-term approach
for bringing stability to Iraq?