The American Spectator

The Spectacle Blog

In his column today, Richard Cohen raises an issue that Barack Obama will no doubt have to confront:

As somebody who lived and worked as a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago, Obama couldn't help but cross paths with members of the Nation of Islam, and in his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, he wrestles to understand the sentiment that lead blacks to embrace a leader such as Farrakhan, while making it clear that he doesn't share their contempt for whites.

This passage from his book provides a good idea of where Obama was coming from:

In his book, Obama also mentioned with sarcasm that he sometimes picked up the Nation of Islam's newspaper, The Final Call:
I don't think that Obama in any way harbors the hatred of whites and Jews that Farrakhan does, but like Cohen, I think that Obama needs to publicly condemn Farrakhan's message in the strongest possible terms, distancing himself from his own spiritual advisor, Rev. White.

The biggest fear I would have with an Obama presidency is not that he won't be true to his call for inclusiveness, but that his magnanimity will quickly descend into moral relativism, something especially dangerous in an age of Islamic terrorism.

topics:
Barack Obama, Islam, NATO