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A Rare Noonan Flub

I almost couldn?t believe it. It was so unbelievable, in fact, that I put off writing about it. ?It? is something I thought I?d never see, a truly bad column by Peggy Noonan.

In fact, I put off writing about it (the column appeared May 2) so long that now I don?t have to. Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity says, in this email he?s given me permission to post, what I would have said, only better:

I usually like Peggy Noonan?s columns, but not this weekend?s.... The gist of it is that she is not riled up about Rev. Wright because?as silly as what he says is?he reflects ?the pain of a people who were forced to come here when they did not want to and made to live in a way that no one would want to. Who could deny them their grief or anger?? Besides, nobody can take what he says seriously.

She analogizes the situation to this: She has a 20-year-old Irish-American friend who ?delights in the Wolfe Tones, the Irish folk group named for the 18th-century leader condemned to death by the British occupying forces.? Noonan, in describing her friend?s enjoyment, writes, ?It is good to feel that old ethnic religious solidarity ? And it?s not so bad to take a little free-floating anger, apply it to politics, and express it in applause. ? It?s just a way of saying, ?I?m still loyal to our bitterness.? ? I can summon the old anger.? [Noonan?s italics.] Noonan thinks this is all fine and, turning back to those listening to Obama?s pastor, notes ?there is no apparent record of people leaving a Wright sermon and punching anyone in the nose. Maybe they?re in search of solidarity too. Maybe they?re showing loyalty too.?

Three points, and I?ll make them as calmly as I can, although Noonan?s column is really disturbing. First, just on its own terms, I find this sort of tribalism to be stupid and adolescent at best, and there is nothing good to be said about it in an American, period. Second, the Wright situation is even worse than her friend?s because (a) it?s not 18th-century British occupying forces that the audience is targeting for its Orwellian hate-fest, but our own government right now, and (b) Noonan?s silly friend is not running for president. Third, while Noonan is correct that no thinking person would take Rev. Wright?s sermons seriously, she is wrong to reason that, therefore, they can pose no threat.

I will add a fourth point, repeating a point I?ve made here several times: Wright is of interest, and concern, not because of what Wright believes or says but because of Obama?s prevarications about his relationship with the ranting pastor. And at least one of those prevarications ? the attempt to ?contextualize? Wright and place him in the mainstream of black history ? was not just self-interested but positively dangerous. As I wrote here, the day before Obama?s now failed Speech in Philadelphia,

It may well be that the most disturbing defamation brought to light in the controversy surrounding Rev. Jeremiah Wright was not one of Wright?s many slanders against the United States but what I think is a slander against black churches in the United States by Barack Obama....

I am referring to Obama?s several recent statements that, as he asserted to reporters and editors of the Chicago Tribune on Friday, that Wright?s church ?is a very traditional African-American church....? Before the Wright wreck he had told the same thing to a group of 100 or so Jewish leaders in Cleveland last month:

It is a very conventional African American church. If you go to, if you were there at the church, you would be hearing gospel music and people preaching about Jesus. It is very conventional in that sense.

If Obama is right, and his and Wright?s Trinity United Church of Christ is a ?conventional,? typical, normal, black church, if most black ministers spew the hate that we?ve heard from Rev. Wright, the United States has a larger racial divide than most people realize.

.... If he can persuade people that his church is a simply conventionally black, then any criticism of Wright or his church can be dismissed as racist. More important, many commentators might be dissuaded from such criticism for fear of being called a racist.

I think Obama?s argument is flatly wrong. I don?t believe most black churches in the country are seething hotbeds of anti-Americanism. But perhaps even more striking, I think his argument undermines his own campaign. Insofar as he persuades people that Trinity United Church of Christ is typical of black churches, he will have persuaded many people that they do not want any product of such a church as president of the United States, and perhaps even in lesser offices and positions. He will, that is, have done more damage to race relations in the United States than even a Louis Farrakhan, George Wallace, Al Sharpton, or David Duke could do

Noonan, and others, can rationalize what an Obamian elitist might call Wright?s bitter, angry clinging to 60s leftist shibboleths to their heart?s content, but Wright is not the issue.

Obama is.

Full post as published by Discriminations on May 05, 2008 (boomark / email).