Center Field: Obama at his worst - and his best

On Tuesday, Senator Barack Obama's speech on race in America tried to quell the controversy over his America-bashing, race-baiting, Israel-hating pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. For days, video clips of Wright spewing his poison threatened to neutralize Obama's populist magic. Until Tuesday, the controversy showed Obama at his worst. His response to his pastor's demagoguery was mealy-mouthed and disingenuous. It was impossible to believe Obama's Clintonesque claim of ignorance, that he never "sat in the pews" during one of Wright's wrongheaded riffs. And Obama's failure over a twenty-year relationship to criticize his mentor's venom stirred doubts about Obama's judgment, patriotism, and commitment to the unity he celebrates. Yet once again, Illinois' rookie Senator hit a grand slam with two strikes against him. Obama's speech was thoughtful, thought-provoking, rich, complex, effective, poetic, and inspiring.

The video clips of Wright's preaching capture a demagogue working his audience masterfully. Someone who continually calls America, "the US of KKK-A," someone who bombastically, but lyrically, repeats that he would not say "God Bless America," but "God Damn America," someone who chose the Sunday after 9/11 to condemn American foreign policy and slam Israel, is not a casual America-basher.

Initially, Barack Obama's reaction to these ugly declarations was mild. He compared his spiritual hero to a crotchety old uncle, suggested Wright was just being "provocative" after 9/11, and insisted that he "personally" had not heard Wright make the statements that were causing "this controversy." Obama seemed struck by advancing political sclerosis - the paralysis that hits successful candidates, especially insurgents, as their rising prominence makes them ever cagier, abandoning the boldness that first launched them. Even more disturbing, when linked with Michelle Obama's comment that her husband's campaign made her proud of America for the first time in her life, more Americans were wondering whether the Democratic front-runner lacked the basic patriotism most Americans expect from their leaders.

In fact, Obama did not react because since the 1960s, such black anger at America has become ritualized among many African-Americans without impeding advancement in the American meritocracy. Moreover, the liberal elite and academic circles in which the Obamas travel would echo Michelle Obama's comments about not feeling proud of their country - even if some would find Wright's venom unnerving. (And lest the Clintonites get too superior about this, it is Bill and Hillary Clinton's baby boomer professorial peers who taught the younger Obamas and their generation how to hate America while profiting from it). This background makes Barack Obama's message so extraordinary. His 2004 convention speech marked the national debut of a fresh voice who refused to indulge in African-American anger toward America and rejected Ivy League cynicism.

Finally, on Tuesday, Obama did what he needed to do - he told the truth. Overlooking his previous denials, he admitted he had heard Reverend Wright make outrageous statements. Obama rejected Wright's "profoundly distorted view of this country." Obama said "white racism" is not "endemic." He warned of the tendency to elevate "what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America." And Obama refused to blame the Middle East conflict on "stalwart allies like Israel," instead blaming "the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam." Nevertheless, Obama rooted these statements in African-Americans' historic anguish and affirmed his loyalty to his pastor and his community.

Obama then eloquently highlighted his distinctive, patriotic message of self-awareness, self-criticism and reconciliation. Without explaining how he transcended this rage, he repudiated it. "That anger is not always productive," Obama confessed; "indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change." Obama boldly mentioned moments of deep racial division like the O.J. Simpson trial - and acknowledged white resentment. Characteristically, he refused to dwell in the land of wrongs and recriminations, offering a clever formulation to push the country toward healing and hope. "This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected," he proclaimed, inviting his fellow Americans to help transcend the divisions and perfect their union.

True, Obama overstepped occasionally. He unfairly compared Jeremiah Wright's years of invective with former Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro's one foolish comment attributing Obama's success to his race. And true, Obama was far too forgiving of his pastor's hate-mongering, and his own passivity. But it was hard to resist the speech's - or the speaker's - appeal. Americans are looking for redemption, and Barack Obama plays the redeemer brilliantly.

Here, then, remains the Obama campaign's great mystery. Many Americans want to believe, to trust that he is what he purports to be, that his gift for words will translate into a genius for governance. But the questions cropping up are not simply about his inexperience but his inaction. He never confronted Jeremiah Wright. He sat silently by as the United Church of Christ to which he belongs passed a resolution advocating divestment from Israel.

Obama's political rise has been launched on the wings of Americans' hopes that the healers will defeat the haters. His political progress would be more sure if he could point to actions backing up this rhetoric, to moments when he confronted demagogues and healed rifts. Barack Obama is not too young to have had the opportunity to prove whether he stands by his statements. Americans have the right to ask what he has done when facing the world's Jeremiah Wrights and Louis Farrakhans. But Americans, of all parties and races, should be proud that this presidential candidate is willing to tackle difficult topics, build rhetorical bridges, and try healing some of the nation's deepest wounds.

The writer is professor of history at McGill University, on leave in Jerusalem since July. He is the author of  Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. His next book Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents will be published by Basic Books this spring.