Novelist Michael Chabon wrote on HuffingtonPost.com that merely raising any questions about Obama and Farrakhan was itself illegitimate, even if the facts of this case were not Internet rumors. For Chabon, simply putting the words Obama and Farrakhan in the same article was “fear-mongering” and using the tactics of “propagandists of hatred.” Chabon seemed to feel that anything written about a black that might alienate him from Jews was part of a racist mindset.
So for all the distance we have traveled toward King’s vision of a colorblind society, it appears that some view any questions about a black as inherently tainted by prejudice. This is the same sort of false sensitivity that turned an otherwise unexceptionable statement from Hillary Clinton about the roles played by King and President Lyndon Johnson in passing civil-rights legislation into a controversy.
But if Obama is to be elected president, he can’t be treated as a racial icon who must be treated with kid gloves and spared the examination to which other contenders must submit.
Jews and anyone else who oppose him simply because his father was a Muslim from Kenya offend the spirit of American democracy. But Jews like Chabon, who insist that not even reasonable questions about his associations should be raised, are just as wrong. There are good reasons for Democrats to like Obama, but there are also serious worries about him.
Rather than obsessing about the religion of his father, we should be probing his inexperience and foolishly simplistic takes on Iraq, Iran and Pakistan. Instead of the non-influence of a long-ago stay in a madrassa, Democrats need to be asking about the presence of confirmed Israel-bashers among his advisers, such as Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Malley, a Clinton administration staffer who’s been a relentless apologist for Yasir Arafat and the Palestinians.
Candidate Obama can answer these questions just as he did the Farrakhan query, with statements that indicate that he, too, understands that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard really are terrorists, and that a precipitous skedaddle from Iraq would leave both the United States and Israel seriously weakened. A President Obama would debunk the accusations by fighting the Islamists, backing Israel against its foes and renouncing unfair pressure on it to make concessions to terrorists.
Concern about racism should motivate us to speak out when Obama or any African-American is treated unfairly. But the fact that black-Jewish relations remain sensitive shouldn’t silence questions about a man who may well become president.